Title: A Tale of Two Ties: Examining the Differential Effects of External and Internal Advice-seeking Ties on Voice Quality

Speaker: Junchao Li, Associate Professor, Rutgers University

Host: Can Ouyang, Associate Professor, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: 13:30-15:00, Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Venue: Room B207, Antai Building, Xuhui Campus, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Brief introduction of the content: 

While recent advancements in the employee voice literature have suggested a shift from speaking up more to speaking up better (i.e., higher voice quality), there remains a lack of empirical evidence on how to facilitate employee voice quality. We suggest that employees’ advice-seeking via their social networks serves an instrumental role in enhancing the quality of their voice. Importantly, we shed light on the differential effects of an employee’s external (outside one’s organization) and internal (within one’s organization) advice-seeking ties on the varied dimensions of voice quality (i.e., voice desirability, voice feasibility, and degree of change). With evidence from two multi-wave field studies that involve leaders and followers, we found that an employee’s external advice-seeking ties benefit the degree-of-change dimension of their voice more than they benefit voice desirability and feasibility. Such a benefit on the degree of changes also tends to be larger when the external advice-seeking ties are directed more towards complementary organizations. In contrast, an employee’s internal advice-seeking ties within the organization benefit the desirability and feasibility dimensions more than they benefit the degree-of-change dimension. Such benefits on voice desirability and feasibility tend to be larger when the internal advice-seeking ties are directed more outside of the employee’s focal team. Our studies provide valuable, nuanced insight into which kinds of advice-seeking ties are most beneficial for improving an employee’s voice quality.

Speaker's profile:

Junchao (Jason) Li is an associate professor with tenure at the Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University. He received his PhD degree in organizational behavior from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. His research focuses on employee voice, leadership, turnover, and crowdfunding. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Information Systems Research, among others.

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