Perspective taking and voice solicitation: a moderated mediation model

Employee voice can be beneficial and critical for organizational success. However, evidence shows that power and position create a 'leaders' bubble' that is hard to penetrate unless leaders proactively solicit voice from employees. Drawing on the situated focus theory of power and supervisor-subordinate goal-congruence literature, we hypothesize that followers' perspective taking affects leaders' voice solicitation through supervisor-subordinate goal congruence. Furthermore, we propose that the perception of organizational politics weakens this indirect relationship, whereas information sharing strengthens it. Survey data collected from 213 Chinese employees provide support for a positive indirect relationship that existed between perspective taking and voice solicitation through supervisor-subordinate goal congruence, and this indirect relationship was stronger when the employees' perception of organizational politics was low.