A critical analysis of employee voice notion in Nigeria’s petroleum industry

It is nearly five decades on – since Hirschman coined employee in his epic book - “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty”, however, scholars still perceive the concept to be severely under-researched, particularly from the developing countries’ perspective - such as Nigeria, which is the context of this study. Against this backdrop, this study hopes to contribute to the existing literature on employee voice notion by linking the participatory dynamic of how this concept is constructed, understood and facilitated by employers of labour, for cordial employer-employee relationship, which Hofstede attributes to the cultural-environmental dynamics of individual countries. To achieve the above, this study relied on data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 25 managerial and non-managerial employees across 4 organisations in the Nigeria’s petroleum sector, which are qualitatively analysed using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Consequently, whilst the logic of employee voice differs significantly between managers and employees; the study uncovered a growing trend of employer-employee relationship that is characterised by employees’ silence, disengagement and voice marginalisation, which hallmarks Nigeria’s cultural-environmental dynamics of high power distance and paternalism.