How and when Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) leads to employee promotive and prohibitive voice? The interplay of employee moral identity and perceived voice opportunity

Purpose: This study examines the moderated-mediation effects of employees’ Islamic work ethic (IWE) on their promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors through the integrated frameworks of social identity theory and self-consistency theory.

Design/methodology/approach: Using two-source data collection from employees and supervisors, data were collected from 217 participants working in various companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). After initial data screening, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factorial validity of the employed measures with AMOS. The hypothesized relationships were tested in the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Findings: The results of this study supported the integration of social identity theory with self-consistency theory in explaining the indirect effects of employees’ IWE on their promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors through the mediation of moral identity. Furthermore, this study also indicated that the indirect effect was conditional on the employees’ perceptions of perceived voice opportunity, which significantly moderated the relationship between their moral identity and their prohibitive voice. However, no such effect was recorded for promotive voice.

Originality/value: This study is the first that explains how and when employees’ IWE leads them to exhibit promotive and prohibitive voice behaviors through the mediation of moral identity and the moderation of perceived voice opportunity. Thus, this study contributes to the IWE, moral identity, and employee voice literature by addressing questions with useful theoretical and managerial implications for employees’ promotive and prohibitive forms of constructive voice behaviors in the workplace.