The moderating effect of employee's trust level on the relationships between employee's voice behavior and workplace attitudes and behaviors

In this study, the direct effect of the employee's constructive voice behavior on the workplace attitudes and behaviors (task performance, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior) of the same employee is examined by making use of the Social Change Theory (SDT). We state that there will be a significant and positive relationship between the employee's constructive voice behavior and task performance, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship, especially considering the moderating effect of trust in direct supervisor in social relations based on mutual relations. The hypotheses developed in the extant research are tested by using the data collected by using three different questionnaires administered at one-month intervals from 205 participants from 56 businesses operating in Trabzon and 62 top managers of these participants, and using the multi-level analysis method. According to the results of the research, while there is a positive relationship between constructive voice behavior and organizational citizenship behavior, there is no positive relationship between constructive voice behavior and task performance and organizational commitment. However, the findings reveal the moderator effect of trust in direct superior on the positive relationship between constructive voice behavior and task performance, and organizational commitment. However, this shows that the relationship between constructive voice behavior and task performance is positive but not significant, while the direction of the relationship between constructive voice behavior and organizational commitment is negative and significant. In addition, the study reveals that the moderator role of trust in a superior has no effect on the positive relationship between constructive voice behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. The most important theoretical contribution of the research is that SDT alone is not sufficient to explain the relationship between constructive voice behavior and workplace attitudes and behaviors, but that the theory of trust is also necessary.