Voice behavior is defined as employees’ expression of constructive opinions about work-related issues (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). As an extrarole behavior, voice behavior is regarded as an important driver of individual performance and organizational advantages (e.g., innovation), which has led to growing research interest in this topic (Morrison, 2011). Common themes in this field are how to encourage employees to voice their concerns and how to identify the factors that facilitate employees speaking their thoughts freely. Many factors, especially cultural characteristics (e.g., Kwon & Farndale, 2020), have been assessed to analyze the voice behavior mechanism (Morrison, 2011). Moreover, the uniqueness of Chinese culture has attracted considerable attention from researchers in this field. In a study of Chinese employees and their leaders, Wei et al. (2015) reported that two characteristics of Chinese culture—power distance and superficial harmony—inhibit employees from speaking up to enhance performance and correct mistakes.

Chinese culture has mainly been conceptualized as being based philosophically on Confucianism (Lin, 2010). It is well-known that Chinese people have long abided by the Confucian doctrine of the mean or Zhongyong thinking, which refers to “considering things carefully from different aspects and conducting appropriate behaviors to account for whole situation” (Wu & Lin, 2005, p. 300). Zhong represents equilibrium, and yong reflects harmoniousness (Fan, 2021). As Zhongyong thinking promotes harmony, which enables individuals to tolerate conflict and express different opinions (Wang & Juslin, 2009; Yeh & Xu, 2010), an inference is that Zhongyong thinking should be conducive to voice behavior, and some researchers have explored this relationship. For example, Qu et al. (2018) found that employees with Zhongyong thinking tended to speak out with constructive suggestions. Duan and Ling (2011) demonstrated that Zhongyong thinking facilitates the use of overall-oriented voice, which entails employees sharing, in an appropriate way and after careful thinking and systematic analysis, their views on how to promote organizational productivity and development. Qing and Liu (2014) found that employees with a high (vs. low) level of Zhongyong thinking performed fewer voice behaviors. However, research on mechanisms to explain this association remains incomplete.

Zhongyong, as a Chinese indigenous concept, is obviously novel in Western literature, and research based on this concept may expand current theories on voice behavior that have been developed in Western cultural contexts. In traditional Chinese culture hierarchy, authority, and obedience are emphasized (Tseng & Wu, 1985); thus, in the traditional Chinese working environment subordinates are often obedient to their superiors, choosing to keep silent and feeling reluctant to speak up with their ideas and opinions because they believe that upward voice is risky and may be futile (Van Dyne et al., 2003). As stated in the Chinese proverb, “Speech is silver, silence is golden.” Some researchers have found that psychological safety facilitates voice behavior (Ge, 2020; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009); thus, employees with a strong perception of psychological safety tend to be willing to engage in voice behavior. Therefore, we explored the relationship between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior through the mediating mechanism of psychological safety. Figure 1 depicts the conceptual framework for the relationships of Zhongyong thinking, psychological safety, and voice behavior.

Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses

Zhongyong is the core of traditional Confucian culture, in which the focus is on social harmony; harmonious interpersonal relationships are prescribed (Tian, 2000). Harmoniousness means using appropriate channels of action when dealing with conflict relationships and handling issues to avoid extreme reactions and maintain stability in the workplace (Qu et al., 2018). Researchers have shown that harmony is an important factor that facilitates voice behavior (Chin, 2013; Vu et al., 2020). Individuals in a harmonious working environment show strong involvement in their work and are willing to display voice behavior because of high-quality leader–member exchange (Duan & Ling, 2011). Therefore, Qu et al. (2018) argued that employees with Zhongyong thinking are more inclined than are those without Zhongyong thinking to create harmony in dealing with interpersonal relations, which, in turn, leads to voice behavior. As such, we formed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Zhongyong thinking will be positively related to employees’ voice behavior.

Voice behavior is a risky extrarole behavior in that the speaker is challenging the status quo to bring about change (Burris, 2012; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). Thus, employees will evaluate whether the organizational climate is safe before speaking up (Detert & Burris, 2007). Psychological safety refers to “feeling able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career” (Kahn, 1990, p. 708). Edmondson (1999) suggested that psychological safety describes an atmosphere where individuals feel comfortable engaging in constructive reflection and discussion without fear of censure. Additionally, individuals who perceive a higher level of psychological safety might feel both less pressure to adhere to group norms, and more comfortable to be themselves (Kahn, 1990; Stühlinger et al., 2021). Previous research has supported the positive relationship of psychological safety and voice behavior (Ge, 2020; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Psychological safety will be positively related to voice behavior.

Zhongyong thinkers tend to adopt a global and flexible information-processing strategy when interacting with the external world, and to integrate their own opinions into the thinking of others (Chang & Yang, 2014). Thus, in the context of interpersonal conflict, individuals with Zhongyong thinking tend to view differences from multiple perspectives, seek common ground, and become more tolerant (Wu & Lin, 2005). Greater tolerance of different ideas is a proxy of psychological safety (Rivera et al., 2020). Moreover, individuals with a higher level of Zhongyong thinking are more forgiving owing to their greater sensitivity to the external environment and ability to respond flexibly to changes in their situation (Zhang & Long, 2014), because, in Chinese culture, forgiveness is motivated by the desire to maintain social harmony (Fu et al., 2004). People who are forgiving tend to offer to others the chance for compensation and restoration of trust, which leads to a stronger sense of psychological safety (Rahmati & Poormirzaei, 2018). Thus, we formed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Zhongyong thinking will be positively related to psychological safety.

As noted earlier, we aimed to address the association between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior via the mediating mechanism of psychological safety. Thus, our final hypothesis was as follows:
Hypothesis 4: Psychological safety will mediate the positive relationship between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior.

Method

Procedure

Participants were part-time Master of Business Administration students from two Chinese universities. After obtaining approval from the ethics committee of the university authorities concerned, we randomly selected students to participate with the help of each university’s staff. We contacted the students via email and distributed questionnaires to them, informing them of the purpose of the survey and assuring them that their participation would be anonymous. Participants provided written informed consent and took part in the study voluntarily.

Participants

We distributed 296 survey forms and received 218 (73.6%) valid responses. Participants comprised 89 (40.8%) women and 129 (59.2%) men (M_age = 30.5 years, SD = 6.78, range = 28–40). Among the respondents, 35.8% were working in the manufacturing industry, 41.7% in the service industry, and 22.5% in the information technology industry. In terms of job tenure, 25.2% had held their position for less than 5 years, 62.8% for between 5 and 10 years, and 12% for more than 10 years.

Measures

Responses were made on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. All English scales used in the survey were translated into Chinese and back-translated into English by two bilingual academics. After discussion with two professors working in the fields of organizational behavior, some ambiguous expressions were revised.

Zhongyong Thinking
Zhongyong thinking was measured using Wu and Lin’s (2005) scale, which consists of 13 items divided into three subscales: multithinking (four items, e.g., “I’m used to thinking about the same thing from different perspectives”), holism (five items, e.g., “I will adjust my original idea after taking into account the views of others”), and harmoniousness (four items, e.g., “When making a decision, I will consider the harmony of the whole”). This scale was initially developed in Chinese.

Psychological Safety
Psychological safety was measured using the three-item scale from Yang and Wang (2020), which was adapted from May et al.’s (2004) scale. A sample item is “I feel free to express my opinions at work.”

Voice Behavior
Voice behavior was measured using six items from Van Dyne and LePine’s (1998) scale. A sample item is “I develop and make recommendations concerning issues that affect this organization.”

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Validity Assessment

Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for the study variables are shown in Table 1. Composite reliability values were greater than .70 and average variance extracted values exceeded .50. The three-factor model (including Zhongyong thinking, psychological safety, and voice behavior) exhibited a significantly better fit to the data, chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio (χ²/df) = 1.75, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .033, comparative fit index (CFI) = .98, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .98, than the single-factor model where all the items were loaded together onto one overall factor, χ²/df = 9.44, RMSEA = .21, CFI = .76, TLI = .71, indicating acceptable discriminant validity for the proposed three-factor model.

Hypothesis Testing

We used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. The results show that the path from Zhongyong thinking to voice behavior was nonsignificant (.08, ns); thus, Hypothesis 1 was not supported. However, psychological safety was significantly and positively related to voice behavior (.44, p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 2, and Zhongyong thinking was significantly and positively related to psychological safety (.39, p < .01), supporting Hypothesis 3. The indirect effect of Zhongyong thinking on voice behavior through psychological safety was .17. To examine the mediating effect of psychological safety in the Zhongyong thinking–voice behavior relationship, we applied a bootstrapping analysis with 2,000 resamples. The 95% confidence interval of the indirect effect was [.05, .29], providing evidence for mediation. Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported.

Discussion

We explored the relationship between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior and examined the underlying mediating mechanism of psychological safety. The results show there were significant relationships between Zhongyong thinking and psychological safety, and between psychological safety and voice behavior, and that psychological safety mediated the relationship between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior.

Theoretical Implications

This study is a response to recent calls for research on organizational behavior in China taking an indigenous approach (Zhu et al., 2015). Our study of Zhongyong thinking as an antecedent of voice behavior enriches extant research about voice behavior in a non-Western culture. As we had predicted, psychological safety mediated the association between Zhongyong thinking and voice behavior. That is, employees with a higher level of Zhongyong thinking perceived greater psychological safety, which enhanced their voice behavior. One possible reason for this result is that employees in China frequently hold the belief that voice is risky, and speaking up with their concerns can have detrimental social consequences, such as a negative response from leaders and coworkers (Burris, 2012; Detert & Burris, 2007; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). However, Zhongyong thinking does not necessarily lead directly to voice behavior. Rather, employees who have Zhongyong thinking will feel psychologically safe, and this sense of safety will encourage them to perform voice behavior in their organization. Therefore, psychological safety brings some level of assurance to employees that they will not be punished when speaking up. This result supports prior research in which it has been suggested that employee voice is an important outcome of perceived psychological safety (see, e.g., Ge, 2020; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009), and also provides a response to Duan and Zhang (2012), who called for scholars to pay attention to the influencing mechanism of employees’ cognition on their voice behavior.

Our findings did not support a positive Zhongyong thinking–voice behavior relationship, which is inconsistent with prior findings by Duan and Ling (2011) and Qu et al. (2018). One possible reason is that China is a high-power-distance society where supervisory power is valued by supervisors and subordinates, and subordinates tend to accept and work according to their supervisor’s decisions (Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Raghuram & Fang, 2014). Therefore, employees with high-power-distance values perceive a low likelihood of success in gaining acceptance of their ideas from their leaders.

Practical Implications

From a practical perspective, managers of organizations who want to facilitate employees’ voice behavior can be successful if they enhance their employees’ Zhongyong thinking and perceived psychological safety. For example, managers could implement Confucian cognition training programs, such as Master of Business Administration programs, in which Western management strategies are integrated with Eastern philosophy (Li-Hua & Lu, 2014). Managers of organizations should also note the importance of psychological safety in promoting voice behavior. When employees do not feel sufficiently safe psychologically, Zhongyong thinking is not likely to facilitate voice behavior.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

There are some limitations in this study. First, we used a cross-sectional research design, so that it is difficult to assess causality among the variables. Researchers could conduct longitudinal studies in the future to permit an examination of the causal relationships. Second, we tested only psychological safety as a mediator. Given that the cognitive mechanism underlying the formation of voice behavior is complex (Duan & Zhang, 2012), future studies could examine more mediators or moderators.

Conclusion

Although there is increasing interest in voice behavior, research on this variable from a Chinese cultural perspective has lagged well behind other lines of voice-related exploration. By addressing the question of whether and how Zhongyong thinking affects voice behavior, this research has advanced understanding of the crucial role of Zhongyong thinking in facilitating employees’ voice behavior through generating the perception of psychological safety. We hope to inspire more studies of the possible mechanisms underlying this association.

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This research was supported by Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China "Study on the construction of talent system with global competitiveness" (20ZDA107).

Yingwei Ji, School of Law and Political Science, Guangdong Ocean University, No. 1 Haida Road, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, 524088, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]