When (Not) to Raise Other's Voices: The Backfiring Effects of Amplification for Ethical Concerns

Abstract: Employee voice is risky, particularly regarding ethical issues that implicate others’ character and moral standards. One intervention to mitigate the risks of voice focuses on amplification, the public endorsement of another person's contribution with attribution to the original voicer. Prior research shows that amplification improves amplifier outcomes for promotive and prohibitive concerns. However, its effects on ethical concerns remain unexplored. Across two survey studies (n=1,300), we find that compared to promotive and prohibitive amplifiers, participants ranked ethical amplifiers as lower in status and collaborative appeal. We find these effects are driven by perceptions that ethical amplifiers are more self-interested and less other-interested, demonstrating how public support for ethical voice can backfire. Our findings identify critical limits to public support mechanisms, suggesting that the features that make amplification successful for operational ideas render it a liability for ethical issues, with implications for future theory and practice.

Keywords: Ethical Voice, Amplification, Organizational Ethics, and Intervention