This study aims to examine the relationship between empowering leadership and employee voice behaviors. Based on self-determination theory, I argue that empowering leadership and employee voice behavior relationship is mediated by employee personal sense of power. In addition, coworker support and psychological contract violations moderate the indirect relationships leading to promotive voice and prohibitive voice. These hypotheses were partially supported by a sample of 168 employees across various industries and occupations. Results show that the mediating effect of sense of power between empowering leadership and promotive voice behavior relationship. In addition, bootstrapping results support the moderating role played by coworker support in the indirect relationship between empowering leadership and promotive voice behavior through sense of power. Theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed in light of these findings. Keywords: employee voice behavior, empowering leadership, sense of power, coworker support, psychological contract violations

This dissertation addresses two issues in the literature on informal leadership emergence (i.e., the process of an individual without a formal leadership position coming to exert leadership influence over others). First, scholars have focused on situations in which a focal person’s leadership claiming is aligned with a peer’s leadership granting. In doing so, past work has overlooked instances of misalignment, that is, when a focal person claims more leadership than a peer grants (i.e., overclaiming) or when a peer grants more leadership than a focal person claims (i.e., underclaiming). Second, the consensus in the literature suggests that emerging as an informal leader provides more beneficial outcomes to the individual and their team than non-emerging. However, I argue that this assumption may not be warranted in some situations, for example when a focal person’s lack of claiming is aligned with a peer’s lack of granting. Drawing on the leadership identity claiming and granting framework, I postulate four forms of informal leadership (non)emergence, namely (1) dyadic emergent leadership, (2) dyadic leadership absence, (3) overclaiming, and (4) underclaiming. Based on role theory, I then build theory regarding their effects on behavioral consequences through affective and cognitive mechanisms. More precisely, I suggest that forms characterized by congruence in leadership claiming and granting (as opposed to forms characterized by incongruence) result in increased peer backing-up behavior towards the focal person (mediated by enthusiasm and respect) and reduced peer social undermining (mediated by anger and revenge cognitions). I further hypothesize asymmetrical incongruence effects and consider a focal person’s prosocial motivation as a boundary condition. I conducted three studies to examine my theorizing. In Pilot Study 1 (N = 199), I adapted and validated a measure to assess leadership claiming and granting. In Pilot Study 2 (N = 151), I shortened established measures. In the Main Study (N = 279), I tested my theoretical predictions yielding mixed findings. Whereas I find support for the congruence effect on backing-up behavior, all other hypotheses were not supported. I report supplemental analyses to examine these null results and discuss the theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of this research.