Promoting Voice in Policing: The Role of Imagination, Centralization, and Psychological Safety

This article aims to trace the antecedents of promotive and prohibitive voicing in the police workforce. We draw from trait activation theory to develop a model that includes individual and organizational factors that can create or hinder the social support necessary for police officers to adopt voice behavior. Specifically, we argue feelings of psychological safety emerge and encourage voicing from imaginative individuals depending on the centralization dynamics in which they operate. We used time-lagged, survey-based data from 326 Canadian police officers to test our theory. We found that imaginative officers operating in a decentralized context exercise more voicing thanks to heightened feelings of psychological safety. However, imagination can backfire in a context of centralization because officers feel less psychologically safe and refrain from speaking out. Our study helps shed light on which officers can become inclined to engage in voice behavior and under what circumstances, which offers significant contributions to both theory and practice.