Employee voice and work engagement: Macro, meso, and micro-level drivers of convergence?

• Intended voice practices can differ from employee perceptions of these practices.
• Macro, meso, and micro-level factors influence voice practice convergence.
• Factors affecting employee voice practices can be context-free or context-specific.

Direct forms of individual employee voice are potentially important yet underexplored antecedents of work engagement. Based largely in job demands–resources theorizing, we develop a conceptual multi-level framework that explores how individual employee perceptions of voice practices affect their level of work engagement. We argue that the extent to which voice practices might converge as ‘best practice’ to create work engagement is influenced by factors at three levels: macro-level national culture (the degree of power distance), meso-level organizational climate (the extent of empowering leadership and participation), and micro-level relationship quality between employee and supervisor (leader–member exchange). Positioning this framework in the human resource management convergence/divergence debate, we develop propositions for future research linking direct employee voice and work engagement.