Purpose Drawing upon dominance complementarity theory and role theory, we examine whether and how the (in)congruence of employee and supervisor proactive personalities influences employee voice. Design/methodology/approach Two different data sets (NStudy1 = 152 and NStudy2 = 443) were collected from supervisor-employee dyads to provide empirical evidence regarding our hypotheses. Polynomial regression was used to test our predictions. Findings Employees experienced higher levels of voice role conceptualization (VRC) when supervisors and employees were incongruent with proactive personalities. Also, compared to those in low–low congruent dyads, employee VRC was higher in high–high congruent dyads. The findings do not support our hypothesis that VRC is higher in high–low scenarios compared to low–high scenarios. In addition, VRC mediated the impacts of supervisor–employee (in)congruence with proactive personality on employee voice. Practical implications Organizations can more effectively facilitate employees' VRC and voice by seeking complementarity in actual work arrangements. Originality/value This research highlights the crucial role of supervisor–employee incongruence in proactive personality for voice promotion and reveals that VRC accounts for the above relationship.
Wu et al. (2026) studied this question.