The Field Guide › Paper
Four studies (N=1063) establishing that power distance belief impairs upward communication specifically — with superiors — while leaving peer and downward communication largely unaffected. The mechanism is fear of authority, which mediates the relationship between high power distance belief and communication failure with superiors. A cross-cultural replication (China and US) holds the finding across contexts. Directly relevant to the calculus of voice: it identifies the psychological pathway through which cultural power distance belief becomes suppressed upward information, and connects individual-level cultural internalisation to organisational accident risk.