International Differences in Employee Silence Motives: Scale Validation, Prevalence, and Relationships with Culture Characteristics across 33 Countries

Knoll, Michael, Götz, Martin, Adriasola, Elisa, Al‐Atwi, Amer Ali, Arenas, Alicia, Atitsogbe, Kokou A., Barrett, Stephen, Bhattacharjee, Anindo, Blanco C., Norman D., Bogilović, Sabina, Bollmann, Grégoire, Bosak, Janine, Bulut, Cagri, Carter, Madeline, Cerne, Matej, Chui, Susanna L. M., Di Marco, Donatella, Duden, Gesa, Elsey, Vicki, Fujimura, Makoto, Gatti, Paola, Ghislieri, Chiara, Giessner, Steffen R., Hino, Kenta, Hofmans, Joeri, Jønsson, Thomas S., Kazimna, Pazambadi, Lowe, Kevin B., Malagon, Juliana, Mohebbi, Hassan, Montgomery, Anthony, Monzani, Lucas, Pieterse, Anne Nederveen, Ngoma, Muhammed, Ozeren, Emir, O'Shea, Deirdre, Ottsen, Christina Lundsgaard, Pickett, Jennifer, Rangkuti, Anna A., Retowski, Sylwiusz, Sattari Ardabili, Farzad, Shaukat, Razia, Silva, Silvia A., Šimunić, Ana, Steffens, Niklas K., Sultanova, Faniya, Szücs, Daria, Tavares, Susana M., Tipandjan, Arun, Dick, Rolf, Vasiljevic, Dimitri, Wong, Sut I. and Zacher, Hannes (2021) International Differences in Employee Silence Motives: Scale Validation, Prevalence, and Relationships with Culture Characteristics across 33 Countries. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42 (5). pp. 619-648. ISSN 0894-3796

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2512

Abstract

Employee silence, the withholding of work‐related ideas, questions, or concerns from someone who could effect change, has been proposed to hamper individual and collective learning as well as the detection of errors and unethical behaviors in many areas of the world. To facilitate cross‐cultural research, we validated an instrument measuring four employee silence motives (i.e., silence based on fear, resignation, prosocial, and selfish motives) in 21 languages. Across 33 countries (N = 8,222) representing diverse cultural clusters, the instrument shows good psychometric properties (i.e., internal reliabilities, factor structure, and measurement invariance). Results further revealed similarities and differences in the prevalence of silence motives between countries, but did not necessarily support cultural stereotypes. To explore the role of culture for silence, we examined relationships of silence motives with the societal practices cultural dimensions from the GLOBE Program. We found relationships between silence motives and power distance, institutional collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. Overall, the findings suggest that relationships between silence and cultural dimensions are more complex than commonly assumed. We discuss the explanatory power of nations as (cultural) units of analysis, our social scientific approach, the predictive value of cultural dimensions, and opportunities to extend silence research geographically, methodologically, and conceptually.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: The work by Elisa Adriasola as part of this research was supported by the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica de Chile, CONICYT FONDECYT/INI11160859. Juliana Malagon acknowledges financial support from Universidad de Los Andes, Fondo de Apoyo para Profesores Asistentes [grant number P17.100322.004].
Uncontrolled Keywords: employee silence, voice, context, culture cross‐cultural, research
Subjects: C800 Psychology
N100 Business studies
N600 Human Resource Management
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: John Coen
Date Deposited: 15 Mar 2021 14:11
Last Modified: 04 May 2023 08:00
URI: https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/45698

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