BackgroundWorkplace silence behavior is a social collective phenomenon. It refers to nurses choosing to withhold their ideas, opinions and concerns about critical issues in their workplace. Workpla...

This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding about the mechanism that underlies the detrimental effects of workplace spirituality dimensions on employee unethical pro-organizational behavior, directly as well as indirectly, through job satisfaction. Using a sample consisting of 458 employees in various organizations in China, this study reveals that two dimensions of WPS are positively associated with UPB. Also the results of this paper show that each of the three dimensions of WPS has a significant positive relationship with job satisfaction. (...) Furthermore, this study successfully confirms the mediating effect of job satisfaction in the relationship between WPS dimensions and UPB. Finally, theoretical and practical implications, future research directions and limitations of this study are discussed at the end of this research article. (shrink)

As a common organizational phenomenon, employee silence behavior has various negative implications for organizations, making it critical to understand what factors can reduce employee silence. Drawing upon self-verification theory, this study explores the inhibiting effect of moral identity on silence via felt obligation towards organization. Meanwhile, we also examine the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility perception. We collected three waves of data with a two-month interval from 402 Chinese employees. Results indicated that moral identity positively predicted felt obligation towards (...) organization, which in turn negatively predicted silence behavior. The negative indirect effect of moral identity on silence behavior via felt obligation towards organization was moderated by corporate social responsibility perception. Specifically, this indirect effect was stronger when employees perceived a higher level of corporate social responsibility. By integrating self-verification theory with silence behavior research, our findings provide important insights into the prevention of employee silence behavior in organizations. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore a critical paradox related to the expression of moral courage in organizations, which is that although morally courageous acts are aimed at fostering collective growth, vitality, and virtue, their initial result is typically one of collective unease, preoccupation, or lapse, reflected in the social ostracism and censure of the courageous member and message. Therefore, this article addresses the questions of why many organizational groups suffer stagnation or decline rather than growth and vitality (...) following acts of moral courage, and what can be done to ameliorate this outcome. A general system, relational psychodynamic perspective through which organizational group members might receive and respond to acts of moral courage is offered, and seven insights emerging from this perspective for fostering collective growth and vitality following acts of moral courage are provided. (shrink)

As companies are transforming their branding, marketing, operations, and research and development by running online communities to build their core competitive advantages in the digital era, the silent majority is still the norm in the online community and has become the focus of online community operations. Thus, it has become the core issue that why silent behavior of online community members occurs and its impact on operation performance of the online community. According to the traditional theory of organizational behavior, this (...) study focuses on the theoretical model of the relationship between proactive personality, silent behavior of online community members, and operation performance of the online community, and further analyzes the impact of community identification on these relationships. Eight hundred online community members in China participated in this study. The results indicate that: proactive personality has a significant negative impact on acquiescent silent and defensive silent behavior of the online community members, and a significant positive impact on prosocial silent behavior of the online community members; The acquiescent silence and defensive silence have a significant negative impact on online community operation performance, whereas prosocial silence has a significant positive impact on community operation performance; The acquiescent silence and defensive silence have a significant mediating effect on the relationship between proactive personality and community operation performance; Online community identification has a moderating effect on the relationship between silent behavior and online community operation performance. The study proposes the mechanisms and double-edged sword effects of the silent behavior of online community members from the perspective of personality traits. On the one hand, it generalizes the research of traditional organizational silent behavior theory to the context of the online community. On the other hand, it provides reference and inspiration for the theoretical research and practical management of silent behavior of online community members. (shrink)

Whistle blowing programs have been central to numerous government, legislative, and regulatory reform efforts in recent years. To protect investors, corporate boards have instituted numerous measures to promote whistle blowing. Despite significant whistle blowing incentives, few individuals blow the whistle when presented with the opportunity. Instead, individuals often remain fallaciously silent and, in essence, become passive fraudsters themselves. Using the fraud triangle and models of moral behavior, we model and analyze fallacious silence and identify factors that may motivate an individual (...) to rationalize fallacious silence. We use a survey of graduate accounting students to test hypothesized factors that contribute to fallacious silence rationalizations in an academic setting. We find evidence that the ability to rationalize fallacious silence is related to community influences and personal traits such as awareness and moral competence. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence as well as its mechanism. This paper collects data from 322 employees of three Chinese enterprises in two waves, with a 2 months interval between the two waves. Moreover, this paper uses confirmatory factor analysis, a bootstrapping mediation test, a simple slope test, and other methods to verify the hypothesis. We find that: WB is positively correlated with ES; psychological safety and affective commitment mediated (...) the relationship between WB and ES, respectively, and these two variables have a chain mediating effect in the above relationship; and a forgiveness climate moderates this chain mediating effect by weakening the negative impact of WB on PS. Our findings can effectively guide organizations to ultimately adjust their management style, pay attention to employees’ cognitive and emotional resources, and formulate some measures to curb WB in organizations. (shrink)

In the aftermath of shocking workplace scandals, people are often baffled when individuals within the organization were aware of clear-cut wrongdoing yet did not inform authorities. The current research suggests that moral concern for the suffering that a transgressor might face if a crime were reported is an under-recognized, powerful force that shapes whistleblowing in organizations, particularly when transgressors are fellow members of a highly entitative group. Two experiments show that group entitativity heightens concern about possible consequences that the transgressor (...) would face if a crime were to be reported, and that this concern reduces the likelihood of reporting wrongdoing in organizations to authorities. Further, the studies identify a mechanism through which concern about the transgressor is heightened in highly entitative groups: potential reporters perceive that the transgressor felt remorse for their crime. Thus, when fellow members of highly entitative organizations commit crimes, people are more likely to imagine that these transgressors felt anxiety or guilt about their actions, and this prompts greater concern for transgressors in ways that encourage people to let them “off the hook.” We discuss the implications of these findings for how reporting to authorities can be encouraged within highly entitative organizations. (shrink)

Since there are so few controls over detecting and preventing faculty misconduct, one of the most common ways in which it is discovered is through student reports. Given the importance of student reports in bringing to light faculty’s ethical lapses, this paper seeks to understand what factors influence students’ likelihood to report faculty misconduct. We develop an empirical model that integrates the decision process of the Prosocial Organizational Behavior Model with insights from the emotional perspective on whistleblowing. Specifically, we use (...) an experimental survey to examine how students’ perceived unfairness of the faculty misconduct, feelings of anger, and the students’ self-interest in the situation in conjunction with situational “cues for inaction” lead to the intention to blow the whistle. Overall, the results from our structural model partially support our theoretical model. Interestingly, these findings demonstrate that, in the case of faculty member misconduct, anger and perceptions of unfairness play a greater role than the more rational cost-benefit process of the POB model. These results could aid in development of ethics education for students and could also inform the development of university policies that encourage students to come forward when faced with faculty misconduct. (shrink)

Prior research on citizenship behavior has mainly focused on its voluntary side—organizational citizenship behavior. Unfortunately, although compulsory behavior is a global organizational phenomenon, the involuntary side of CB—compulsory citizenship behavior, defined as employees’ involuntary engagement in extra-role work activities that are beneficial to the organization : 77–93, 2006)—has long been neglected and very little is known about its potential negative consequences. Particularly, research on CCB–counterproductive work behavior association is still in its nascent stage. Therefore, drawing on moral disengagement theory and (...) social exchange theory, we firstly attempt to systematically investigate how and when CCB leads to CWB. Specifically, we see employee silence as a critical form of passive CWB and propose a moderated mediation model. In the model, CCB predicts silence through MD—a set of cognitive mechanisms that deactivate moral self-regulatory processes, with the Chinese culture-specific concept of supervisor–subordinate guanxi, which captures the supervisor–subordinate non-work-related personal ties, acting as the contextual condition. Two-wave data collected from a sample of 293 employees in 17 manufacturing firms in China supported our hypotheses. The results revealed that the more employees experienced compulsory feelings caused by CCB, the more they morally disengaged and, in turn, resorted to avoidant or passive responses as a coping strategy. Further, s–s guanxi serves as a reverse moderator in that high s–s guanxi mitigates the destructive impact of CCB, makes employees less inclined to morally disengage, and thereby largely prevents them from practicing workplace silence behavior. Implications for theory and intervention strategies for practice are discussed. We also propose several promising avenues for future research. (shrink)