LITERATURE REVIEW - The Effect of Employee Silence on Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement:

This chapter presents a brief review of the literature that is relevant to the study and helped creating its research framework. It offers an overview of the definitions used in this research, and then describes the relationship between variables. The chapter proceeds to describe previous research that has been done on employee silence, employee well-being, work engagement, and mentoring relationship.

Employee Silence

Employee silence has been proposed in different level of organizational behavior, one is individual-level behavior (Pinder & Harlos, 2001) and the other is organizational-level phenomenon (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). Previous research had claimed that silence behavior could be intentional and harmful in organization. In 1980’s, silence behavior has been studied mostly in organizational justice. The organizational fairness and the structure of organizational voice behavior were the main focus. A lot of different concepts have been investigated as antecedents about employees’ willingness of speaking up about work-related matters in organization, such as “psychological safety, implicit voice theories and organizational climate (Detert & Edmondson, 2011; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998; Morrison

& Milliken, 2000; Van Dyne, Ang, & Botero, 2003).”

Furthermore, Pinder and Harlos (2001) also claimed that the silence behavior might result from its different potential motives. The employee silence is distinguished in two major definition, such as acquiescence and defensive silence. Pinder and Harlos (2001) stated that “defensive silence represented deliberate omission, while acquiescence silence is based on submission” (p. 348-349). Afterward, a third dimension of employee silence was developed, which is motivated by pro-social relationship. Van Dyne et al. (2003) emphasized on three different motivations of silence behavior which resulting from different reasons, such as turnover intention, fear, and cooperation.

In general, silence behavior could be seen as a great potential problem between an employee and the organization. Silence phenomena in workforce can harm both employees and the organization, mostly resulting from injustice and self-protected behavior (Vakola

& Bouradas, 2005). For example, employee silence can be resulted from self-protection behavior or the desire to avoid useless effort (Van Dyne et al., 2003). Silence behavior can be intentional and purposeful (Pinder & Harlos, 2001). It highlights that silence behavior

is complex and multidimensional rather than the opposite of voice behavior. Some types of silence are proactive, purposeful, and intentional, when employees intentionally withhold suggestions about important information of organization which could have bad impact on organization.

Self-Protective Implicit Voice Theories

No matter which kinds or levels of employees, they might encounter different problems when going through daily activities in organizations. However, even when employees believe that something is useful to mention, employee often keep silence rather than voice up (Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003; Ryan & Oestrich, 1998).

An implicit theory refers to people’s voice experiences of ordinary life in hierarchical society and concludes about where, when, why and about what speaking up is risky.

(Goffman, 1974). It has been claimed that speaking up will have unexpected outcomes, such as reduced emotional well-being, or influence performance evaluations and decrease promotion opportunities (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998).

The implicit theory consists of five different perspectives which are assumed to cause negative outcomes for speaking up. The first implicit theory that appeared “presumed target identification” which means that upper levels of management especially in an organizational hierarchy seen other’s suggestion as personal critique (Detert & Edmondson, 2011). The second is “perceived need to have solid data,” concrete suggestions, or complete ideas before it is good or safe enough to speak (Detert & Edmondson, 2011). The third is

“Don’t bypass the boss upward,” refers to speaking up directly in front of boss by the ways of challenging, questioning, or disclosing supervisors will be seen as big trouble and unacceptable (Milliken et al., 2003). The last one is “Don’t embarrass the boss in public,”

which refers to the fact that supervisors are unhappy to hear negative news, or being disobeyed, especially when facing others in a group without notice (Milliken et al., 2003).

According to prior definitions (Milliken et al., 2003) “negative career consequences for speaking up” is the fifth implicit voice theory.

Acquiescent Silence

The acquiescent silence is seen as “passive silent behavior of withholding of relevant ideas, information and opinions for improving organization” (Pinder & Harlos, 2001). Morrison and Milliken (2000) claimed that employees often are unwilling to speak up because they think their suggestions and ideas are not valued by managerial level. When employees perceive that their suggestions will not be listened or considered, it will result in this kind of silence behavior. Consistently, research show that silence behavior as a key indicator of neglect and low involvement (Farrell, 1983).

Defensive Silence

Pinder and Harlos (2001) defined Defensive Silence as the behavior resulting from the fear of bad consequences of speaking up. Defensive silence refers to the “active withholding of relevant information in order to protect oneself, based on the fear that the consequences of speaking up could be harmful. Van Dyne et al. (2003) proposed that fear as the main reasons for employees to keep silent and withhold the suggestions. Employees who feel that the working environment is not safe to speak up will have this kind of silence behavior.

Pro-social Silence

Pro-social silence is defined as employees “withholding work-related ideas, information, or opinions with the goal of benefiting other people or the organization (Van Dyne et al., 2003, p. 1368).” Like the concept of organizational citizenship behavior, pro-social silence is an unconditional behavior that cannot be assigned by organization. Moreover, the meaning of pro-social silence refers to the willingness of protecting and cooperating with others (Van Dyne et al., 2003). Also, there is a similar relationship between pro-social silence and sportsmanship, both are characterized by more tolerance of the difficulties at work (Organ, 1988).

Opportunistic Silence

Knoll and Van Dick (2013) propose that “employees sometimes use withholding of information to achieve advantages for themselves”. The literature takes Williamson’s (1993) concept of opportunism as “self-interest seeking with guile”. By withholding information, it may positively help employees when they are unwilling to lose their status and authority or because they want to prevent extra working (Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel, 2011).

Consequently, the opportunistic silence could be seen as “strategically withholding

work-9

related ideas, information, or opinions with the goal of achieving an advantage for oneself while accepting harm of others”.

The great differences may result from types of information being withheld. That is, different organizational issues are related to distinct levels of behavior and fear (Whiteside

& Barclay, 2013). For instance, employees might withhold productive suggestions (e.g., how to enhance employees’ engagement) if they feel that management will not focus on maintaining the relationship between employee and organization. This situation is categorized in acquiescent silence, but since this constructive idea will not bring a great fear, it is categorized in defensive silence. Organizational and employees’ performance suffers when the high level of silence behavior occurs in organization (Perlow & Williams, 2003). The significant influential outcomes of silence behavior on organizations that influence beyond only lack of information and connections in organization, which will have impact on employees’ performances and behaviors, such as dissatisfaction and disengagement (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). That is, employee silence behavior has bad influence on job attitudes, such as employee well-being and engagement.

The Relationship among Employee Silence, Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement

There has been increased analysis in issue of employees’ silence behavior. Previous research claimed that silence behavior is a relational concept refers to “an interpretation of voice about increasing information and communication, rather than negotiation or bargaining” (Donaghey, Cullinane, Dundon, & Wilkinson, 2011).

The situation of employee silence behavior permeates organizations (Morrison &

Milliken, 2000; Pinder & Harlos, 2001). According to research, employees’ unwilling to speak up about work-related matters or fear to talk about business problems are closely related to different kind of individual performances and important organizational outcomes.

For example, decreased organizational innovation (Argyris & Schön, 1978), lower organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Vakola & Bouradas, 2005). Although some research claimed that the significance of employee silence has influence beyond the information flow to employee outcomes in organizations (Pinder & Harlos, 2001), no studies have exactly examined the relationship.

The voice behavior literatures have claimed that effective voice behavior can imply organizational beneficial outcomes from employees’ proactive behaviors, such as voicing up about organizational suggestions to change organizational policies, functions and systemic matters (Morrison & Phelps, 1999; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009), and the relationship between employees and managerial level. On the contrary, the silence behavior would cause opposite consequences. By adopting a silence perspective studies help identify which are barriers and boundary conditions that keep affecting organization and enhance our understanding on other organizational outcomes. Also, there was still little research investigating which specific types of employee silence predicted the outcomes of perceived employee well-being and work engagement.

Beer and Eisenstat (2000) proposed that employee silence behavior will result in work stress, dissatisfaction and disengagement among employees within organization, which been seen as a stressor affects employee’s work attitudes and behaviors in the organization and results in less effective organizational development and process (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). Furthermore, employee silence behavior form employees’ suggestions not being listened and perceived not being valued will weaken employee’s psychological feeling and

job attitudes, such as employee well-being, engagement and satisfaction with organization (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).

Employees’ reluctance to voice up about work-related subjects has been linked to many important individual and organizational performances. For example, employees might tend to be less engaged in organizational learning and innovation, which employees will find it harder to adapt to organizational change (Argyris & Schön, 1978). Generally, employee silences are considered harmful to organization for employees withheld important or work-related information in organization. For example, fear, implicated friends, lack of opportunity for voice, and lack of organizational political skills are factors to cause silence. According to different definitions and meanings of employee silences, this research put more focus on the effect of different types of silence behaviors. That is, different types of employee silences are reasonable to have different effect on employees’

work engagement and performances.

There are four dimensions of employee silence each has different effect on employee’s work engagement. According to different motivations which are result in different degree or direction of outcomes. The research assumed that different types of employee silence will have not the same direction or influence. The negative relationship between silence behavior and work engagement could be divided into two main dimensions. First, Acquiescent Silence has a higher negative effect on work engagement, which is more passive than active based on employees’ feeling of resignation or the depression caused by no differences and changes of employees’ voice. Second, Defensive Silence has a lower negative effect than the previous one, which is based on employee’s fear of the risky consequences of speaking up. Third, Opportunistic Silence also has negative effect, which based on employees strategically withholding work-related matters to achieve advantage for themselves. On the other hand, Pro-social Silence assumed to have positive effect on work engagement that it based on employees withholding work-related information and opinions for protecting or benefiting other people and cooperative motives.

Hypothesis 1:

Different types of employee silences affect employee well-being in different directions.

Hypothesis 1a:

Silence will have a negative effect on employee well-being in organization.

Hypothesis 1b:

Defensive Silence will have a negative effect on employee well-being in organization.

Hypothesis 1c:

Pro-social Silence will have a positive effect on employee well-being in organization.

Hypothesis 1d:

Opportunistic Silence will have a negative effect on employee well-being in organization.

Hypothesis 2:

Different types of employee silences affect work engagement in different directions.

Hypothesis 2a:

Acquiescent Silence will have a negative effect on work engagement in organization.

Hypothesis 2b:

Defensive Silence will have a negative effect on work engagement in organization.

Hypothesis 2c:

Pro-social Silence will have a positive effect on work engagement in organization.

Hypothesis 2d:

Opportunistic Silence will have a negative effect on work engagement in organization.

Employee Well-Being

The concept of well-being firstly emerged in the late 1950s to investigate the quality of life to monitor social policy and improve society (Land Spilerman, 1975). Well-being includes many different constructs, such as the terms of individual development, personal achievement, interpersonal relationship with others, and social contribution (Eid & Larsen, 2008; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). According to previous studies, there are different definitions about well-being. Firstly, well-being refers to a phenomena surrounding daily life (Diener, 1994; Parducci, 1995). That is, people are feeling good or happy when they personally perceived themselves as being so. Secondly, well-being is involved in some emotional conditions. (Larsen & Diener, 1992; Warr, 1987, 1990). Also, some researcher categorized the reviews of well-being into two broad dimensions: one refers to happiness, the other dealing with human potential (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Waterman, 1993).

The previous research claimed that the western cultures put more emphasis on how to better control environmental efforts, autonomy, and personal affective emotions in well-being. However, the easterners put more emphasis on harmony and social status in achieving highly satisfaction of well-being. Within work-related matters, well-being is greatly becoming a significant issue which means organizations recognize the importance of well-being is investigated to have more “creative, effective and socially integrated workers” in workplace (Fredrickson, 2003, pp.171). Warr (1987) proposed that different concepts of job-related well-being such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job-related burnout. In this research, employee well-being will be investigated as two major dimensions, such as general well-being of employee and job and career satisfaction.

General (Psychological) Well-Being

The term of well-being could be categorized into two major concept one is individual's psychological, the other is subjective well-being (Diener, Oishi, & Lucas, 2012; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). In this research, the researcher was investigated the General Well-Being (GWB), which refers to “individual feels how good and content with their life as a whole.” Psychological well-being could influence individual’s performance and behavior for having positive or negative outcomes (Spears, 2010).

Job and Career Satisfaction

The research on happy-productive worker have been using job satisfaction as the measure of employee happiness. Job and Career Satisfaction (JCS) can be defined as "an internal state that is expressed by affectively and cognitively evaluating an experienced job with some degree of favor or disfavor", for example, self-achievement and fulfillment of potential for work. Some research have claimed that the most important indication of job satisfaction includes employees’ engagement or involvement of their work, good relationship among colleague, high salary, autonomy and more career opportunities (Souza-Poza, 2000).

Work Engagement

Kahn (1990) argued for engagement as “the harnessing of organization members’

selves to their work roles in engagement, which employees employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances”. Kahn (1990) defined engagement as the “simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s ‘preferred self’

in task behaviors that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and emotional), and active, full role performance (p. 700)”.

Work engagement is defined as employees who have “a positive and fulfilling work-related state that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption” (Schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74). Work engagement is categorized into three dimensions, such as “vigor, dedication and absorption”. Vigor refers to employees have high energy, mental resilience while working (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Dedication refers to being engaged in one’s work and undergoing a sense of meaningful and inspiration at work (Schaufeli et al., 2002).

Absorption is defined as employees being fully concentrated on one’s work (Schaufeli et al., 2002).

Cognitive Engagement. Kahn (1990) proposed that the level of cognitive engagement from employees’ subjectively perception of their work if it is meaningful for them, psychologically and physically safe, and whether they have enough supports to achieve their work.

Emotional Engagement refers to employees’ investment of the emotional resources and reflection of work condition. When employees are emotionally engaged at their work, they would more willing to invest their personal resources such as knowledge and skills (Shuck

& Reio, 2014).

Behavioral Engagement. It’s normal that people could have different behaviors in daily working life. Behavioral engagement refers to increased levels of hard working directly toward organizational achievements (Macey & Schneider, 2008; Shuck & Wollard, 2010).

The Relationship among Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement

“Happy workers demonstrate higher levels of job-related performance behaviors than do unhappy employees (Brief, 1998; Spector, 1997)”. The work-related well-being which is also called employee well-being has been receiving a lot of interest in recent years (Van der Colff & Rothmann, 2009). It has been researched mostly in the field of business management, such as organizational behavior and human resources development.

According to previous literatures, many academic research supports the relationship between employee well-being and work engagement. Brunetto et al. (2012) claimed that

“work engagement is positively associated with higher levels of psychological well-being”.

Warr (1987) categorized the variables, such as “job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout, and employee being”. The measurement of employee well-being in this study include job satisfaction and general (psychological) well-well-being.

Meanwhile, work engagement has been examined to be positively related to different types of working conditions, which influence both the organization and the employees, for example, job attitudes, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. (Hakanen, Bakker,

& Schaufeli, 2006). Some researchers provided empirical evidence of work engagement as a predictor to positive organizational outcomes, such as lower turnover intention (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002); and higher organizational commitment (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004).

According to the happy worker–productive worker thesis, employees with higher well-being will have better performance (Wright & Cropanzano, 2000). Some research demonstrated that employee well-being and happiness is strongly connected to employees’

performances (Diener, 1984). Furthermore, employees’ positive emotions result in positive behavior and organizational effectiveness, which will help organization gain more positive outcomes from employees (Cropanzano & Wright, 2001). In this research, employee well-being means employees have higher wellness and positive emotions in organization, which showed employees receive psychological support within organization. That is, employees who have higher psychological resources, such as happiness, satisfaction and health, which will make employees to have better performances and positive behavior within organization.

Hypothesis 3:

Employee well-being has a mediating effect on the relationship between different types of employee silences and work engagement.

Hypothesis 3a: Employee well-being has a mediating effect on the relationship between Acquiescent Silence and work engagement.

Hypothesis 3b: Employee well-being has a mediating effect on the relationship between Defensive Silence and work engagement.

Hypothesis 3c: Employee well-being s has a mediating effect on the relationship between Pro-social Silence and work engagement.

Hypothesis 3d: Employee well-being has a mediating effect on the relationship between Opportunistic Silence and work engagement.

Mentoring Relationship

The general meaning of mentors is defined as individuals whom have enough experience, skill and knowledge that are willing to provide career support to their protégés (Kram, 1996). Depending on mentor role theory (Kram & Isabella, 1985), mentors are categorized into two types of mentoring functions. One is “career development functions”, which help protégés to survive and encourage the progress of protégés career development in the organization. The other is psychosocial functions which address more on interpersonal relationships to improve the protégé’s extend of competence, professional and personal development. Furthermore, the mentors also could be role model of protégés for obtaining work-related interpersonal skills to achieve employees' career and psychological needs (Kram, 1983; Zey, 1984).

Moreover, there is another category of mentoring relationship which has distinct differences between the previous, such as formal and informal mentoring relationship that have different impact on mentor’s functions and career outcomes. One is an informal relationship which is often driven by developmental needs (Kram, 1988) to make a contribution to the future of the protégés (Erickson, 1963). The other is formal mentoring

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