The Effect of Employee Silence on Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement: The Moderating effect of Mentoring Relationship in Taiwan

全文

(1)The Effect of Employee Silence on Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement: The Moderating Effect of Mentoring Relationship in Taiwan. by Han-Yu Tsai. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Major: International Human Resource Development. Advisor: Chu-Chen Rosa Yeh. Ph.D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan July, 2018.

(2) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I must thank my dearest advisor Dr. Chu-Chen Rosa Yeh, who not only provided professional suggestions and helps but guided me step by step with whole complete research process. Also, being a great mentor to support and teach me a lot not just on research. Secondly, I also want to thank all the professors, staff of the Graduate Institute of Human Resource Development at National Taiwan Normal University. And my cutest classmates who are supportive and kindly with many good memories together in these short two years. Lastly, I want to appreciate my family which did not really understand what I am learning but still supporting and being proud of me. These two years make us become closer and I can say: I am grown up now! In the end, I want to show great love to my dear grandmother who always believes and encourage me that she love to say: I will definitely achieve my goal. She is the one who gives me a lot of power and the most precious person in the world. The whole process of doing thesis was an inspired and priceless memory in these short two years. I am glad to make the choice to have master degree in IHRD and successfully finish this stage. The topic of research was inspired by my internship experience that this research somehow represented my or many employees’ experience. I have to thank SAMSUNG for giving me such good experience for past one year. The core value of this research is to point out silence behavior truly happening in daily working life that it might bring out a lot of problems to employees and organizations. So, we have to understand keeping silence is not the best way to survive in the company. Everyone should voice up their arguments to avoid silence phenomena happen and make a better working life. The good balance between employees and organization will make better success in workplace, which will benefit for everyone in the organization. Last but not least, thank you for myself stick to the end with wonderful two years..

(3) ABSTRACT One of the organizational behavior called employee silence has been discussed much often in the field of human resource and business management. Regardless of the silence behavior which refers to employees passively or purposefully withholding information and suggestions on critical issues of organization, employee silence is potentially dangerous not only to the organization but also to the employee’s performances and psychological state, such as employees’ well-being and work engagement. The purpose of this research is to shed lights on the effect of different types of employee silence on employee well-being and work engagement as well as moderating effect of mentoring. The sample involved 435 employees who worked in a company of at least over 30 employees and had a mentor at the same time of this research. A hierarchical regression in SPSS and path model analysis in AMOS SEM were applied to examine the relationships. The results found that different types of employee silence have different effects on employee well-being and work engagement. Also, employee well-being significantly mediates the relationship between different types of employee silence and work engagement. However, only the relationship between opportunistic silence and work engagement is moderated by mentoring. The results indicate that silence behavior should be seen as impactful antecedents which affect employee well-being and work engagement. The findings help human resource practitioners and higher level managers have a better understanding of specific types of employee silence and their relationship with employee well-being and work engagement.. Keywords: Acquiescent Silence, Defensive Silence, Pro-social Silence, Opportunistic Silence, Employee Well-Being, Work Engagement, Mentoring Relationship. I.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ I TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... II LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................... V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1 Background of Study.................................................................................................... 1 Problem Statement ....................................................................................................... 2 Purpose of Study .......................................................................................................... 3 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 3 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................. 4 Delimitations................................................................................................................ 4 Definition of Key Terms .............................................................................................. 5. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................. 6 Employee Silence......................................................................................................... 6 The Relationship among Employee Silence, Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement ............................................................................................................... 10 Employee Well-Being ................................................................................................ 13 Work Engagement...................................................................................................... 15 The Relationship among Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement ..................... 16 Mentoring Relationship .............................................................................................. 18 The Effect of Mentoring Relationship as a Moderator ................................................ 19. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ......................................................... 22 Research Framework .................................................................................................. 22 Research Hypothesis .................................................................................................. 23 Research Procedure .................................................................................................... 25 Research Design......................................................................................................... 26 Sampling and Data Collection .................................................................................... 26 Instrumentation .......................................................................................................... 27. II.

(5) Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 27 Measurement.............................................................................................................. 27 Validity and Reliability .............................................................................................. 29 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) ......................................................................... 30 Alpha Coefficient Test ............................................................................................... 41. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................... 42 Sample Profile ........................................................................................................... 42 Pearson’s Correlation Analysis................................................................................... 44 Path Analysis in Structural Equation Modeling .......................................................... 46 Sobel Test .................................................................................................................. 48 Hierarchical Regression ............................................................................................. 49 Summary of Analysis Results ..................................................................................... 54. CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ........................ 58 Conclusions and Discussion ....................................................................................... 58 Practical Implications ................................................................................................. 60 Research Implications ................................................................................................ 61 Research Limitations .................................................................................................. 61 Future Research Suggestions ...................................................................................... 62. REFERENCES.......................................................................................... 64 APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE ..... 74. III.

(6) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1.. Summary of Goodness of Fit Criteria…………………………….... 30. Table 3.2.. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Employee Silence (N = 435)…..... 31. Table 3.3.. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Employee Well-Being Measurement Model of Scale……………………………………… 33. Table 3.4.. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Employee Well-Being (N = 435).. 34. Table 3.5.. Result of Multi-group Comparison of Employee Well-Being……... Table 3.6.. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Mentoring Relationship. 34. Measurement Model of Scale……………………………………… 35 Table 3.7.. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Mentoring Relationship (N = 435)…………………………………………………………. 36. Table 3.8.. Result of Multi-group Comparison of Mentoring Relationship……. 36. Table 3.9.. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Work Engagement Measurement Model of Scale……………………………………………………... 38. Table 3.10.. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Work Engagement (N = 435)….... 39. Table 3.11.. Result of Multi-Group comparison of Mentoring Relationship……. 39. Table 3.12.. Cronbach's Alpha of Measurements (N = 435)…………………….. 41. Table 4.1.. Descriptive Statistics on Sample Characteristics (N = 435)……….. 42. Table 4.2.. Mean, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliability (N = 435)………………………………………………………….... Table 4.3.. 45. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Path Model of Work Engagement as the Dependent Variable and Employee Well-Being as the Mediating Variable (N = 435)……………………………………... 47. Table 4.4.. Direct and Indirect Effects of Variables on Work Engagement……. 47. Table 4.5.. Result of Regression Analysis for Different Types of Employee Silences as Independent Variable (N = 435)……………………….. Table 4.6. Table 4.7.. 50. Result of Regression Analysis for Moderating Effect of Mentoring Relationship(N = 435)…………………………………………….... 51. Hypothesis Testing Results Summary…………………………….... 55. IV.

(7) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1. Research framework.................................................................................. 22 Figure 3.2. Research procedure. .................................................................................. 25 Figure 3.3. Measurement model of different types of employee silences ..................... 31 Figure 3.4. Measurement model of employee well-being ............................................ 33 Figure 3.5. Measurement model of mentoring relationship .......................................... 37 Figure 3.6. Measurement model of work engagement ................................................. 39 Figure 4.1. Path model of work engagement as the dependent variable and employee well-being as the mediating variable (N = 435). ......................................................... 46 Figure 4.2. Interaction plot for the moderating effect of mentoring relationship on opportunistic silence and work engagement. .............................................................. 53. V.

(8) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter presents an overall description of this study, and it includes the background of the study and problem statement, followed by the purpose of the study, which guides readers to the purposes of this research, the research questions, delimitations and finally definitions of the key terms that are applied in the study.. Background of Study Nowadays, organizations are asking more stringent requirement from their employees such as voicing up and taking more responsibility because of intensive competition within business environment, and higher customer expectations indicating a continuous environment of change (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997). It is very common to find that employees only provide positive reports to supervisors for fear of being blamed or just have no confidence on their recommendations being adopted by organizations or being labeled negatively. Also, this research put more focus on the effect of specific types of employee silence behavior among employee well-being and work engagement. This describes one of the organizational behaviors called employee silence, which is harmful for organizational development and learning (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). Those who are capable of improving organizational performance are withholding their ideas and unwilling to speak up especially in Asia. Some employees are fearful of being blamed for speaking up and are. unwilling to voice their opinions. Depending on the magnitude of this phenomena, employee silence could be seen as a serious potential problem of organizational development and other organizational behaviors, such as employee well-being and work engagement, which are also affect performances. On the other hand, the rapid change of economy, technology and the globalization of many industries result in intensive competition between organizations. The soft power of human capital is getting important and has been taken into consideration in organizational performance and success. In order to enhance the manpower also obtain capable employees, organizations are more focused on employees’ feelings or so called “wellbeing”. More and more well-being indicators and company branding are invented, which means companies are more willing to engage the relationship with employees. Also, the academic research claimed that the higher level of employee well-being will lead to higher work engagement (Brunetto, Teo, Shacklock, & Farr-Wharton, 2012).. 1.

(9) Consequently, organizations now put more focus on improving employee psychological feeling and health (Danna & Griffin, 1999) because “the happy workers are assumed to be more productive workers” (Zelenski, Murphy, & Jenkins, 2008) which is also the main purpose of this study.. Problem Statement The researcher observed some employee behaviors which could be harmful between the organization and employees. One of the potential problems is so called employee silence which has been seen to be multidimensionality (Pinder & Harlos, 2001). For instance, the traditional industrial relations between the employer and the employees has been more damaging from employer-driven employee silence behavior (Johnstone, Barry, & Clarke, 2013). Employees’ unwilling to voice up about work-related matters has resulted in many negative consequences for individual and organizations, such as weaken organizational innovation and learning behavior (Argyris & Schön, 1978), employee’s stress and workrelated mental problems (Cortina & Magley, 2003) lower organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Vakola & Bouradas, 2005). However, academic research has put more emphasis on general silence behavior rather than every different type of silence also the antecedents of employee silence rather than the consequences of employee silence behavior. In this research, the researcher investigates separately three dimensions of employee silence and their relationship to employee well-being and work engagement. Furthermore, the adult and career developmental research proposed that mentoring relationships have great potential to effectively help protégé to accomplish employees' career development and psychological supports (Kram & Isabella, 1985; Levinson, 1978; Zey, 1984). That is, mentoring relationship is assumed to possibly strengthen or weaken the relationship between different types of employee silences and work engagement. However, little is known about how mentoring relationship moderates the relationship between employee silence and work engagement. By investigating the gap from employee silence to work engagement, this research aims to provide a more extensive understanding of the effect of employee silence to organizational and employees’ performances, which can ultimately assist organizations’ managerial levels to solve this employee silence problem more effectively.. 2.

(10) Purpose of Study The aim of this research is to provide the following contributions. Firstly, it seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effect of employee silence to organizational and employees’ performances in Taiwan. Secondly, it attempts to understand the effect of specific types of employee silence to employee well-being and work engagement. Thirdly, it seeks to extend the knowledge of the relationship between employee silence, employee well-being and work engagement, while examining how mentoring relationship moderates the relationship from employee silence to work engagement. By conducting this study, the researcher hopes to help the managerial level to get better organized by using mentoring programs to avoid the phenomena of silence behavior in Taiwan.. Research Questions According to previous research, employee silence has been claimed to have bad influence on employees’ and organizational performances. The extent to which the silence behavior will be harmful and how it damages employee well-being and work engagement is still unknown. Furthermore, the mentoring relationship which support employee’s career development is investigated as a moderator to affect the relationship between employee silence and work engagement. In conducting this research, the researcher seeks to answer the following research questions. Question 1: Will different types of employee silences have different effect on employee well-being and work engagement within organizations in Taiwan? Question 2: Will work engagement increase when employees’ well-being is taken care of by the organization? Question 3: Will the relationship between different types of employee silences and work engagement be affected by mentoring relationship? Question 4: Will employee well-being have mediating effect between different types of employee silences and work engagement?. 3.

(11) Significance of the Study The aim of this paper was to investigate employees’ behaviors in an organization. For example, the relationship between different types of employee silences, employee wellbeing and work engagement. In this research, the specific types of employee silence considered as one typical situation to discuss further relationship with other work-related variables. The mentoring relationship is considered to moderate the relationship between different types of employee silence and work engagement, which has little research reported in the literature. The research investigates the view from employees’ feelings about their organization to evaluate the level of employee silence and how it affects employees’ psychological and work performance. Consequently, the findings of this research could help business management to avoid silence phenomena and enhance employees’ relationship in their organizations, thereby improving employees’ engagement, and increasing firms’ overall competitiveness.. Delimitations This study has some delimitations that help set the scope of this research. Delimiting the scope is necessary to make the research more feasible. Firstly, the delimitation is to extend the knowledge of specific types of employee silence, which has little research reported in Taiwan. Secondly, this study will investigate only the effect of mentoring relationship among employee silence, employee well-being and work engagement from different industries, which could provide more perspectives and data in different organizations.. 4.

(12) Definition of Key Terms Employee Silence Pinder and Harlos (2001) defined employee silence as employee’s behavior of “withholding of any form of genuine expression about their behavioral, cognitive and affective evaluations of their organizational circumstances to persons who are perceived to be capable of affecting change (p. 334)”. There are four types of employee silence as Acquiescent, Defensive, Pro-social and Opportunistic Silence. Silence is one of the main potential problems to affect organizational innovation and development (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).. Work Engagement According to Kahn (1990), employees who drives personal energies (physical, cognitive and emotional) into their work role can be characterized by a higher motivation and strong identification with their work (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008). Work engagement has been define as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.” (Schaufeli, Martinez, Pinto, Salanova, & Bakker, 2002).. Employee Well-Being Ryan and Deci’s (2001) 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). Employee well-being consists of not only work-related matters but also employees’ psychological experiences, which can be determined primarily by work and can be influenced by workplace interventions. (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009). It can be referred to as general well-being and job satisfaction (Vanhala & Tuomi, 2006).. Mentoring Relationship The mentoring relationship refers to the strength of a relationship between a mentor and a protégé which develops when an experienced mentor assists with the protégés’ career, psychosocial and professional development (Ragins & McFarlin, 1990). It shows a continuum of care from the informal (short-term) to the formal (long-term) relationship, when a mentor supports a protégé with beneficial experience, knowledge and skills (Noe, 1988).. 5.

(13) CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 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 workrelated 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. 6.

(14) 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.. 7.

(15) 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-. 8.

(16) 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.. 9.

(17) 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. 10.

(18) 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.. 11.

(19) 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.. 12.

(20) 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 wellbeing. 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.. 13.

(21) 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).. 14.

(22) 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 workrelated 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).. 15.

(23) 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 well-being”. The measurement of employee wellbeing in this study include job satisfaction and general (psychological) 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 wellbeing 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.. 16.

(24) 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.. 17.

(25) 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 relationships that is developed through the formal assignment by a third party; the mentor and protégés sometimes have not even met before the formal matching (Murray, 1991). Mentoring refers to the connection of interpersonal relationship from experienced individual (mentor) and less experienced one (protégés) (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Mentoring relationship has been seen as a dynamic process that motivates protégés’ learning behavior and social interaction within organization (Allen, Poteet, & Burroughs, 1997). In this research, mentoring relationships was put more emphasis on the relationship with supervisors, subordinates, and colleagues. It could be seen as an alternative mentoring relationship which is relatively unavailable to many employees in organization (Kram & Isabella, 1985; Levinson, 1978). In general, understanding the functions and values of mentoring relationship which could have helpful implications for organizations to facilitate individual career development and improve the organizational effectiveness of multiple workforce.. 18.

(26) The Effect of Mentoring Relationship as a Moderator The career development literatures have long supported that the benefits of having a mentoring relationship for an individual's professional development and career life (Kram & Isabella, 1985; Levinson, 1978). Employees’ relationships between peers, managers and other related are found to accelerate organizational socialization, such as help employees coping with work stress and loading. (Feldman & Brett, 1983; Kram & Isabella, 1985; Levinson, 1978). Both adult analysis and career theorists have seen mentoring relationship as an important factor to improve personal development in their different career stages (Dalton, Thompson, & Price, 1977). Studies of mentoring relationship proposed that it could be functional supporting in both career development and personal growth. On the other hand, personal learning could be seen as an important instrument by which mentoring relationship is beneficial for mentors and protégés (Hirschfeld, Thomas, & Lankau, 2006; Lankau & Scandura, 2007; Ragins & Verbos, 2007). A person who is good at self- learning can rapidly and continuously benefit from different aspects regardless of their status or career process (Lankau & Scandura, 2007). In other words, the higher level of employees’ personal learning could be related to positive performances and reduce negative organizational behavior in organization. In general, mentoring relationship could be seen as positively related to individual and organization’s development and performances (Kram, 1988). According to previous literatures, the extent to which protégés cooperate with and effectively take advantage of mentors may be influenced by their degree of job involvement and work engagement (Noe, 1988). Different types of mentoring activities, such as coaching, or challenging assignments provided by mentors may enhance protégé’s performance and increased skills (Noe, 1988). Not to mention, the psychological functions provided by mentors also are helpful in protégés’ psychological and career needs, such as employee’s well-being (Kram & Isabella, 1985; Zey, 1984). Furthermore, Social capital is also one of the benefit of protégés who have mentoring relationship, which could provide protégés different resources such as information, influence, solidarity related to work. Coleman (1988) pointed out that social capital makes “possible the achievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible.” For example, protégés who supported by mentor could obtain more information not only focus on work but related to their personal development by using their social capital resources.. 19.

(27) Hypothesis 4: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between different types of employee silences and work engagement.. Hypothesis 4a: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Acquiescent Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4b: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Defensive Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4c: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Prosocial Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4d: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Opportunistic Silence and work engagement.. 20.

(28) 21.

(29) CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the researcher presents an outline of the research method used for the study, including research framework, hypotheses, research procedure, data collection, measurement, reliability and validity of instruments and data analysis. Before continuing to the data analysis process of the main study.. Research Framework Based on literature review, the dimensions under each construct were defined in the previous chapter. The researcher developed the research framework for this study according to the relationships that have been discovered in other studies. Refer to Figure 3.1. for the framework of employee silence, employee well-being, work engagement and mentoring relationship, which is used to address the purpose of study. The framework shows the hypotheses being tested and the variables under study.. Figure 3. 1. Research framework.. 22.

(30) Research Hypothesis Hypothesis 1: Different types of employee silences affect employee well-being in different directions. Hypothesis 1a: Acquiescent 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. 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.. 23.

(31) 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. Hypothesis 4: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between different types of employee silences and work engagement. Hypothesis 4a: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Acquiescent Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4b: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Defensive Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4c: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Pro-social Silence and work engagement. Hypothesis 4d: The mentoring relationship will weaken the relationship between Opportunistic Silence and work engagement.. 24.

(32) Research Procedure Based on literature review, the dimensions under each construct were defined in the previous chapter. To explain the procedure, the steps can be categorized into different stages. In research procedure, the steps are: explore background of study, select interested topic, review of literature, identify research questions, develop framework, research method and instrument, then conduct expert review and pilot test. And then, moving to data analysis process form collect data, analyze data, interpret data, and inform others.. Explore Background of Study. Figure 3. 2. Research procedure.. 25.

(33) Research Design This study will use a quantitative approach to test the hypothesized relationships by analyzing the collected data with IBM SPSS 23.0 and SPSS Amos 24 software. By a quantitative approach, the researcher can get sufficient amount of data to statistically analyze the relationship between employee silence, employee well-being and work engagement which are moderated by mentoring relationship.. Sampling and Data Collection For this study, the target population was composed of employees working in organizations of over 30 people and with mentoring relationship in the organization, in order to investigate whether the employee silence behavior will be affected by mentoring relationship in organization. Convenience sampling approach was utilized. The final sample comprised of 435 employees from different industries in Taiwan to understand silence situation in general workplace and put focus on investigating employees’ behavior in organization. Data collection process mostly used online distribution through the months of March and April 2018. The collection process were carried out in the following ways: (1) a post and direct messaging via Facebook and Line; (2) requests to friends from specific fields/companies. In addition, all the above e-mails and posts include a request to forward the links and QR codes to friends of the addressees. As for the online questionnaires, this research received a total of 435 valid respondents in the end.. 26.

(34) Instrumentation This is a questionnaire-based or questionnaire-oriented research conducted in hope to figure out the factors that have effect on work engagement. The questionnaire for this study was designed with four parts including the demographic and background information. In avoidance of the bias due to respondents’ tendency when they fill out the questionnaire, the arrangement of the questionnaire was designed to respectively examine each construct in reversed causal order, such as work engagement items first, then employee well-being, employee silence and mentoring relationship. The instrument consists of measurement items of four variables, and 48 questions in total.. Data Analysis This is a quantitative research, the data collection was obtained through questionnaires. First of all, all collected data were entered into an SPSS data file. Secondly, the researcher used SPSS and AMOS SEM to run the analysis. During data analysis process, the following analyses were conducted, including descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS, Pearson correlation analysis, path analysis in AMOS and hierarchical regression analysis.. Measurement Employee Silence The measurement of employee silence was adopted from a previous scale (Knoll & Van Dick, 2013), by adjusting the particular word for each forms of employee silence. It comprises 12 statements to complete the item root “Sometimes I remain silent at work...”. Item formulation was adapted by the exploratory research of Brinsfield (2009) and Milliken et al. (2003), and by Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) conceptual suggestions. All items use a 5point Likert scale from 1 to 5, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire consists of three dimensions. Firstly, defensive silence reflects employees intentionally withholding the ideas, a sample item is “I remained silent at work because of fear of negative consequences.” Secondly, acquiescent silence describes employees’ fear of speaking up, such as “I remained silent at work because nothing will change.” Thirdly, refers to employees wanted to cooperate and protect others, a sample statement like “I remained silent at work because I do not want to embarrass others.” is the definition of prosocial silence. Lastly, opportunistic silence describes employees are more willing to protect their advantages, a sample item is “I remained silent at work because to not give away my. 27.

(35) knowledge advantage”. According to previous research (Knoll & Van Dick, 2013) which already indicated the most significant items for measuring different types of employee silence. After tested by Amos, the researcher decided to adopt previous research that has already been well tested by EFA and CFA.. Employee Well-Being The original data for the Work-Related Quality of Life Scale were gathered via a survey of UK (Van Laar, Edwards & Easton, 2007). The conceptual model of the quality of working life, which was measured through the Work-Related Quality of Life Scale incorporates a factor structure. In this research, the researcher only focused on two major dimensions, including General Well - Being (GWB), and Job and Career Satisfaction (JCS). All items were scored on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 to 5, from strongly disagree to strongly agree.. Work Engagement The research adopted the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003) as a measurement of work engagement. The three subscales of the UWES— vigor, dedication, and absorption were used in the study. All items were scored on a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire consisted of three subscales. Firstly, an example item of vigor is “At my work, I feel bursting with energy.”; Secondly, an example item of dedication is “I find the work that I do full of meaning and purpose.” Thirdly, an example item of absorption is “Time flies when I'm working.”.. Mentoring Relationship Mentoring function measurement was adopted from a previous research (Scandura & Ragins, 1993). This measurement included three dimensions. The first dimension is “Psychosocial support”, reflects the friendship and psychological support of mentor (Kram & Isabella, 1985), such as “I share personal problems with my mentor”. The second dimension of “Career development”, reflect protégés access the work-related support by mentor. The third dimension “Role modeling” reflects how the protégés behavior can be affected by mentors. In this research, the strength of mentoring relationship was assessed by aggregating all items in psychosocial support, career development and role modeling. All items use a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.. 28.

(36) Control Variables Found by the previous scholars that work engagement might be influenced by some demographic variables. Hence, the demographic variables will be incorporated into the questionnaire as well. In this study, position level and tenure are adopted as the control variables. According to previous research, work engagement was found to have close relationship with employee’s tenure (Glavas & Piderit, 2009 ) and position level (Kahn, 1990). During analysis process, these two main control variables were controlled in hierarchical regression. Tenure is coded: (1) 0~1 (2) 2~3 (3) 4~5 (4) 6~7 (5) 8~9 (6) 10 and above years. Position level is coded: (1) general staff, (2) line manager, (3) middle level manager, (4) high level manager. Control variables were tested during data analysis, and the research used SPSS (Statistics Package for Social Science) hierarchical regression technique to examine the effect of control variables on work engagement.. Validity and Reliability Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to ensure the instruments were appropriately designed to attain the validity of measurement. The model fit and item loadings were confirmed by CFA to assess the significance of measurement for this study (Hinkin, 1998). Besides, a Harmon’s single factor test was also conducted to verify common method variance (CMV) because of the self-reported approach for data collection. To ensure the internal consistency, an alpha coefficient test was performed. The results are presented in this section to describe the model assessment processes for the five variables: Acquiescent Silence, Defensive Silence, Pro-social Silence, Opportunistic Silence, Employee Well-Being, Mentoring Relationship and Work Engagement.. 29.

(37) Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) CFA was a measurement to determine how well the survey model generalize through groups and time (Brown, 2014). CFA was used to examine whether the existing measurement is appropriate for the current population. Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson (2010) indicated that there were three categories of fit indices of CFA model such as absolute fit indices, incremental fit indices and parsimony fit indices. At least one absolute index and one incremental index as well as chi-square (x2) results should be reported to evaluate the model fit. The incremental fit index which also known as Bollen’s (1992) IFI. For IFI, the values exceeding .90 are considered as acceptable, and also can exceed 1 as well. The following are preferred criteria for goodness of fit of the model: Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square error of approximation (RMSEA), Non-Normed Fit Index (TLI), and Incremental Fit Index (IFI). Refer to the summary of goodness of fit criteria in Table 3.1. Furthermore, if a research measurement failed the good fit criteria, the researcher would modify the measurement model and apply multi-group comparison between two randomly split samples to cross validate the modified model in the following steps. First, this research would use SPSS to randomly split (50 %) the full sample into two groups (Sample A= 228/435; Sample B= 207/435). Second, using multi-group comparison analysis in AMOS SEM to make sure the two samples show no significant difference when fitting the data to the same model. The above steps are applied for each modified measurement. Table 3. 1. Summary of Goodness of Fit Criteria Fit Indices. Criteria. x2/df. 2.00~5.00. NFI. >0.90. Byrne, 1994. GFI. >.080. Byrne, 1994. CFI. >0.90. Byrne, 1994. RMSEA. References Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007. 0.08 ~ 0.10. MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996. NNFI(TLI). >0.90. Bagozzi and Yi, 1988. IFI. >0.90. Hu and Bentler, 1999. 30.

(38) CFA result of Employee Silence. For the independent variable, 12 items were run through the CFA in AMOS in this procedure. Refer to Figure 3.3. that this model provides an acceptable model-to-data fit [X2 (N = 435) = 228.695; df = 48; CFI = .931; NFI = .915; IFI = .932;TLI = .905 RMSEA = .093]. Refer to Table 3.2. for Confirmatory Factor Analysis of different types of employee silence which indicated all items were significant and AVE, CR were all above acceptable value (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Table 3. 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Employee Silence (N = 435) Variable. Dimensions. NO. Factor. AVE. CR. 0.59. 0.81. 0.56. 0.79. 0.61. 0.82. 0.52. 0.76. loading ESAS 10. .68. ESAS 11. .84. ESAS 13. .77. ESDS 4. .76. ESDS 5. .69. Employee. ESDS 19. .80. Silence. ESPS 6. .83. ESPS 7. .80. ESPS 16. .69. ESOS 15. .65. ESOS 17. .73. ESOS 20. .78. Acquiescent Silence. Defensive Silence. Pro-social Silence. Opportunistic Silence. 31.

(39) Figure 3. 3. Measurement model of different types of employee silences. 32.

(40) CFA result of Employee Well-Being. For the mediator, 11 items were run through the CFA in AMOS in this procedure. Refer to Table 3.3. which shows some fit indices of the initial model (11 items) were not acceptable [X2 (N = 435) = 285.989; df = 43; CFI = .908; NFI = .894; IFI = .909;TLI=.883 RMSEA = .111]. In order to improve the fit, two items were deleted from this measurement. One item (EWWB 1) “I feel well at the moment.” was deleted because of heavy cross loading in two dimensions (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006, pp.149-151) which means the respondents had difficulty in recognizing this item for the designated construct in this measurement. The other item (EWJS 6) “I have a clear set of goals and aims to enable me to do my job.” Comparing with other items, it has the lowest mean in this dimension. Since the sample are Taiwanese who are known to lack confidence in defining clear goals in their work, this item may not represent well this sub-dimension, and therefore was deleted. After model respecification, the modified model (9 items) showed good fit measurement as [X2 (N = 435) = 129.189; df = 26; CFI = .947; NFI = .934; IFI = .947;TLI = .926 RMSEA = .093]. Refer to Figure 3.4 and Table 3.4 for CFA of Employee Well-Being which indicated all factor loadings were significant, while AVE and CR were all above acceptable value (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Also, Table 3.5. showed no significant difference in the multigroup comparison which indicated the modified model is valid for the two randomly split samples. Table 3. 3. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Employee Well-Being Measurement Model of Scale. Model Initial CFA (11 items) Modified CFA (9 items). X2. df. x2/df. NFI. CFI. RMSEA. TLI. IFI. 285.989. 43. 6.651. .894. .908. .111. .883. .909. 129.189. 26. 4.469. .934. .947. .093. .926. .947. 33.

(41) Table 3. 4. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Employee Well-Being (N = 435) Variables. Dimension. NO. Factor. CR. AVE. .81. .53. .85. .54. loading EWWB 2R. .39. General. EWWB 3. .83. Well-Being. EWWB 4. .85. Employee. EWWB 5. .75. Well-Being. EWJS 7. .66. Job. EWJS 8. .70. Satisfaction. EWJS 9. .69. EWJS 10. .81. EWJS 11. .79. Table 3. 5. Result of Multi-group Comparison of Employee Well-Being Model. DF. CMIN. P. NFI. IFI. RFI. TLI. Delta-1. Delta-2. rho-1. rho2. Measurement weights. 7. 7.306. .398. .004. .004. -.010. -.010. Structural covariances. 19. 12.431. .866. .006. .006. -.025. -.026. Figure 3. 4. Measurement model of employee well-being. 34.

(42) CFA result of Mentoring Relationship. For the moderator, 15 items were run through the CFA in AMOS in this procedure. Refer to Table 3.6. which shows the initial model (15 items) had less than satisfactory fit as [X2 (N = 435) = 554.473; df = 87; CFI = .918; NFI = .904; IFI = .918;TLI = .901 RMSEA = .111]. In this measurement, one item was deleted, the item (ME 14) “Mentor has devoted special time and consideration to my career.” The item cross loaded (Hair et al., 2006, pp.149-151) between career support and psycho-social support dimensions which means to the respondents the meaning of this item highly overlaps between two constructs and therefore was deleted. After remodel re-specification, the modified model (14 items) showed improved model fi as [X2 (N = 435) = 365.160; df = 74; CFI = .943; NFI = .930; IFI = .944;TLI=.930 RMSEA = .095]. Refer to Figure 3.5 and Table 3.7 for CFA of Mentoring Relationship which indicated all items’ factor loading were significant, while AVE and CR were all above acceptable value (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Also, Table 3.8. showed no significant difference in the multi-group comparison which indicated the modified model is valid for the two randomly split samples. Table 3. 6. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Mentoring Relationship Measurement Model of Scale. Model Initial CFA (15 items) Modified CFA (14 items). X2. df. x2/df. NFI. CFI. RMSEA. TLI. IFI. 554.473. 87. 6.373. .904. .918. .111. .901. .918. 365.160. 74. 4.935. .930. .943. .095. .930. .944. 35.

(43) Table 3. 7. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Mentoring Relationship (N = 435) Variables. Dimension. NO. Factor. CR. AVE. .85. .62. .90. .65. .89. .74. loading Role. ME 8. .86. Model. ME 9. .86. ME 13. .82. ME 11. .80. Mentoring. Career. ME 1. .86. Relationship. Support. ME 2. .78. ME 3. .89. ME 4. .62. ME 6. .85. Psycho-Social. ME 7. .84. Support. ME 5. .80. ME 10. .89. ME 12. .86. ME 15. .70. Table 3. 8. Result of Multi-group Comparison of Mentoring Relationship NFI. IFI. RFI. TLI. Delta-1. Delta-2. rho-1. rho2. .256. .003. .003. -.004. -.005. .200. .004. .004. -.006. -.007. Model. DF. CMIN. P. Measurement weights. 11. 13.603. Structural covariances. 17. 21.606. 36.

(44) Figure 3. 5. Measurement model of mentoring relationship. 37.

(45) CFA result of Work Engagement. For the dependent variable, 17 items were run through the CFA in AMOS in this procedure. Refer to Table 3.9. which shows the initial model (17 items) had less than satisfactory fit as [X 2(N = 435) = 777.183; df = 116; CFI = .889; NFI = .872; IFI = .882; TLI=.870 RMSEA = .115]. In this measurement, four items were deleted. Firstly, item (WGAB14) “I get carried away when I’m working.” and item (WGAB16) “It is difficult to detach myself from my job.” These two items presented similar concept about employees who are very engaged at work in same dimension, thus had higher covariances between items, and were deleted. Secondly, item (WGDE10) “I am proud on the work that I do.” which means to the respondents the meaning of this item highly overlaps with other two constructs and therefore was deleted. Lastly, the item (WGVI17) “At my work I always persevere, even when things do not go well.” had low correlation with subscales (vigor), which indicated poor consistency and was deleted. After remodel re-specification, the modified model (13 items) showed improved fit measurement as [X2 (N = 435) = 295.767; df = 62; CFI = .944; NFI = .930; IFI = .944; TLI = .930 RMSEA = .095]. Refer to Figure 3.6 and Table 3.10 for CFA of Work Engagement which indicated all items’ factor loading were significant, while AVE and CR were all above acceptable value (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Also, Table 3.11. showed no significant difference in the multigroup comparison which indicated the modified model is valid for the two randomly split samples.. Table 3. 9. Summary of Goodness of Fit for Work Engagement Measurement Model of Scale Model Initial CFA (17 items) Modified CFA (13 items). X2. df. x2/df. NFI. CFI. RMSEA. TLI. IFI. 777.183. 116. 6.700. .872. .889. .115. .870. .882. 295.767. 62. 4.770. .930. .944. .093. .929. .944. 38.

(46) Table 3. 10. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Work Engagement (N = 435) Variables. Dimension. NO. Factor. CR. AVE. .82. .50. .83. .56. .89. .67. loading Vigor. Work. Dedication. Engagement. Absorption. WGVI. 1. .80. WGVI. 4. .72. WGVI. 8. .74. WGVI 12. .61. WGVI 15. .60. WGDE 2. .84. WGDE 5. .65. WGDE 7. .89. WGDE 13. .68. WGAB 3. .69. WGAB 6. .89. WGAB 9. .81. Table 3. 11. Result of Multi-group Comparison of Mentoring Relationship NFI. IFI. RFI. TLI. Delta-1. Delta-2. rho-1. rho2. .276. .003. .003. -.006. -.006. .267. .004. .004. -.010. -.010. Model. DF. CMIN. P. Measurement weights. 10. 12.133. Structural covariances. 16. 19.025. 39.

(47) Figure 3. 6. Measurement model of work engagement. 40.

(48) Harmon’s Single Factor Test When the measurements for testing all variables are self-reported at the individual level, common method biases may occur. Harmon’s single factor Test was conducted to examine common method variances (CMV) in this study. The variances extracted for the largest un-rotated component was 35.50%, which falls below the 50 % suggested threshold (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Lee, 2003).. Alpha Coefficient Test Cronbach’s Alpha is adopted for reliability calculation of this study. To reach strong item covariance and capture the sampling domain, the coefficient alpha 0.70 is referenced for a satisfactory standard. Nunnally (1978) suggested that all variables should reach a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.70. All variables are within a good range, the reliability value of each variable reached the score around 0.75 to 0.95. Table 3.12 summarized the alpha values for each variable. Table 3. 12. Cronbach's Alpha of Measurements (N = 435) Variables. Cronbach’s Alpha. Acquiescent Silence. 0.80. Defensive Silence. 0.79. Pro-social Silence. 0.81. Opportunistic Silence. 0.75. Employee Well-Being. 0.88. Mentoring Relationship. 0.95. Work Engagement. 0.93. 41.