International differences in employee silence motives: Scale validation, prevalence, and relationships with culture characteristics across 33 countries

Knoll, Michael; Goetz, Martin; Adriasola, Elisa; Al-Atwi, Amer; Arenas, Alicia; Atitsogbe, Kokou; Barrett, Stephen; Bhattacharjee, Anindo; Blanco, Norman; Bogilovic, Sabina; Bollmann, Gregoire; Bosak, Janine; BULUT, ÇAĞRI; Carter, Madeline; Cerne, Matej; Chui, Susanna; Di Marco, Donatella; Duden, Gesa; Elsey, Vicki; Fujimura, Makoto; Gatti, Paola; Ghislieri, Chiara; Giessner, Steffen; Hino, Kenta; Hofmans, Joeri; Jonsson, Thomas; Kazimna, Pazambadi; Lowe, Kevin; Malagon, Juliana; Mohebbi, Hassan; Montgomery, Anthony; Monzani, Lucas; Pieterse, Anne; Ngoma, Muhammed; ÖZEREN, EMİR; O'Shea, Deirdre; Ottsen, Christina; Pickett, Jennifer; Rangkuti, Anna; Retowski, Sylwiusz; Ardabili, Farzad; Shaukat, Razia; Silva, Silvia; Simunic, Ana; Steffens, Niklas; Sultanova, Faniya; Szuecs, Daria; Tavares, Susana; Tipandjan, Arun; van Dick, Rolf; Vasiljevic, Dimitri; Wong, Sut; Zacher, Hannes

doi:10.1002/job.2512

International differences in employee silence motives: Scale validation, prevalence, and relationships with culture characteristics across 33 countries

Knoll M., Goetz M., Adriasola E., Al-Atwi A. A., Arenas A., Atitsogbe K. A., ...More

JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, vol.42, no.5, pp.619-648, 2021 (SSCI, Scopus)

Publication Type: Article / Article
Volume: 42 Issue: 5
Publication Date: 2021
Doi Number: 10.1002/job.2512
Journal Name: JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, ASSIA, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, ABI/INFORM, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Criminal Justice Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), INSPEC, Psycinfo, vLex
Page Numbers: pp.619-648
Keywords: context, cross&#8208, cultural research, culture, employee silence, voice
Open Archive Collection: AVESIS Open Access Collection
Dokuz Eylül University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

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