Silence with opinions and silence without opinions: Scale development and model examinations
| Autor: | Chia-Ju Lee, 李佳如 |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 106 In business practice, the case of employees keeping silent may have a far higher percentage than the case of employees making suggestions. In research literature, however, studies of silence behavior appear to be relatively lacking because such behavior is less observable. In addition, existing studies of silence behavior have mostly examined silence with opinions behavior (i.e. the case of not voicing opinions) through classification, scale compilation and cause-consequence analysis. Nevertheless, this study maintains the potential existence of silence without opinions behavior (i.e. the case of having neither opinions nor ideas) in practical scenarios in addition to silence with opinions behavior that has been examined in existing literature. Both types of silence behavior are essentially likely to be affected by different psychological traits and situational factors. In view of the fact that existing silence behavior scales all measure silence with opinions, this study consisted of three parts: first, establishing two types of silence, i.e. silence without opinions and silence with opinions; second, recompiling a silence behavior scale based on the results of three studies; and third, examining cause and consequence variables concerning silence behavior. In Study 1, a scale for both silence without opinions and silence with opinions behavior was generated based on the collected existing silence behavior scales and the results from distributed expert and discriminant validity questionnaires. In Study 2, cause variables concerning silence without opinions and silence with opinions behavior were examined based on empowerment and procedural justice theories, with team empowerment climate and procedural justice climate as independent variables and felt obligation and psychological safety as mediator variables for understanding and verifying the distinctiveness of the two types of silence behavior and the differences of their psychological moderation mechanisms. Study 3 examined consequence variables concerning silence behavior. According to the perspective of stress coping theory, more suppressive behavior is more likely to cause employees to feel powerlessness and stress and thus affect their emotions. Therefore, this study dived deeper into the actual effects of silence without opinions and with opinions behavior on the feelings of powerlessness and stress and negative affect. For research results, Study 1 consolidated questions from existing silence behavior scales into an expert questionnaire for experts and scholars in organizational behavior and human resource management to complete. After the completed expert questionnaires were collected, the obtained data were analyzed to proportion of substantive agreement and coefficient of substantive validity of these statements. Then, the questions that were kept following the expert questionnaire analysis were compiled into a discriminant validity questionnaire to be distributed to undergraduates who took management and business case study courses for completion. With the effective discriminant validity questionnaires collected, content adequacy analysis was conducted. The eventually obtained scale included 6 questions each for silence without opinions and with opinions behavior. The silence behavior scale obtained in Study 1 was used as the scale for measuring silence behavior in Studies 2 and 3, for which the research subjects were employees in two Taiwanese travel agencies. The hypotheses were tested using multilevel structural equation modeling. The main findings of this study are as follows. (1) Team empowerment climate has a negative effect on silence without opinions behavior in employees via felt obligation among individual employees. (2) Team empowerment climate also has a negative effect on silence with opinions behavior in employees via felt obligation among individual employees. (3) Team procedural justice climate has a negative effect on silence with opinions behavior in employees via psychological safety among individual employees. (4) Silence with opinions has a significant positive effect on the feelings of powerlessness and stress and negative affect. Finally, theoretical contributions, practical implications, research limitations and suggestions for future research are provided for reference. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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