Why Are Civil Servants Silent? Exploring the Influence of Power Distance and Employees’ Silent Behavior on Job Satisfaction in the Public Sector
Kai-Jo Fu, Ting-Yu Kuo
Abstract
In recent years, employees’ silent information to express silent behavior have a great impact on organizational innovation and reform and development. While the research of employee silence has received widespread attention from researchers and practitioners, there are few related studies and discussions in Taiwan on employee silent behavior in the public sector. Therefore, based on the perspectives of multiple motivation of silent behavior proposed by Van Dyne, Ang, and Botero (2003), employee silence is classified into three dimensions, including acquiescent silence, defensive silence from fear, and pro-social silence to defend organizational interests. This research explores the relationship of power distance tendency to silent behavior and the influence of silent behavior on job satisfaction. Using online questionnaire survey, this study collected 486 responses from public employees in various public agencies. In terms of structural equation modelling, the results found that the power distance tendency does have a significant positive impact on acquiescent silence and defensive silence. But acquiescent silence has no causal relationship with job satisfaction in the public sector. In addition, the power distance tendency affects job satisfaction through defensive silence. Finally, this study puts forward relevant recommendations, limitations and future research directions for employee silence in the public sector.
Keywords: employee silence, power distance, job satisfaction