The Factors Influencing the Organizational Silence of Social Workers

Abstract

This study aims to discover the factors influencing the organizational silence of social workers. Organizational silence is a phenomenon in which members of the organization collectively remain silent on specific issues and is a factor that negatively affects members job satisfaction, job attitudes, and turnover intention. The study of social professionals' organizational silence is only getting started, but its sample selection is limited to certain regions and fields of expertise. To overcome these limitation, data from the 2019 Social Workers Statistical Yearbook of the Korea Association of Social Workers was used, and 2,846 employees of private institutions nationwide provided responses, which were analyzed. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were performed using SPSS Win 27.0. As a result of analyzing the factors affecting organizational silence, in social demographic characteristics age and position status affect organizational silence. In job and organizational characteristics, intrinsic and extrinsic job motivations, individual-organizational suitability, communication in facilities, job autonomy, organizational culture and unethical behavior influence organizational silence. Extrinsic motivation, organizational culture and unethical behavior increase organizational silence. It shows that to reduce the organizational silence of social workers, various measures such as the formation of an organizational culture through healthy communication, improvement of job autonomy, and reduction of unethical behavior are needed.