The role of silence on employees' attitudes “the day after” a merger

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the role of organizational silence and trust on employees' attitudes in a post‐merger stage.Design/methodology/approachThe results of two independent studies are presented; participants completed measures of organizational trust, organizational silence and merger attitudes (organizational commitment and employee satisfaction) a few months following the announcement of the merger. Hierarchical regression analyzes were used to explore the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that organizational trust is negatively related to organizational silence and positively to merger attitudes. Further, the significant role of organizational silence in a post‐merger state was also identified through the negative relationships with merger attitudes, but mainly through the significant mediating effect of silence between organizational trust and merger attitudes.Research limitations/implicationsThe study used self‐report measures, but necessary actions were taken in order to reduce the effect of common method variance. Therefore, it should be cross‐validated with different research designs (e.g. longitudinal research) in other countries.Practical implicationsThe findings provide further support on the significance of organizational silence in work settings, especially at major organizational turnarounds.Originality/valueThe most significant contribution of the study is that it explores for the first time the role of organizational silence in a post‐merger stage and its relationship to organizational trust.

Relationships Among Power Distance, Collectivism, Punishment, and Acquiescent, Defensive, or Prosocial Silence

“…Despite the number of previous studies on employee silence (Huang et al, 2005;Knoll & van Dick, 2012;Nikolaou, Vakola, & Bourantas, 2011;Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008;Vakola & Bouradas, 2005;Wang & Hsieh, 2013), there has been a lack of knowledge available regarding the associations among power distance, collectivism, punishment, and a multidimensional construct of silence (acquiescent, defensive, and prosocial silence). Therefore, in this study our aim was to fill this gap in the literature.…”

The Relationship between Organizational Trust and Organizational Silence with Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment of the Employees of University

“…Managers believe that employees encourage themselves to speak clearly but they apply formal methods to cope up with opposite views of employees. Indeed, organizational silence components, Top management attitudes to silence, Supervisor's attitudes to silence, Communication opportunities and Employees silence behavior explain the condition of this organizational phenomenon among the employees (Vakola & Bouradas, 2011). Organizational silence is associated with limitation of effectiveness of or organizational decision making and change processes.…”

“…In such era, for survival, organizations need the people reacting well for environmental challenges and don't fear of sharing knowledge and information and attempt for their own beliefs and the beliefs of their teams. Although these items emphasize on empowerment and open communication channels, most of employees report that their organizations don't support communication, knowledge and information sharing and these items are the reasons of failure of change management plans (Vakola & Bouradas, 2011).…”

“…Trust is an important issue for most organizations as it can have great advantages for organization. Organizational trust is defined as psychological state providing a feedback of how employees perceive the problems in the situations in which the organization is endangered (Vakola & Bouradas, 2011). The organization managers should perceive complexity and multidimensional nature of trust and its impact on Organizational Commitment, job satisfaction and dynamics of the relations between these three variables (Sheik-Mohamed et al, 2012).…”

Impact of Organizational Trust on Whistle-Blowing Intentions at Malaysian Enforcement Agency

“…Trust has substantial impact on information sharing and exchange (Creed & Miles, 1996 (Creed & Miles, 1996). If employees trust the organization, they share their concerns without hesitation (Nikalaou, Vakola, & Bourantas, 2011). In addition, trust in organization will affect self-efficacy and confident of employees (Yang & Mossholder, 2010).…”