Does the Presence of Voice Imply the Absence of Silence? The Necessity to Consider Employees’ Affective Attachment and Job Engagement

• Author: Michael Knoll,Tom Redman
• Date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21744
• Published date: 01 September 2016

Human Resource Management, September–October 2016, Vol. 55, No. 5. Pp. 829–844

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21744

Correspondence to: Michael Knoll, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Wilhelm-Raabe-Str. 43, Chemnitz, 09120,

Germany, Phone: +49 (0) 37153135101, Fax: +49 (0) 371 53128429, E-mail: michael.knoll@psychologie.tu-chemnitz.de

Correction added on November 18, 2015, after first online publication: In Hypothesis 3 it states “the relationship is strengthened

when affective attachment is high and weakened when job engagement is low”, and this has been amended to read “the

relationship is strengthened when affective attachment is high and job engagement is low”.

DOES THE PRESENCE OF

VOICE IMPLY THE ABSENCE

OF SILENCE? THE NECESSITY

TO CONSIDER EMPLOYEES’

AFFECTIVEATTACHMENT

AND JOB ENGAGEMENT

MICHAEL KNOLL AND TOM REDMAN

Employer-sponsored voice practices (ESVPs) are a tool used by human resource

management to increase voice behavior and fulfi ll legal requirements for

employee participation and consultation. Conceptual papers question the useful-

ness of ESVPs, arguing that they may promote selective expression at work in

the way that employees who use ESVPs suggest work-related process improve-

ments (i.e., promotive voice) but still remain silent about issues that disturb

smooth cooperation (i.e., cooperative silence). Prior research that treated voice

and silence as being mutually exclusive cannot clarify how using ESVPs relates to

voice and silence and under which conditions these links are particularly strong.

Drawing from an employee survey in a UK branch of a multinational technology

company, we apply a differentiated approach that treats voice and silence as sep-

arate behaviors and considers their specifi c motivator s. Results from structural

equation modeling show that even though employees use ESVPs and engage in

voice, silence may still linger as a potential threat to performance and well-being.

Moreover, moderator analyses revealed that affective attachment to the organi-

zation increased and job engagement decreased the occurrence of this poten-

tially dangerous coincidence. Our fi ndings provide evidence for the usefulness

of more differentiated approaches to employee voice and silence and indicate

that factors that facilitate voice, be they formal procedures or pro-organizational

attitudes, might not suffi ce to overcome silence at work. We close with a discus-

sion on ways to facilitate voice while reducing silence at the same time. © 2015

Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: silence, voice, engagement, attachment, management openness

830 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2016

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

Cooperative silence

is not harmful per

se; however, too

much focus on what

is explicitly wanted

by the organization

and a reluctance to

disturb cooperative

harmony may, if

silence becomes

the norm, suppress

diverging viewpoints

or identities as it

becomes even more

difficult to address

issues outside the

performance domain.

clarify whether employees who use ESVPs may

not only show promotive voice but also engage in

cooperative silence, mainly because prior research

examined the usefulness of ESVPs by assessing

whether their existence did or did not correlate

with voice (e.g., Charlwood & Pollert, 2014). Such

an approach enriches knowledge about ESVPs;

however, it bears two major weaknesses. First, it

echoes the assumption that voice and silence are

two ends of a continuum and that the presence

of one implies the absence of the other. Second,

studies that draw upon data at the organizational

level are barely sensitive to examine the psycho-

logical processes underlying employees’ decisions

regarding voice and silence.

To overcome these weaknesses, we draw upon

a differentiated perspective that suggests that voice

and silence are not mutually exclusive (Pinder &

Harlos, 2001; Van Dyne, Ang, & Botero, 2003) and

that employees do not choose between voice and

silence, but instead make two choices: one for (or

against) voice and one for (or against) silence.

Using data from a UK branch of a multinational

information technology (IT) company, we exam-

ine whether (at least specific forms of) silence can

be combined with voice resulting in the possibility

that even if employees use ESVPs and show voice,

silence may linger on as a threat to organizational

performance and employee well-being.

The concern that there is no guarantee that

silence can be avoided, even when ESVPs are

used, represents a rather intricate threat for sus-

tainable organizational development. Usually,

harm is expected to come from employees who

have negative attitudes toward their organiza-

tion. Employees who use ESVPs, however, do not

exit the situation but show some kind of loyalty

to the organization. This loyalty, as suggested

by Hirschman (1970; see also Graham & Keeley,

1992), might be passive or active. Our hypothesis

is that introducing ESVPs is not sufficient to pro-

duce active loyalty but that knowledge about the

motivations that are present in employees who

use ESVPs helps supervisors and human resource

management to understand under which circum-

stances or for whom the potentially dangerous

coincidence of using ESVPs and silence is more

likely or not.

In our study, we draw upon theory-based

logic and prior research from related domains

and examine two factors that might denote pas-

sive and active loyalty: affective attachment to

the organization and job engagement (Kahn,

1990; Van Dyne etal., 1995). In sum, as shown

in Figure 1, our research aims at (1) examin-

ing whether employees who use ESVPs engage

in voice, silence, or both behaviors, and (2)

W hether employees express (i.e.,

voice) or withhold (i.e., silence)

work-related ideas, information,

and opinions that constructively

challenge the status quo influences

individual and organizational performance and

learning, and the detection of errors and wrong-

doing that could negatively affect organizational

goals, employee well-being, and external stake-

holders (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Gioia, 1992;

Hirschman, 1970; Morrison & Milliken, 2000).

To facilitate voice behavior, organizations intro-

duce practices for employees to express their

views (Dietz, Wilkinson, & Redman,

2009; Gollan, Kaufman, Taras, &

Wilkinson, 2015).

Employer-sponsored voice prac-

tices (ESVPs) such as suggestion

schemes and voluntary employee-

management meetings appear

promising, compared to voice prac-

tices that are situated below (e.g.,

informal voice to superiors) and

above the organizational level (e.g.,

unions), because they are tailored

to the demands of the specific orga-

nizational context and may mini-

mize the role of fear and resignation

that might interfere with direct

voice to supervisors (Burris, 2012;

Thomas & Pondy, 1977). However,

research has revealed some con-

cerns whether nonunion forms of

representation such as ESVPs are

a reliable tool to generate genuine

workplace expression (Donaghey,

Cullinane, Dundon, & Wilkinson,

2011; Gollan et al., 2015; McCabe,

2007), pointing at the possibility

that ESVPs mask or even facilitate

selective work environments in

which employees express opinions

that improve work-related processes

(i.e., promotive voice; Van Dyne,

Cummings, & McLean Parks, 1995) but remain

silent about issues that might disturb the unim-

peded functioning of the workplace (i.e., coopera-

tive silence; Wang, Hsieh, Tsai, & Cheng, 2012).

Cooperative silence is not harmful per se;

however, too much focus on what is explicitly

wanted by the organization and a reluctance

to disturb cooperative harmony may, if silence

becomes the norm, suppress diverging viewpoints

or identities as it becomes even more difficult to

address issues outside the performance domain

(Bowen & Blackmon, 2003; Janis, 1972; Noelle-

Neumann, 1974). The available evidence cannot