Workplace ostracism and employee silence in service organizations: the moderating role of negative reciprocity beliefs

Abstract

Purpose Employee silence is a pervasive workplace phenomenon that can cause severe economic losses to service organizations. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, the present research aims to investigate interpersonal antecedents of employee silence, specifically workplace ostracism while considering the moderating role of negative reciprocity beliefs (NRBs). Design/methodology/approach Two-wave data collected from 355 employees working in service organizations in Pakistan supported the theorized model. The study used SmartPLS (v 3.2.7) to examine the measurement model and the structural model. Findings As projected, the authors found that workplace ostracism was positively related to acquiescence silence and defensive silence, but not related to prosocial silence. Besides, this study’s findings supported two-way interaction involving workplace ostracism and NRB on acquiescence silence and defensive silence, but not on prosocial silence. In particular, the presence of high NRB makes the adverse effects of workplace ostracism even worse. Originality/value This study explores the boundary conditions under which employee silence is more likely or less likely to occur. This just makes the current research all the more salient that why and when ostracized employees resort to remain silent in the workplace.