Employees’ Expectation and Organizational Silence

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between employees’ expectation (EE) and organizational silence (OS). Design/Methodology: A survey of one hundred and eight (108) working class Professional Master Students was carried out eliciting responses through a self- constructed instrument that has Cronbach alpha of 0.864 and 0.825 reliability values for employees’ expectation and organizational silence respectively. Both Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regressions statistics were used to test the stated research hypotheses. Findings: It was found that employees’ expectations have a strong positive and statistically significant relationship with organization silence. The indices of employee expectations: employee control (EC), employee ownership (EO) and employee appreciation (EA) separately correlate positively and significantly with organization silence. The study also showed that they are strong predictors of organizational silence except employee control that is somewhat a weak predictor. In combination however, employee expectation is a strong, positive and significant predictor of organizational silence. The influence of employees’ expectations of control, appreciation and ownership explained 30.5% of organization silence. Conclusion/recommendation: The study established that the types of organization silence are not limited to the three existing one of quiescent, acquiescent and pro-social but also include accrual benefits. Also, the motives for organization silence of resignation, fear and other-oriented, were extended to include self-oriented benefits. Research implications: Organization scholars, business owners and researchers should seek for the expectations of the employees as they contribute to change and work related improvement in the quest to stem the tide of silence behaviour climate in business organization.