Abstract
Destructive leadership and employee silence have attracted increasing attention in the academy of organisational behaviour and human resource management. However, the research on the mediating mechanism and boundary variables of their relationship has received little attention. The main purpose of our research was to explore the underlying influence of negative leadership (specifically, destructive leadership) on employee silence by developing a moderated mediation model. Drawing from conservation of resources theory, role theory, and the job characteristic model, the new theoretical model concentrates on the role of stress with three dimensions as mediators and the job complexity as a moderator. Using 318 samples collected from multiple companies in southeast China, the model was tested through confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and the PROCESS program in AMOS and SPSS environments. Results reveal that employees may resort to silence in the workplace due to their feelings of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload when they face destructive leadership; while the presence of high job complexity makes the adverse impact of destructive leadership even worse. Managerial and practical implications, limitations, and research directions in future are discussed and offered.
Highlights
In modern organisations, many employees make the decision to remain silent about potentially important issues that arise (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008)
High job complexity means that subordinates need to obtain ample work information (Hunter, Schmidt, & Judiesch, 1990), they are likely to suffer from a lack of information when they are faced with destructive leadership (Schyns & Schilling, 2013)
We put forward the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: Job complexity moderates the positive relationship between destructive leadership and employee silence, and this relationship is stronger when job complexity is high rather than low
Summary
Many employees make the decision to remain silent about potentially important issues that arise (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). We answered the call of a previous study for more research on subordinates’ passive responses by conducting an experimental study that examined the influence process of destructive leadership on employee silence via role stress (Tepper et al, 2007; Restubog, Scott, & Zagenczyk, 2011). It is one of the few studies that has examined the three dimensions of role stress as mediators in the effect of such a negative leadership behaviour on employee silence (Mackey, Frieder, Brees, & Martinko, 2015). We responded to the call to pay attention to the crippling impact of abusive supervision and provide some suggestions for organisations to help prevent silence behaviour (Xu et al, 2015)
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