Role of Organizational Silence in the Professional Performance of Frontline Staff in the Hospital Structure: A Path Analysis

Abstract

Background: Performance is the primary concern of every organizational manager, and achieving higher performance is a significant goal of every organization. Organizational silence may adversely affect organizational performance. Healthcare centers should pay special attention to this issue due to their different job descriptions and environments compared to other sectors. Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of organizational silence and its dimensions on the professional performance of health workers in the medical centers in Qazvin province, Iran in 2020. Methods: This was a descriptive-analytical study in terms of objective and a cross-sectional study in terms of design. The study was conducted in the medical centers affiliated to Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. In total, 365 questionnaires were distributed to select a sample of the healthcare workers from the selected centers in proportion to the total number of the staff. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 22 using path analysis at the significance level of 0.05. Results: A significant, inverse (negative) correlation was observed between organizational silence and the professional performance of the staff (P < 0.05). Among various dimensions of organizational silence, the highest and lowest mean scores belonged to acquiescent silence (15.633 ± 4.291) and altruistic silence (12.180 ± 3.719), respectively. As for the dimensions of professional performance, the highest and lowest mean scores belonged to evaluation (29.675 ± 6.071) and help (15.087 ± 3.206), respectively. Conclusions: Based on the findings, it is recommended that the organizational atmosphere of the medical centers be improved so that the healthcare workers could provide feedback without concerns of being criticized by colleagues and superiors and the fear of consequences.