The Effect of Employee Silence on Employee Well-Being and Work Engagement: The Moderating effect of Mentoring Relationship in Taiwan

Abstract

none

One of the organizational behavior called employee silence has been discussed much often in the field of human resource and business management. Regardless of the silence behavior which refers to employees passively or purposefully withholding information and suggestions on critical issues of organization, employee silence is potentially dangerous not only to the organization but also to the employee’s performances and psychological state, such as employees’ well-being and work engagement. The purpose of this research is to shed lights on the effect of different types of employee silence on employee well-being and work engagement as well as moderating effect of mentoring. The sample involved 435 employees who worked in a company of at least over 30 employees and had a mentor at the same time of this research. A hierarchical regression in SPSS and path model analysis in AMOS SEM were applied to examine the relationships. The results found that different types of employee silence have different effects on employee well-being and work engagement. Also, employee well-being significantly mediates the relationship between different types of employee silence and work engagement. However, only the relationship between opportunistic silence and work engagement is moderated by mentoring. The results indicate that silence behavior should be seen as impactful antecedents which affect employee well-being and work engagement. The findings help human resource practitioners and higher level managers have a better understanding of specific types of employee silence and their relationship with employee well-being and work engagement.