AN EVENT-LEVEL DECISION-MAKING PERSPECTIVE ON EMPLOYEE VOICE AND SILENCE

Employee voice and silence refer to sharing vs. withholding work-related input in organizations, and therefore are conditional on having input to begin with. While existing research often conceptualizes voice and silence as general behavioral tendencies, we posit that voice and silence are reactions to discrete workplace events, which generate or make salient new ideas, suggestions, concerns etc., and prompt a decision-making process about sharing or withholding this information. We develop an expected utility framework where potential consequences on multiple dimensions, e.g. achieving desired changes, avoiding risks, or protecting important social relationships, are assessed independently for voice and for silence. Aggregated expected utility scores across all dimensions are posited to explain voice intentions, information sharing behavior, and the experience of conflict between voice and silence. Through a vignette study (N = 241) and a second study with recalled events (N = 221), we demonstrate that expected utility scores for voice and silence exert independent and counteracting influences on voice intentions and on sharing information. Our results suggest that event-level voice and silence represent endpoints of a continuum, and that the position on this continuum is driven partially by situational expected utility assessments. Furthermore, unclear voice intentions were connected to a heightened level of experienced conflict between voice and silence. We discuss implications for the conceptualization of voice and silence, and how an expected utility framework integrates a large number of existing voice/silence predictors.