A Longitudinal Study of the Relationships Between Four Differentially Motivated Forms of Employee Silence and Burnout

Although previous research has established that employee silence can weaken organizational performance and development, less is known about potential detrimental effects of silence on individual employees, who may believe that they have plausible reasons for remaining silent. We propose negative effects of silence on employee well-being, focusing on relationships of four differentially motivated forms of silence (i.e., acquiescent, quiescent, prosocial, and opportunistic) with three components of employee burnout (depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and perceptions of reduced personal accomplishment). In addition, we present arguments for reciprocal effects of burnout on silence. Using data collected from more than 600 working adults in a four-wave longitudinal study, we examine both (a) the effects of silence on burnout and (b) the effects of burnout on silence using an auto-regressive cross-lagged panel design in a structural equation modeling context. This design controls for effects of prior measurement periods, includes reverse causal relationships, and provides an assessment of stability/change over time. Prior levels of the two imposed forms of silence (i.e., acquiescent and quiescent) had significant effects on the later values of depersonalization and emotional exhaustion, but not on reduced personal accomplishment. In contrast, the more voluntary forms of silence (i.e., prosocial and opportunistic) did not show any significant effects on burnout. We also found consistent evidence that levels of the three burnout dimensions at a prior time related to all four silence types at the subsequent time, with the exception of nonsignificant emotional exhaustion effects on opportunistic silence.