工具主义伦理气氛对员工沉默行为的影响 —犬儒主义和传统性的作用

摘要： 基于社会控制理论，运用问卷调查法，通过分析308组配对数据，探讨工具主义伦理气氛对员工沉默行为的影响机制。结果发现：工具主义伦理气氛与沉默行为正相关；工具主义伦理气氛与犬儒主义正相关；犬儒主义在工具主义伦理气氛与沉默行为之间起部分中介作用；传统性调节了犬儒主义与沉默行为的关系，也调节了犬儒主义在工具主义伦理气氛与沉默行为关系的中介作用。
Abstract: Abstract Given the severe environment with intense competition and unpredictable technology changes, increasing number of organizations realize that employees should be encouraged and cultivated to speak up. However, employee silence is pervasive in modern organizations and has become an issue critical to organization management. To address this question, we built a moderated mediation model on employees’ silence behavior based on the analysis of Social Control Theory. Specifically, our study examined the partial mediation effect of cynicism on the relationship between instrumental ethical climate and employee’s silence behavior. We also focused on the traditionality and predicted that it moderated the mediation effect of cynicism. We collected data from an eastern province of People’s Republic of China. 382 survey questionnaires were distributed to the 31 companies located in Yangtze River Delta, covering high technology, manufacturing, education, etc. In the end, 342 employees returned the questionnaires (response rate was 89.53%). After screening out the problematic cases, the final sample consists of 308 employees. 48.38% were male, 51.62% were female; the most age range from 25-30 years old (41.23%); the most had the diploma of junior college (38.96%) and undergraduate (31.17%). To examine the distinctiveness of the study variables, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS 7.0. We also employed multiple regression analysis to test the mediated moderation model by using SPSS 13.0. Based on the social control theory, this study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model in which instrumental ethical climate influences silence behavior, with cynicism as a mediator and traditionality as a moderator. The results showed that 1) instrumental ethical climate was positively related to the employee’s silence behavior; 2) instrumental ethical climate was positively related to the cynicism; 3)the cynicism partially mediated the relationship between instrumental ethical climate and employee’s silence behavior; 4) the traditionality moderated the relationship between cynicism and employee’s silence behavior; 5) the traditionality moderated the mediated relationship through the cynicism, that is, the higher traditionality, the stronger the mediated relationship. Our findings contribute to employee’s silence behavior literature. By drawing on social