This article reports on a study investigating the cross-level relationships of organizational ethical climate on employee silence. Using a sample of 408 full-time employees from 24 high-technology firms in Taiwan, the study conducted multilevel analyses to examine its hypotheses. The results showed that instrumental climate – one type of organizational ethical climate – had a positive association with acquiescent silence, but not with defensive silence. Another two types of organizational ethical climate – caring climate and independence climate – had a negative association with both acquiescent silence and defensive silence. Rules climate and the law and code climate, the remaining types of organizational ethical climate, were not associated with either the acquiescent silence or the defensive silence. The results also showed that the associations of the instrumental climate, caring climate, and independence climate with acquiescent silence and defensive silence are mediated by the perceived organizational support – an individual-level variable. Implications for management and future research are discussed.

PurposePrevious studies have found that abusive supervision undermines employees' work motivation and attitudes, namely work engagement and job satisfaction. However, less is known about the mechanisms by which abusive supervision negatively relates to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines employee silence as a mediating mechanism linking abusive supervision to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from a sample of 233 full-time employees of a large hotel service company in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results showed that abusive supervision has a positive association with employee silence. Moreover, the results showed that employee silence mediates the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that organizational managers should provide supervisors with leadership interventions to prevent the occurrence of abusive supervision. Furthermore, organizational managers should provide employees with opportunities to voice their concerns through the use of organizational communication and participation, which can reduce employee silence and subsequently foster employee engagement and satisfaction at work.Originality/valueThis study advances our understanding of how abusive supervision results in poor work motivation and attitudes among employees. This contributes to the literature by identifying employee silence as a suitable mediating mechanism linking the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.

Research concerning the relationship between psychological ethical climate and job satisfaction is popular in the literature. However, to date, no study in the literature has simultaneously investigated both the effects of individual-level and organization-level ethical climates on employees' job satisfaction. On the basis of a multilevel analysis, the present study used a sample of 472 full-time employees from 31 organizations in Taiwan to examine the above two effects. Results from the analyses showed that within the organizations, individual employees' instrumental climate perceptions were negatively related to job satisfaction, whereas their caring climate perceptions and rules climate perceptions were positively related to job satisfaction. Also, the results indicated that between organizations, organizational instrumental climate was negatively related to job satisfaction, whereas organizational caring, independence, and rules climates were positively related to job satisfaction. Implications for research and managerial practices were derived from these findings.

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