Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Derek M. Rohde

Abstract

Unethical organizational behavior negatively impacts organizations, and despite the benefits of whistleblowing, some employees are hesitant to report employee misconduct. The specific research problem examined factors that influence employee silence when confronted with employee misconduct. Prior researchers have explored how organizational climate and organizational commitment can contribute to or inhibit the decision to report misconduct. What remained unclear is how these factors may interact on their influence on employee silence. The purpose of this study was to examine whether organizational commitment mediated the relationship between organizational climate and employee silence. The theoretical foundations for this study were the social information processing theory, which posited that individuals adapt their perceptions of an environment based on contextual clues, and the conservation of resources of theory, which suggested that individual behavior results from a desire to maintain and protect one’s resources. Data were collected for this quantitative study by administering an online survey to 142 employees who were aware of unethical organizational behavior and chose to remain silent. Mediation analyses using PROCESS were conducted to analyze the data. Results indicate that organizational climate indirectly influenced employee silence via organizational commitment. However, the type of commitment impacted whether employees were more or less likely to remain silent. Positive social change can result from the potential to create more positive workplaces that encourage employees to report misconduct before they negatively alter the work environment.

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