Organizational evolution orchestrated by the impacts of technology, trade unionism and local and international labour organizations has affected work attitudes in both private and public organizations. Job outcomes are increasingly becoming more dependent on employee factors (Karatepe, Ozturk & Kim, 2019; Karatepe, et al., 2018) than on any other job factor, especially regarding how jobs are designed, the availability of adequate manpower, organizational members’ exchange in the course of task execution and the management of all input resources in a given organizational process (Tan, et al., 2019). These evolutionary influences may also be responsible for poor job outcomes in Nigerian civil service, especially among middle management employees (Dike & Onyekwelu, 2020; Excellence-Oluye, Gberevbie, & Ibietan, 2019).
Currently, many public service organizations in Nigeria, for example, civil services (both federal and state), may not be competitive with their counterpart organizations in the private sector due to several employee-related challenges (Ijewereme, 2018; Mustapha & Omorede, 2017). There are employee attitudes that have become obstacles to actualizing dream civil service in Nigeria (Dike & Onyekwelu, 2020). According to Dike and Onyekwelu (2020), such employee attitudes may include but are not limited to poor innovative skills, poor member interaction, withholding of ideas and information, low levels of citizenship behaviour, negligence, exclusion from organizational decision making, tardiness and lateness to work, incapacitation and lack of expertise by the workforce, undue bureaucratic bottlenecks and lack of adequate training and exposure, etc. These employee attitudes and antecedents may be the source and cause of the low level of organizational efficiency and effectiveness observable in most Nigerian Civil Service (Mustapha & Omorede, 2017) with unpalatable outcomes.
Considering the cost-benefit ratio of inefficient and ineffective civil services to the government, Ukwandu and Ijere (2020) assert that a decrease in civil service credibility and poor civil service conditions are known to affect good governance in general and directly affect the lives of the common people. For this reason, many stakeholders are becoming interested in studies that help to reveal the patterns of this decrease in civil service credibility with a focus on employee attitudes, especially those attempting to understand the challenges faced by different levels of organizational management (top, middle and entry) and the peculiarities of these challenges.
This study revealed that there is currently a poor level of supervision trailing Nigerian civil service and other government enterprises, which is evident in many unaccounted and poorly supervised government programs and projects (Mustapha & Omorede, 2017). A poor level of supervision and monitoring may thus be a key factor indicating the gradual collapse or absence of effective middle management in Nigerian civil service. Critically, this level (middle management) is an important management level in any successful organizational workforce (Mikias, 2019; Chen &Zhou, 2018) because it has a supervisory role and is also supervised by top management; thus, middle management cadre is pivotal to the civil service system in Nigeria.
Middle management plays a vital role in supervising, monitoring, and motivating entry-level employees to achieve organizational goals (Pruitt, 2019; Chen & Zhou, 2018). They interpret policies, provide feedback to top management, and ensure strategy implementation (Alhaqbani et al., 2016). Their importance lies in bridging organizational hierarchies.
Inadequate supervision in the Nigerian Civil Service may stem from middle management's poor innovative skills or ineffective behaviour, exacerbated by employee silence and limited member exchange with top management (Pruitt, 2019). Middle management's role as a bridge between top- and entry-level management is crucial for organizational success in both the public and private sectors.
Middle management is expected to drive organizational innovation and creativity, yet middle management performance may be hindered by abusive supervision or enhanced by participation in decision-making (Pruitt, 2019). This study examines civil servants' attitudes regarding subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour in the context of abusive supervision and employee participation in decision-making.
Subordinate silence, a deliberate behaviour influenced by personal cost‒benefit analysis, hampers organizational communication (Morsch, et al., 2020). It involves withholding crucial information, suggestions, or concerns, affecting organizational functioning (John & Manikandan, 2019). Despite having valuable ideas, employees may refrain from sharing due to the organizational climate (John & Manikandan, 2019; Brinsfield, 2013).
Subordinate silence reflects an unwillingness to share valuable information, impacting organizational outcomes (Jafary, et al., 2018). In Nigerian civil service, despite whistle-blowing policies, a culture of silence persists due to fear of persecution (Salihu, 2020; Wokocha & Babalola, 2018). This silence adversely affects employees' innovative work behaviour, particularly among middle management (Kurz, et al., 2018).
Innovative work behaviour involves generating, introducing, or applying new ideas, processes, or products to benefit the organization (Muchiri et al., 2020). It encompasses various aspects of work, including processes, hiring, product changes, and cost reduction (Awang et al., 2019; Chatchawan et al., 2017). Market forces and worker ingenuity drive these behaviours to gain a competitive edge (Cangialosi et al., 2020).
In public service, innovation is crucial for saving costs, improving efficiency, and improving people's lives (Gieske, Duijn, & van Buuren, 2020). However, innovation in public service is hindered by bureaucratic bottlenecks and the organizational climate (Saxena, 2020). For example, workplace happiness and transformational leadership influence innovative behaviour among teachers in Nigeria (Bawuro et al., 2018). A culture of silence in Nigerian civil service exacerbates the decline in innovative work behaviour, especially in the presence of abusive supervision.
Abusive supervision includes hostile behaviours from superiors toward subordinates, affecting job performance and personal lives (Rousseau & Aubé, 2018). This comprises belittling, ignoring requests, withholding vital information, and demeaning subordinates (Wu, 2020). Victims seek support from peers and may lose respect for their superiors, leading to deviant behaviours (Wang et al., 2019; Zhu & Zhang, 2019).
Studies suggest that abusive supervision negatively impacts job outcomes, including innovative behaviours (Wu, 2020; Wang et al., 2019). It is prevalent in Nigerian public service, leading to retaliatory behaviours such as cyber loafing (Ezeh, et al., 2018). Abusive supervision diminishes employee morale and stifles creativity (Jahanzeb et al., 2019). However, participatory management, such as employee participation in decision-making, can mitigate the effects of abusive supervision by fostering a supportive environment and encouraging innovation (Peng, et al., 2019).
Employee participation in decision making refers to any type of mechanism, structure, or practice that provides employees with opportunities to express opinions within their organizations (Zhou, Fan & Son, 2019). It is also regarded as the integration of employees into the decision-making processes of the organization such that their views, expressions and criticisms of organizational processes are taken into consideration in line with the goals and objectives of the organization (Nwanah, Sylvester & Okafor, 2019). Participation in decision making in the public sector is also as important as that in the private sector, as it has been identified as a key success factor in the public administration system (Demir, 2020); for instance, Dede (2019) linked employee participation in decision making to organizational productivity among civil servants in Nigeria.
Participative decision making has been seen by many as a useful management tool because it has been linked to a number of success factors in the organization, including innovative work behaviour. This is because participative decision making is a form of social capital in the organization and psychological empowerment that motivates employees (Rehman, Ahmad, Allen, Raziq & Riaz, 2019). For instance, Sanga, Mwakajila and Kessy (2019) linked employees’ participation to the prevalence of innovative work behaviour. These findings support the model of the current study on the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour, which may also be moderated by participative decision making.
Statement of the Problem
The main aim of this study is to identify the antecedents of employee silence and poor innovative behaviour in civil services that hamper their effectiveness and how management practices can neutralize their prevalence. This is because public service in Nigeria is affected by many problems, including corruption, employee incompetence, low morale, poor working conditions, bureaucratic bottlenecks and general organizational ineffectiveness, among others. These problems have rendered the government’s efforts towards creating value in public service elusive, especially among civil servants who are permanently engaged by the government to execute administrative tasks and other services in government-established ministries, departments and agencies. As in other sectors, maintaining productivity and organizational effectiveness along with positive employee and organizational outcomes remains a problem in Nigerian civil service. This problem may be unhindered in the presence of subordinate silence, abusive supervision, lack of innovative behaviour, and poor employee participation in decision making.
Although the literature appears to be exhaustive on the impacts of the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour (e.g., Awang et al., 2019; Emelifeonwu & Valk, 2019; Morrison, 2014), gaps still exist, especially in understanding its impact on middle-level employees and whether there are employee factors that moderate this relationship. This gap, which did not address possible moderating factors, is a motivation for the current study, which is focused on emphasizing both positive and negative moderator effects in understanding the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour.
Many studies in the literature have investigated the effects of subordinate or employee silence on productivity without linking it with how it affects employees’ innovative work behaviours. For instance, Duan et al. (2018) linked the culture of employee silence to authoritarian leadership, while Jafary, Yazdanpanah and Masoomi (2018) identified factors affecting organizational silence among middle-level managers. Additionally, Song et al. (2017) linked subordinate silence to leaders’ destructive personalities. These studies, which did not address employee innovation consequences, created gaps that this study hopes to fill.
Similarly, Wang and Wang (2018), comparing authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership, ascertained that there is a relationship between subordinate silence and innovative behaviour; however, their study did not include the possibility that this relationship may have been moderated. Thus, their study left gaps that necessitated the current study in which abusive supervision and employee participation in decision making were proposed as negative and positive moderators of the relationship, respectively.
Furthermore, She (2020), Wu (2020), Wang et al. (2019), Zhu and Zhang (2019), Jahanzeb et al. (2019), and Rousseau and Aubé (2018) identified a negative relationship between abusive supervision and innovative work behaviour; however, these studies could not establish whether the influence observed on innovative work behaviour was also predicted by employee silence and then exacerbated by abusive supervision. The design, scope and area of these studies created empirical gaps that the current study with civil servants in Nigeria aims to fill.
In Nigeria, Emelifeonwu and Valk (2019) ascertained the consequences of employee voice and silence in organizations, while Bawuro, Danjuma and Wajiga (2018) evaluated the factors influencing the innovative behaviour of civil servants; however, neither of these studies established a relationship between employee silence and innovative behaviour or the factors that could moderate their prevalence. These equally created gaps both in design and scope, which this current study hopes to fill.
Studies evaluating employee factors in public service often do not consider the impacts of management level (top level, middle level and entry level) on job and organizational outcomes. Such oversight has not allowed empirical measurement of how these different levels of management influence and impact organizational dynamism, especially with respect to employee factors that have job and organizational outcomes. Considering the dimension of this problem, gaps exist, and the scope of the current study is to close such gaps to tie the outcomes to specific management levels for a better understanding of behavioural attitudes in the workplace.
Given the above-stated problem of the study and considering the gaps in the literature, establishing the relationships among subordinate silence, abusive supervision, participation in decision making and innovative work behaviour will be ideal. It will also be of interest to this study to ascertain whether abusive supervision and employee participation in decision making moderate the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour.
Purpose of the Study
Overall, this study explored abusive supervision and employee participation in decision making as moderators of subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour among middle-level civil servants in Southeast Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to determine whether:
- Abusive supervision will predict subordinate silence among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Abusive supervision will predict innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making will predict subordinate silence among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making will predict innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Subordinate silence will predict innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Abusive supervision moderates the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making moderates the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
Empirical Review
Subordinate Silence and Innovative Work Behaviour
De Azevedo, Schlosser, and McPhee (2020) explored organizational innovation through human resource management (HRM), employee voice, and engagement. Convenience sampling was used for participants with an average age of 31.82 years and a company tenure of 9.19 years. A total of 402 individuals completed the Time 1 survey, with 253 providing complete data for both surveys. The t test results showed no significant differences between the Time 2 responders and nonresponders. The study revealed that HRM has a central role in initiatives that intend to support voice and stimulate the engagement of diverse employees in innovation in established firms.
Additionally, Miao, Lu, Cao, and Du (2020) investigated the relationships among high-performance work systems (HPWSs), employee voice, psychological safety, and innovative behaviour. Their study, involving 46 HR managers and 374 full-time employees from 46 companies in China, utilized matched data collection with multisource and time-lagged techniques. The results indicated that HPWSs are linked to employee behaviour. Both promotive and prohibitive voices partially mediate the relationship between HPWSs and innovative behaviour. Psychological safety moderates the relationship between HPWSs and promotive voice, as well as the mediating effect of promotive voice on the HPWS-innovative behaviour relationship. However, psychological safety does not moderate the relationship between HPWSs and prohibitive voice.
Similarly, Carnevale et al. (2017) conducted a quantitative review on "Leading to stimulate employees' ideas," focusing on leader-member exchange (LMX), employee voice, creativity, and innovative behaviour. Rooted in social exchange theory, this study explored how leaders provide support or resources to encourage employees' proactive contributions, such as voicing concerns, generating creative ideas, and displaying innovative behaviour. The authors found that LMX is positively correlated with voice, creativity, and innovative behaviour. Notably, LMX showed a stronger association with creativity than with voice or innovative behaviour, even after controlling for potential confounding variables.
In another study, Sifatu et al. (2020) examined innovative work behaviours in Indonesian pharmacies, focusing on employee voice, generational diversity management, and employee engagement. The participants were employees of various pharmaceutical firms, including PT Otsuka Indonesia, PT Afiat Pharmaceutical Industry, and others. Convenience sampling was used, with inclusion criteria ensuring that participants had at least one year of experience. Data from 306 individuals were analysed using SEM and CFA with software such as AMOS and SPSS. The results showed that employee engagement played a crucial mediating role between employee voice, generational diversity management, and innovative work behaviours.
Furthermore, Chen et al. (2020) investigated the impact of psychological capital and organizational support on innovation and silence among technical innovation personnel. Using the conservation of resources theory, they predicted the relationship between employee voice and innovative behaviour. Data from 232 employees and supervisors were collected through a three-wave survey. Regression analysis of 350 questionnaires indicated that psychological capital and organizational support negatively affected silence behaviour and positively affected innovation behaviour. Supportive policies enhanced employees’ psychological capital. The study, which was conducted in four enterprises in Beijing and Hebei, utilized random sampling, resulting in 350 valid samples. The findings showed a positive association between employee voice and innovative behaviour, which was mediated by perceived organizational status. Performance-goal orientation strengthened the link between voice, perceived organizational status, and innovative behaviour.
In another study, Nazir et al. (2020) explored the relationship between paternalistic leadership and innovative work behaviour, focusing on leader-member exchange (LMX) and employee voice behaviour as mediators. Using social exchange theory, they examined the indirect effects of three paternalistic leadership dimensions on innovative work behaviour through LMX and employee voice behaviour. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed for hypothesis testing. The findings revealed significant relationships between two paternalistic leadership dimensions and LMX, which in turn influenced employee voice behaviour and subsequently innovative work behaviour. LMX was found to mediate the relationship between authoritarian and moral leadership and employee voice behaviour. Additionally, LMX and employee voice strengthened the indirect link between moral leadership and innovative behaviour, while authoritarian leadership had a significant but negative indirect effect on innovative behaviour through LMX and employee voice.
Debora and Joshua (2018) investigated the relationships among core self-evaluations, proactive personality, and innovative behaviour among microentrepreneurs. Their study involving 346 participants revealed a positive association between core self-evaluations and innovative behaviour. This finding supports the idea that internal evaluations influence innovative behaviour, suggesting that subordinate silence, unless involved in organizational decision-making, may impact workers’ innovative skills.
Xiaofu et al. (2017) examined the impact of organizational justice on positive organizational behaviour. Using data from 2,566 employees across 13 Chinese cities and 45 manufacturing-type enterprises, they found that organizational justice positively predicts positive organizational behaviour. This suggests that factors such as employee perception of organizational justice can influence proactive behaviours such as citizenship, contributing to the cultivation of innovative work behaviours.
Abusive Supervision and Innovative Work Behaviour
Qin et al. (2019) explored negative creativity in leader-follower relations, focusing on leaders' creative mindset, moral disengagement, and abusive supervision. They hypothesized that leaders' daily creative mindset leads to abusive supervision through state-based moral disengagement, moderated by trait-based moral disengagement. Findings from a longitudinal study and an experimental study supported these hypotheses, highlighting the risks of leader creativity and the role of moral disengagement. In the same vein, Rousseau and Aubé (2018) investigated the impact of abusive supervision on team innovation. They explored how abusive supervision undermines innovation by affecting team proactive behaviour, with leader-member interdependence moderating this relationship. Data from 394 members and 82 supervisors in a public safety organization supported these hypotheses, enhancing our understanding of the conditions under which abusive supervision hampers team innovation.
Similarly, Wang et al. (2019) examined the effects of abusive supervision on employees' innovative behaviour, considering job insecurity and locus of control as mediators. They surveyed 641 employees in China, utilizing established scales for measurement. Abusive supervision, job insecurity, locus of control, and innovative behaviour were assessed using standardized scales. The results indicated positive correlations between abusive supervision and job insecurity, while both job insecurity and abusive supervision were negatively associated with innovative behaviour. The impact of abusive supervision on innovative behaviour was mediated by its effect on job insecurity. Additionally, employees with an external locus of control showed a buffering effect, mitigating the relationship between abusive supervision and job insecurity. These findings contribute to understanding the consequences of abusive leadership and offer insights for promoting innovation in organizations.
In another study, Tian et al. (2020) investigated the impact of abusive supervision and motivational preference on employees' innovative behaviour. Drawing from social cognitive theory, they explored the mediating role of creative self-efficacy and the moderating role of motivational preference. By analysing data from three technological enterprises in Shenzhen, they found that abusive supervision negatively influenced innovative behaviour, which was mediated by creative self-efficacy. Additionally, motivational preference moderated this relationship, with greater intrinsic preference exacerbating the negative effects of abusive supervision on creative self-efficacy and innovative behaviour. Conversely, lower intrinsic preference mitigated these effects, resulting in a weaker relationship between abusive supervision and creative self-efficacy and innovative behaviour.
Similarly, Zhu and Zhang’s (2019) study on the double-edged sword effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ innovative behaviour drew up the antecedent-benefit‒cost framework and social cognitive theory to explain the contradictory relationships between them based on the mediating mechanism. The results showed that abusive supervision discouraged subordinates’ innovative behaviour by reducing subordinates’ psychological safety but promoted subordinates’ innovative behaviour by enhancing challenge-related stress.
Raman (2015) explored the relationship between organizational retaliatory behaviour and abusive supervision in Indian Railways, with the perception of justice as a moderator. Using data from 650 employees, they utilized scales by Neihoff and Moorman (1993), Tepper (2000), and Skarlicki and Folger (1997). The findings suggested that the severity of abusive supervision is heightened at high perceived levels of justice, yet at such levels, it is associated with increased organizational retaliatory behaviour.
Gabler and Hill (2015) investigated abusive supervision, distributive justice, and work-life balance among salespeople and managers in the USA. With 342 participants, scales were employed by Tepper (2000), Neihoff and Moorman (1993), Allen and Meyer (1990), Diener (1985), and Johlke (2000). The results indicated a negative relationship between abusive supervision and distributive justice for both groups, with the interaction between abusive supervision and normative commitment predicting distributive justice.
Wang, Mao, Wu, and Liu (2012) studied abusive supervision and work deviance, considering the mediating role of interactional justice and the moderating role of power distance. With 283 supervisors, they used scales by Tepper (2000), Niehoff and Moorman (1993), Dorfman and Howell (1988), and Mitchell and Ambrose (2007). The findings revealed a significantly negative influence of abusive supervision on employees' perceptions of interactional justice.
A study conducted by Zellers, Tepper, and Duffy (2002) investigated the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), hypothesizing that abusive supervision would negatively correlate with OCB. They surveyed 373 National Guard members and their supervisors and found that subordinates of abusive supervisors exhibited fewer OCBs. Role definitions moderated this relationship, particularly among subordinates who defined OCB as extra role behaviour. Additionally, procedural justice and OCB role definitions interacted to mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and OCB. Additionally, Faique Bin Fakhar (2014) examined the influence of abusive supervision on OCB and the mediating role of job tension, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention. By analysing 205 responses, they found no mediating relationships between the variables. However, abusive supervision was positively associated with OCB and the three mediating variables.
In addition, a study conducted by Mackey, McAllister, and Brees (2015) explored the indirect effects of subordinates' perceptions of abusive supervision on their OCB through perceived organizational obstruction, contingent upon their perceptions of supervisor organizational embodiment. The results from a diverse sample of 109 respondents supported the study hypotheses, indicating that perceptions of supervisor and organizational shared identities influenced perceived organizational obstruction and OCB. Similarly, Anzam (2012) investigated the impact of abusive supervision on subordinates’ proactive work behaviour using data from 189 employees in three commercial banks. Tepper (2000) and Frese et al. (1997) found that a three-factor model provided a better fit for testing the relationship between abusive supervision and proactive work behaviour than a two-factor model.
Employee Participation in Decision Making and Innovative Work Behaviour
Ismail (2020) investigated the impact of employees’ participation in lean thinking on their innovative behaviour and whether competency moderates this relationship. Using social exchange theory, this study analysed data using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. The results indicated a positive relationship between employee participation in lean thinking and innovative behaviour, as well as between employee competency and innovative behaviour. However, employee competency did not moderate the relationship between employee participation in lean thinking and innovative behaviour. Despite the study's contribution to social exchange theory by highlighting the motivation behind employee innovative behaviour, a limitation was noted in the nonsignificant moderating effect of employee competency, suggesting that further exploration using psychological variables as moderators may yield additional insights.
In another study, Amara and Chen (2020) examined the impact of participatory decision-making on eco-innovation capability in the agricultural and agro-food sectors, with motivational factors mediating this relationship. The findings revealed positive relationships between motivational factors, participative decision-making, and eco-innovation capabilities, emphasizing the significance of economic and ethical motivations. Motivational factors play a mediating role in both participatory decision-making and eco-innovation capabilities, highlighting the importance of environmental concerns alongside economic goals for enterprises.
Furthermore, Mwakajila et al. (2020) assessed the influence of employee participation on innovative work behaviour in manufacturing SMEs in Tanzania. Using structural equation modelling, the study revealed that employee participation positively influenced both creativity-oriented and implementation-oriented innovative work behaviour. This underscores the importance of involving employees in decision-making processes to foster innovative work behaviour in manufacturing SMEs.
Similarly, Javed et al. (2018) investigated the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behaviour (IWB) in small capitalized textile firms in Pakistan, focusing on the leader-member exchange (LMX) perspective. They hypothesized that LMX would mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. The data were collected from 150 supervisor-subordinate dyads from small capitalized firms, chosen for their inclination towards innovation and adaptability, aided by minimal bureaucracy and resistance to change. The results revealed a positive association between inclusive leadership and IWB, with LMX partially mediating this relationship. This suggests that in environments where inclusive leadership prevails, employees are more likely to engage in innovative behaviours facilitated by strong leader-member relationships.
Abusive Supervision and Subordinate Silence
The relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate silence was examined by Xu et al. (2020), who investigated the moderating role of high-performance work systems (HPWSs), organizational commitment, and intention to leave. Data from 456 employees and 78 human resource managers in Chinese organizations were analysed via regression, moderated regression, and mediation analysis. The results showed that abusive supervision led to subordinate silence, with HPWSs intensifying this effect. This moderation was mediated by employees' organizational commitment and intention to leave. However, the study's applicability is limited, as it suggests that organizations should address both the abusive supervision and employee attitudes influenced by HPWSs to mitigate silence, leaving gaps for further research.
Similarly, Park et al. (2018) explored abusive supervision, psychological distress, and silence, focusing on gender dissimilarity between supervisors and subordinates. Utilizing the conservation of resources theory, they proposed a causal relationship between abusive supervision and psychological distress, with psychological distress mediating the abusive supervision-silence relationship. The results of experimental and field studies supported these findings, highlighting the impact of abusive supervision on silence moderated by the supervisor-subordinate relational context.
In another study, Ezeh et al. (2018) investigated abusive supervision and organizational cynicism as predictors of cyber-loafing among federal civil service employees in Nigeria. Using correlation design and multiple regression analysis on data from 329 public sector employees, they found that abusive supervision and organizational cynicism significantly predicted cyber-loafing. They recommended improving leader-member exchange to address abusive supervision and enhance fairness and equity in organizations.
Furthermore, Martono et al. (2020) assessed the impact of abusive supervision on employee silence by exploring the mediating mechanisms involved. They aimed to elucidate how inadequate supervision and leader-member transitions affect organizational choices through emotional exhaustion, organizational justice, and organizational political perceptions as mediators. The study targeted employees of rapidly growing textile and garment companies, employing multistage random sampling with 199 respondents. The data were collected through observation, interviews, and Likert scale questionnaires and analysed using WarpPLS 6.0 software. The findings indicated that emotional exhaustion, organizational justice, and organizational political perceptions mediated the relationship between poor supervision and employee silence. However, organizational political perceptions did not mediate the effect of leader-member exchange relationships on employee silence. This suggests that while emotional fatigue, organizational justice, and organizational political perception act as mediating factors, the leader-member exchange relationship is not mediated by organizational political perceptions in influencing employee silence.
Employee Participation in Decision Making and Subordinate Silence
Kök (2016) investigated the impact of participatory decision-making on organizational silence, focusing on acquiescent silence, defensive silence, and prosocial silence. The sample was collected from companies in Denizli city, Turkey, which is among the 500 largest Turkish companies, and data were collected from 202 white-collar employees. A quantitative approach was used, employing scales developed by Kahnweiler and Thompson (2000) for participative decision-making and by Van Dyne, Ang, and Botero (2003) for organizational silence. Correlation and regression analyses supported the hypotheses, revealing that participation in decision-making processes negatively influenced organizational silence, acquiescent silence, and defensive silence.
Wu et al. (2020) assessed the effects of authoritarian leadership and employee voice in Chinese organizations by examining the mediating role of subordinate psychological safety and the moderating effect of supervisor-subordinate relationships. Using survey data from 171 supervisor-subordinate dyads in Taiwan, they conducted moderated regression analysis. The results showed that subordinate psychological safety mediated the relationship between authoritarian leadership and subordinate voice, with this mediation being weaker for high supervisor-subordinate relationships than for low supervisor-subordinate relationships. These findings align with theoretical assumptions, offering practical implications and directions for future research.
Additionally, Hassan et al. (2019) investigated how empowering leadership reduces employee silence in public organizations, viewing such silence as detrimental due to its consequences for critical work-related information. They developed a model suggesting that empowering leadership reduces silence by enhancing employee trust in supervisors, granting job control, and strengthening organizational identification. By testing the model in two cross-sectional studies with data from employees in two US local governments, they found that empowering and participative leadership reduced employee silence, with empirical support in both studies.
Flanagan-Benedict (2019) explored the influence of leadership and organizational culture on employee silence, emphasizing its negative impact on organizations and the need to understand the factors influencing it. Using systematic review methodology, they analysed 69 research articles identifying organizational cultures that are ethical, open, supportive, and participative in reducing employee silence. Leadership factors such as honesty, inclusivity, two-way communication, and accountability also contributed to reducing silence, suggesting that organizations should foster participative climates and that leaders should exhibit ethical standards and encourage employee participation in decision-making.
Similarly, Duan et al. (2018) examined the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee silence behaviour in 16 state-owned manufacturing enterprises in China. Drawing on motivation theories and person-environment fit, they found a positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee silence. The study revealed that both psychological safety and organization-based self-esteem partially mediated this relationship. Furthermore, the direct relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee silence was stronger for employees with a high-power distance orientation, while the mediating effects of psychological safety and organization-based self-esteem were stronger for employees with a low power distance orientation.
Chukwudi and Needorn (2021) explored the impact of acquiescent silence on collaboration and creativity within the banking sector. This study focused on 302 full-time deposit money bank employees in South‒South Nigeria. Using a survey design, the study revealed that acquiescent silence negatively affected collaboration and creativity within work teams. It emphasized the need for organizations to support both managers and employees to foster creativity and collaboration in the workplace.
Moreover, Valverde-Moreno et al. (2020) investigated participative decision-making (PDM) among employees in 31 European countries, focusing on the influence of cultural values. Using data from the European Working Conditions Survey, they analysed the relationship between Hofstede's cultural dimensions and PDM levels. The study identified indulgence and masculinity as the most influential cultural dimensions, providing insights into the cultural profiles of European countries regarding PDM promotion.
Hypotheses
Therefore, the following hypotheses guided the study:
- Abusive supervision will positively and significantly predict subordinate silence among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Abusive supervision negatively and significantly predicts innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making will negatively and significantly predict subordinate silence among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making will positively and significantly predict innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Subordinate silence negatively and significantly predicts innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Abusive supervision significantly moderates the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.
- Employee participation in decision making will significantly moderate the relationship between subordinate silence and innovative work behaviour among middle-level employees in Southeast Nigeria.