Examining the relationships among trust, silence and organizational commitment

Purpose – Previous studies examined the relationships between trust, organizational commitment and the unitary construct of silence. The authors believe that previous studies’ primary shortcoming is the lack of an understanding of the motives of employees in withholding work related issues when they have a lack of trust in their organization and supervisor and a lack of knowledge regarding the form of silence that impacts more organizational commitment. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of trust in organization and trust in supervisor on acquiescent and defensive silence and examines the effects of acquiescent and defensive silence on organizational commitment. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilized structured equation modeling to analyze data from 753 highly skilled employees in South Korea. Findings – The findings revealed that trust in organization is associated with acquiescent silence; trust in supervisor is related with defensive silence and acquiescent silence demonstrated strong relationship with organizational commitment. Originality/value – This study is the first to explore the associations between trust in organization and acquiescent silence and the relationships between trust in supervisor and defensive silence. Moreover, our study reports the strong link between acquiescent silence and organizational commitment.