Why and when are silent employees less satisfied with their jobs? A conservation of resources perspective

Purpose Employee silence is pervasive in the workplace and can be severely detrimental to employees' job satisfaction. However, research on why and when employee silence undermines job satisfaction remains poorly understood. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, the authors proposed and tested a moderated mediation model wherein employee silence predicted job satisfaction through vigor, with positive affectivity acting as a dispositional moderator. Design/methodology/approach Two-wave time-lagged data were collected from a sample of 183 employees in Taiwan. A moderated mediation analysis with latent variables was conducted to test the hypotheses. Findings Results indicated that employees' vigor mediated the negative relationship between employee silence and job satisfaction only for employees with low positive affectivity. Originality/value By identifying vigor as a psychological mechanism explaining the negative effect of silence on job satisfaction and positive affectivity as a buffer against the detrimental effect of silence on vigor and, indirectly, job satisfaction, the results provide a more nuanced understanding of why and when silent employees are less satisfied with their jobs.