How Voice and Silence Develop in Newcomers: A Four-Wave Organizational Socialization Perspective

We develop and test a dynamic perspective into the ways in which voice behavior and employee silence develop in organizational newcomers. Unlike prior cross-sectional research, we focus on the differences in changes of voice behavior—distinguishing between promotive and prohibitive voice behavior—and employee silence. We suggest that these changes in employee voice and silence depend on the degree to which organizational newcomers understand and adjust to organizational norms, goals, and values (i.e., organizational socialization). We draw from multiple goal pursuit theory to substantiate our hypotheses which we test on 198 organizational newcomers across four waves of data. Using random coefficient growth models, we find employee voice and silence to develop along relatively independent trajectories and provide partial evidence for the influence of organizational socialization on these changes in newcomer behavior. Implications for theory and practice are discussed