Voicing in groups: the effects of experiencing and observing workplace ostracism

Abstract

Despite a promising body of research on workplace ostracism - defined as the extent to which an individual perceives he or she is being ignored in the workplace - the effects of workplace ostracism on employee voice have been grossly ignored. Additionally, the indirect effects of workplace ostracism on third party employees - rather than the victims - have received scant attention. We propose a conceptual paper to address these gaps by focusing on first, how workplace ostracism affects the targeted individual's voice behavior in groups, and second, how the ostracism of one individual affects the remaining group members' voice behavior. We propose that workplace ostracism not only negatively impacts the target individual's voice behavior but it can also affect the voice behavior for the remaining group members as well. We contend that ostracism of a group member influences the group voice climate - shared beliefs about speaking up within workgroups - by impacting the group's beliefs of voice safety and voice efficacy. Lastly, we examine the moderating effects of group identification on the relationship between ostracism and employee voice. We hypothesize that group identification moderates the relationship between ostracism and employee voice such that higher identification with the group will strengthen the relationship between ostracism and employee voice. Conversely, the relationship between ostracism and employee voice is weakened when there is lower identification with the group.