• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.205-231
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• 2024

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between workplace bullying and defensive silence/acquiescent silence, and to examine a mediation model of job burnout. Design/methodolgy/approach - The survey questionnaires were distributed to 974 employees of a public R&D institute, financial industry, and public officials in Daejeon and Chungnam, and a total of 322 surveys were collected. 288 valid responses were used for the final data analysis using SPSS 21.0 and Amos 22.0. Descriptive statistics were used to identify demographic characteristics of the sample. Reliability analysis of the measurement was conducted using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to check the validity of the measurement. Hierarchical regressions were used to examine the relationship between the variables including the moderating effect of job calling. The mediating effect of job burnout and the moderated mediation effect of job calling was analyzed using bootstrapping with PROCESS Macro installed on SPSS 21.0. Findings - The findings of the study are as follows: First, workplace bullying had a significant positive effect on both defensive silence and acquiescent silence. Second, workplace bullying had a significant positive effect on job burnout. Third, job burnout had a significant positive effect on both defensive silence and acquiescent silence. Fourth, job burnout significantly mediated the relationship between workplace bullying and defensive silence, and between workplace bullying and acquiescent silence. Research implications or Originality - The results of this study show that workplace bullying is an important variable that must be managed, because workplace bullying leads to job burnout that can hinder the performance improvement and innovation activities of the organization, which in turn leads to organizational silence. On the other hand, in the research model, the job calling was used as a moderating variable to alleviate the positive effect of workplace bullying and job burnout on the defensive and acquiescent silence, but there was no significant moderating effect. In addition to the job calling, which is the moderating variable used in this study, it is judged that it is necessary to consider specific measures to prevent members from reaching job burnout and reduce silent behavior by investing appropriate job resources such as supporting colleagues, supervisors and leadership in the workplace.