Perceived Influence of Employees’ Behavioral Silence on Organizational Commitment among Employees of Selected Retail Firms in Lagos Metropolis

Abstract

Organizational commitment accounts for the degree of employees’ willingness to lend their voices and share creative suggestions, ideas, and concerns about organizational concerns. Due to this incontrovertible assertion, this study examined employees’ silence behavior and organizational commitment. Social exchange theory served as the theoretical foundation of the study. A descriptive and survey research design was adopted for a population of the study is two hundred and five (205) and the Krejcie and Morgan sample size formula was employed in deriving a sampling frame of ninety-four (94) respondents at a 95% level of significance and 0,.5 rate of error. Results from the correlation coefficients indicated that a positive but weak relationship was found between acquiescent silence and affective commitment with (r=0.158, p-value<0.05), quiescent silence and continuance commitment (r = 0.277, p-value<0.05), pro-social normative commitment (r=0.052, p-value<0.05). The study concluded that employees, who are committed to their jobs, will not withhold valuable suggestions and opinions that could improve the organization. However, it was recommended that the management of the selected retail firms establish a framework that can help boost the morale of employees to make them speak up in work-related matters; this will help increase their organizational pride and positively intensify their organizational citizenship behavior to the organization.