Employee Ethical Silence Under Exploitative Leadership: The Roles of Work Meaningfulness and Moral Potency

Abstract Employees remaining silent about ethical aspects of work or organization-related issues, termed employee silence, perpetuates misconduct in today’s business setting. However, how and why it occurs is not yet well specified the ethics literature, which insufficient to manage corporate misconducts. In this research, we investigate when exploitative leadership associates with silence. We draw from conservation resources theory theorize test a cognitive resource pathway (i.e., meaningfulness) moral potency) explain association between Results two studies largely support our hypotheses that meaningfulness potency mediate effect on silence contingent performance reward expectancy. Theoretical practical implications are thoroughly discussed paper.