Abstract:
In today’s dynamic apparel industry, interpersonal relationships significantly influence employee
behavior and organizational outcomes. This study investigates how workplace ostracism influences
different forms of employee silence, such as acquiescence, defensive, and prosocial, and examines
whether this impact is moderated by Negative Reciprocity Beliefs (NRBs). Drawing on the
Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we argue that ostracized employees, perceiving a threat to
their psychological and social resources, may withdraw their input to conserve energy and protect
themselves. Employees with high NRBs are particularly inclined to respond to exclusion with
retaliatory silence. Using a time-lagged survey design, data were collected from 241 lower-level
employees through convenience sampling across five apparel organizations in Northern Sri Lanka.
Workplace ostracism, NRBs, and employee silence were measured using validated scales. Results from
hierarchical regression analyses showed that workplace ostracism significantly predicted both
acquiescence silence (β = 0.46, p < .001) and defensive silence (β = 0.49, p < .001), while its effect on
prosocial silence was nonsignificant (β = 0.04, p = .409). Moreover, NRBs significantly moderated the
impact between workplace ostracism and both acquiescence silence (β = 0.19, p < .01) and defensive
silence (β = 0.22, p < .001), but not prosocial silence (β = 0.02, p = .549). These findings suggest that
employee silence is a coping response to ostracism, especially among individuals with strong retaliatory
beliefs. While this study contributes to understanding interpersonal dynamics, its reliance on self-report
data restricts causal interpretations. Future research could explore multi-source designs to further
unpack these dynamics across different cultural and industrial contexts.
