Exploring the Relationship between Individual Cultural Values and Employee Silence
Keywords: Individual Cultural Values
Medical Laboratory Technologists
Nurses
Primary Care Paramedics
Psychological safety
Silence

This study examines the relationship between individual cultural values and employee silence among nurses, medical laboratory technologists, and primary care paramedics in Canada. The study has four parts: Part A looks at the relationship between power distance, uncertainty avoidance, quiescent silence, and acquiescent silence. It also investigates the mediating role of psychological safety, using the Sobel formula and bootstrapping techniques. Part B investigates the relationship among collectivism, long-term orientation, competition, prosocial silence, and opportunistic silence. Part C investigates how the three professions use their silence in the workplace and Part D examines their perceptions relating to power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and competition. The study comprised 378 healthcare professionals including 156 registered nurses, 115 medical laboratory technologists, and 107 primary care paramedics. Part A results indicate that, for the professions combined, uncertainty avoidance and power distance have positive relationships with acquiescent silence but not with quiescent silence. These results are not replicable for the professions separately, indicating there are differences in cultural values among nurses, medical laboratory technologists and primary care paramedics. Across the professions, psychological safety has mediating roles between uncertainty avoidance, and both acquiescent and quiescent silence. However, psychological safety has no mediating role between power distance and acquiescent or quiescent silence. For the professions separately, these results are not replicable. The relationships among collectivism, competition and long-term orientation, prosocial silence and opportunistic silence are also investigated in Part B. Collectively, the three professions show significant relationships between competition and opportunistic silence, competition and prosocial silence, and collectivism and prosocial silence. These patterns are not replicable when each profession is examined separately. In Part C, both MANOVA and latent variable means indicate significant differences in the mean cultural values among the three professions. However, latent variable means and the post hoc tests disagree on the sub-construct differences between nurses and primary care paramedics, and between medical laboratory technologists and primary care paramedics. This implies that each individual construct will not be a good predictor for all three professions. Both MANOVA and latent variable means suggest significant differences in perceptions of individual cultural values among nurses, primary care paramedics, and medical laboratory technologists in Part D. Here also, latent variable means and the post hoc tests disagree on the differences of the sub-constructs between nurses and medical laboratory technologists, and between nurses and primary care paramedics. This study has implications for healthcare administrators who will need to develop communication and reporting policies that fit these three professions, especially the medical laboratory technologists. This group exhibits a positive relationship between power distance and acquiescent silence. These employees might most benefit from a workplace that is conducive to speaking up and a leader who seriously listens and legitimizes their concerns.