The dark side of illegitimate tasks: How revenge motives and moral identity shape deviant silence

Abstract

Can illegitimate task assignments that go beyond what might be reasonably expected from employees lead to deviant silence in which employees withhold vital information to harm organizational functioning? Using stress-as-offense-to-self and retributive justice theories, our research explains how organizations produce employee silence and illuminates that employees’ revenge motives help explain the link between illegitimate tasks and deviant silence. We also propose that moral identity may serve as a boundary condition in the relationship between illegitimate tasks and deviant silence. We conduct two studies to test the hypothesized model. An experimental field study (Study 1) shows that illegitimate tasks are significantly related to deviant silence. A three-wave time-lagged study (Study 2) confirms the positive direct relationship between illegitimate tasks and deviant silence, as well as an indirect relationship through the revenge motives of employees. We argue that illegitimate tasks represent an indirect form of communicating incompetence and social devaluation and highlight how employees retaliate with a similarly covert punishment in the form of deviant silence, foregoing opportunities to improve working lives and discouraging future illegitimate task assignments. Also, we demonstrate that moral identity acts as a self-regulatory mechanism, which reduces the strength of the relationship between illegitimate tasks and deviant silence.