Quiet Workaholics? The Link Between Workaholism and Employee Silence and Moral Voice as Explained by the Social-Cognitive Theory of Morality

Knoll, Michael, Fida, Roberta, Marzocchi, Ivan, Searle, Rosalind H, Connelly, Catherine E and Ronchetti, Matteo (2025) Quiet Workaholics? The Link Between Workaholism and Employee Silence and Moral Voice as Explained by the Social-Cognitive Theory of Morality. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 46 (5). pp. 745-764. ISSN 0894-3796

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Abstract

When employees engage in potentially harmful behavior, organizations and societies rely on others to voice these issues. We propose that workaholism, a way that some individuals develop to deal with and thrive in today's intense and demanding work environment, reduces these individuals' intention to engage in moral voice and increases employee silence. Drawing on social-cognitive theory of morality, we propose that this occurs because workaholism, being driven by an inner compulsion to working extensively, disengages moral self-regulation which, in turn, affects both the activation of moral behavior (i.e., voice intentions) and the inhibition of immoral behavior (i.e., employee silence). Further, based on social-cognitive theory's premise that moral behavior is jointly regulated by personal and social standards, we propose that a context that endorses this inner pressure to work (i.e., climate of self-interest) strengthens the relationship between workaholism and moral disengagement. Findings from two three-wave time-lagged studies of Italian and UK employees suggest that workaholism—but not workload—is associated with moral disengagement and indirectly with more silence and less moral voice intention. Additionally, Study 2's moderated-mediation model showed that perceived climate of self-interest moderates the relationship between workaholism and moral disengagement and revealed dimension-specific effects of workaholism.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability Statement The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	employee silence,employee voice,ethics,moral disengagement,self-interest climate,workaholism,applied psychology,sociology and political science,general psychology,organizational behavior and human resource management ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200/3202
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	19 May 2026 12:58
Last Modified:	19 May 2026 12:58
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103097
DOI:	10.1002/job.2867

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