Organizational Silence : Its Destroying Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to identify the types of Organizational Silence (OS) and its effects on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach: To assess OS, refer to (OS questionnaire, Schechtman, 2008; Brinsfield, 2009), and OCB (OCB questionnaire Podsakoff, 1990; Konovsky & Pugh, 1994; and Konovsky & Organ, 1996). Out of the 357 questionnaires that were distributed to employees, 315 usable questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 88%. Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) was used to confirm the research hypotheses. Findings: The research has found that there is significant relationship between OS and OCB. Also, the research has found that OS directly affects OCB. In other words, OS is one of the biggest barriers to OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt. Practical implications: This research pointed to the need for organizations to adopt a culture which encourages and urges employees to speak in the labor issues and the non-silence in order for the administration to be able to realize these issues and try to solve them first hand in order to prevent their aggravation. Originality/value: Silence climate has an impact on the ability of organizations to detect errors and learn. Therefore, organizational effectiveness is negatively affected. This research aims to measure the effect of OS on OCB. Based on the findings of this research, some important implications are discussed.


Introduction
The key to the success of an organization is human resources.It is impossible for organizations without qualified human resources to provide quality service, to maintain their existence in the context of competition and to adapt novelties in time.For the system of health services, human resources are also significant in providing of effective and efficient health services.In other words, human resource is the most important asset of medical establishments where humans provide services for humans.In providing health services, the focus is mental and physical capacity of this human resource.The quality of services in medical establishments is mostly determined by humans.The success of medical establishments is closely related with the phenomena such as participation of employees, their commitment to their professions and institutions and their devotion to work (Erigüç, 2012).
Organizational Silence (OS) is a reflection of many dimensions and variables within business organizations, including the reluctance of staff to submit their views and suggestions for the development of the organization, in addition to lack of interaction with the important work issues of the organization (Bogosian, 2012).OS is a phenomenon in business organizations of all types and sizes.It means that employees tend to be silent about the important issues in the organization (Slade, 2008).In today's work environment, organizations are increasingly demanding more and more from their employees such as taking initiative, speaking up and accepting responsibility.The reasons of this situation are more intensive competition, higher customer expectations and more focus on quality, indicating a constant world of change.In order to survive, organizations need employees who are responsive to the challenges of the environment, not afraid to share information and knowledge, and who can stand up for their own and their team beliefs (Vakola & Bouradas, 2005).Within this framework it is possible to say that both the OS and OCB are very important subjects for organizations to reach the desired objectives.In this context, our study focuses on the relationship between OS and OCB.The study begins by introduction.Section two presents the literature review.Section three discusses the research methodology.Section four presents the hypotheses testing.Section five explains the research findings.Research recommendations will take place at section six.Section seven handles the research implications.Limitations and future research will take place at section eight.Conclusion will be provided at the last section.

Silence
Voice is the expression of ideas, information, opinions or concerns while silence can be defined as withholding those (Brinsfield et al., 2009).
While traditional conceptualizations of silence refer to be passive behavior, not all forms of silence represent passive behavior, and all silence is not merely the opposite of voice.Silence can be active, conscious, intentional, and purposeful (Zehir & Erdogan, 2011).
Silence is described as absence of sound, absence of speech or non-exhibition of a behavior that could be understood clearly (Van Dyne et al., 2003).
Silence is most often associated with a group dynamic (Zerubavel, 2006).Silence of the employees was perceived as conformance or obeisance, today it's accepted as a reaction or pullback (Bildik, 2009).
Silence is an employee's 'motivation to withhold or express ideas, information and opinions about work-related improvements' (Donaghey, et al. 2011).

Types of Silence
There are four types of silence.They are acquiescent, defensive, prosocial, and protective.Acquiescent Silence (AS) is described as an intentionally passive silent behavior.Defensive Silence (DS) is described as deliberate omission of work related information based on fear of reprisal.Prosocial silence is withholding of work related information for the benefit of others including the organization.Protective silence is where employees can be silent and accepting about decisions of higher level management (Pinder & Harlos 2001;Van Dyne, et al., 2003;Briensfield 2009;Cakici 2010;Perlow & Repening;2009, Alparslan 2010;;Bogosian, 2012).

Acquiescent Silence
Acquiescent silence (AS) relates to occasions where employees chose not to express relevant ideas, information and opinions based on resignation which suggests disengaged behaviour (Kahn 1990).
AS is synonymous with employees who are essentially disengaged and are unwilling to take steps to enact change (Pinder & Harlos, 2001).
AS is described as an intentionally passive silent behavior.AS is withholding relevant ideas, information, or opinions, based on resignation.AS suggests disengaged behavior that is more passive than active (Van Dyne, et al. 2003).
AS is the withholding of information, views, opinions and ideas in the face of developments in the organizations.AS is a passive behavior.In the case of AS, employees approve the status quo, do not want to speak up much, and do not attempt to change the organizational circumstances.This attitude requires remaining silent purposefully and not being involved in developments.The reason that lies behind employees' failure to speak out is the belief that it will not make a difference even if they do speak out (Karacaoglu & Cingoz, 2008).

Defensive Silence
Defensive silence (DS) is based on an employee's personal fear of speaking up.This can be termed as quiescent silence (Pinder & Harlos, 2001).
DS is described as deliberate omission of work related information based on fear of reprisal.DS is intentional and proactive behavior that is intended to protect the self from external threats.In contrast to AS, DS is more proactive, involving awareness and consideration of alternatives, followed by a conscious decision to withhold ideas, information, and opinions as the best personal strategy at the moment.DS differs from the previous form in that defensive silence involves the individual weighing up the alternatives and making a conscious choice to withhold ideas information and opinions as the safest option for the individual at that point in time (Van Dyne, et al., 2003).
DS is a proactive and conscious behavior with the urge of self-protection against external threats (Karacaoglu & Cingoz, 2008).

Pro Social Silence
Prosocial silence is withholding of work related information for the benefit of others including the organization.Pro Social silence as intentional and proactive behaviour is primarily focused on others.Pro Social silence involves conscious decision making by an employee.Pro-social silence arises from a concern for others instead of fear of negative personal consequences (Korsgaard et al., 1997).Pro social silence is the refusal to express ideas information or opinions so that others in the organization might benefit from it.This silence is motivated by the desire to help others and share the duties.It is considerate and focuses on others (Podkasoff et al., 2000).
Pro-social Silence is "withholding work-related ideas, information, or opinions with the goal of benefiting other people or the organization-based on altruism or cooperative motives."This form of silence is intentional, proactive and other-oriented.In other words, primary priority of an employee who decides to remain silent is not himself but the external factors such as the organization or his colleagues (Van Dyne et.al., 2003).
Like Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), Pro-social Silence is intentional and proactive behavior that is primarily focused on others.Like OCB, Pro-social silence is discretionary behavior that can not be mandated by an organization.Like DS, Pro-social silence is based on awareness and consideration of alternatives and the conscious decision to withhold ideas, information, and opinions.In contrast to DS, Pro-social silence is motivated by concern for others, rather than by fear of negative personal consequences that might occur from speaking up (Van Dyne, et al. 2003).

Protective Silence
Protective silence is where employees can be silent and accept decisions of higher level management.One of the most important causes of silence is the good relationship between the organization and employees.Therefore, employees prefer to be silent instead of telling what is wrong in their organizations.For that reason silent employees never share their opinion to solve conflict in the organization (Morrison & Milliken, 2003;Perlow & Repenning, 2009, Alparslan 2010).

Organizational Silence
There are two important differentiating characteristics of OS.First, OS is focused on collective-level dynamics.Second, OS was on why employees intentionally choose to remain silent, rather than on why they do not choose to speak-up.OS is the hard choice made by employees within some organizations to keep their thoughts and opinions quiet and shut themselves away from company decisions (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
OS can lead to several consequences on organizations and employees.Employees believe that they are to be punished openly or discreetly when they express their opinions about organizational issues and faults.OS not only slows down organizational development but also causes several consequences such as decreasing in employees' commitment levels, causing interior conflicts, reducing decision making process, blocking change and innovation, preventing positive or negative feedbacks to the management.OS also cause an increase of behaviours such as breaking down of morale and motivations of employees, absenteeism, tardiness and releases which negatively affect individual and organizational activities.Employees, who are concerned and under stress, are increasingly involved in the swirl of silence (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).OS means the presence of a common perception among employees limiting their participation in providing their knowledge about the issues and policies of the Organization (Nennete, 2002).
OS is deliberate prevention of information and opinions by the staff of the organization (Van Dyne, et al, 2003).OS is the common choice made by organization members despite all research extolling the virtues of upward information for organizational health (Glauser, 1984;Deming, 1986;Argyris & Schon, 1978;Rodriguez 2004).OS may cause insignificance feeling, lack of control perception and cognitive in consistency (Morrison & Milliken, 2000;Vakola & Bouradas, 2005).
OS refers to the collective-level phenomenon of doing or saying very little in response to significant problems or issues facing an organization or industry because of negative reactions (Henriksen & Dayton, 2006).OS is a variable which can prevail about barriers to effectiveness, commitment and performance (Beer 2009).
OS is an inefficient organizational process that wastes cost and efforts and can take various forms, such as collection silence in meetings, low levels of participation in suggestion schemes, low levels of collective voice and so forth (Shojaie et al., 2011).
OS broadest sense materially includes any situation where the information is not transmitted from the sender to the receiver (Kostiuk, 2012).

Support of the Top Management of Silence
The role of top management is instrumental in the success of the business organizations.The availability of a high degree of confidence in the administration reduces concerns of speaking freely about the problems and issues of labor.Climate of confidence in the top management reduces the feelings of uncertainty (Weber & Weber, 2001).On the other hand, the attitudes and values of the top management may contribute greatly to the formation of a climate of silence, as some organizations prohibit employees from saying what they know or feel (Argyris, 1997).The top management practices may lead to increased levels of silence within the organization.These practices are represented in two factors (Morrission & Milliken, 2000):

Managers' Fear of Negative Feedback
The top management may be afraid of getting negative feedback information from the subordinates, as it may feel threatened as a result of this information, particularly, if they involve its members personally or their work.Because of that, those members would eschew this information, and even if it reached them they would neglect it or question the credibility of the source, believing that the feedback from the bottom may be less accurate and less legitimate (Vakola & Bouradas, 2005).

Managers' Implicit Beliefs
Silence increases when the top management is in an ivory tower prohibiting it from seeing the actual reality because of lack of access to information, or due to welcoming the good information rather than the negative ( Van, Dyne, et al, 2003).Thus, the support of top management of silence leads employees not to talk about work issues.Besides, the administration may describe employees who talk about labor issues as problem makers (Milliken, et al., 2003).

Lack of Communication Opportunities
Contact is essential to the effectiveness of any organization.It represents the transfer of information verbally or using other means for the purpose of persuasion and influencing the behavior of others.Among the most important functions of the communication process is that it provides individuals with the necessary information for the purpose of decision-making, as it represents an outlet to express feelings, opinions and trends.It is an important means to satisfy social needs of individuals (Robbins & Judge, 2013).
The more contact opportunities within the organization, the greater participation and expression of opinion on issues and problems of the work, as employees have the opportunity to make suggestions, which increase the degree of career belonging and involvement of employees (Smidts, et al., 2001).

Support of Supervisor for Silence
The relationship of supervisor's strength and stature to silence or talking can be analyzed in two ways: on the one hand, the subordinate may tend to talk more than keep silence with a strong supervisor, because this subordinate believes that the supervisor has the ability to resolve any problem or issue related to work.Here, a subordinate finds it useful to talk in the presence of a supervisor who has the powers to solve work problems within the organization (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
On the other hand, the freedom to express dissenting opinion may be restricted when working under the leadership of a supervisor with prestige and p ower, because the subordinate tends to the option of silence due to fear of the negative impact of expressing the dissent opinion (Turner & Pratkanis, 1998).
The supervisor's behavior creates a microcosm climate of silence at the level of the department where he works.Therefore, subordinates tend to silence (Spreitzer, 1996;Sugarman, 2001).
The subordinates' silence is influenced by trends and tendencies of the supervisors to silence rather than trends and tendencies of top management.Therefore, when the supervisor listens to his subordinates, they will consider him a role model, and tend to involve themselves in labor issues and talk about it (Sparrowe & Liden, 2005).
In spite of that, power and status of the supervisor can increase or decrease the silence of subordinates, but many researchers assert that subordinates are more sensitive to the risks of talking more than the benefits, in the presence of a strong supervisor (Edmondson, 1996).

Official Authority
Officialdom is the degree by which the activities carried out by employees are formed within the organization, through the adoption of several measures (Moorhead & Criffin, 2004).
Officialdom is based on the strength of the position or location in the organizational structure.Dealing follows specific orders and a bureaucrat approach through decision-making centralization, and the use of regulations to deal with the problems and issues of work.At this point, the organization lacks an effective mechanism for information feedback.This is because there are few upwards communication channels because heads believe that the views of the subordinates are unimportant and therefore tend to silence (Ashford et al., 1998).

Subordinate's Fear of Negative Reactions
The fear of the reaction may lead employees to believe that talking about work problems might deprive them of their jobs or upgrade to higher positions within the organization (Milliken, et al, 2003).

Organizational Silence Effects
OS can lead to several consequences on organizations and employees.Employees believe that they are to be punished openly or discreetly when they express their opinions about organizational issues and faults.Therefore, they avoid expressing their opinions and remain silent about organizational progress.OS not only slows down organizational development but also cause several consequences such as decreasing in employees' commitment levels, causing interior conflicts, reducing decision making process, blocking change and innovation, preventing positive or negative feedbacks to the management (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
Silence affects the decision-making process of the organization, in the sense that the quality of the decision depends on the need to have knowledge of the employees' suggestions, and vice versa.Silence negatively affects the organization in the sense that it prevents information feedback, which leads to poor ability to detect and correct errors (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
The effects of OS are not limited to the organization, as it can negatively affect the behavior of individuals working in the organization.These effects are represented in (1) the individual feeling unappreciated, as he does not contribute in earnest in the issues of the organization, reducing the importance and value of his presence (2) lack of the individual's ability to control, reducing motivations at work and participation in the issues within the organization, and (3) the individual suffering from cognitive dissonance.This is because silence makes it difficult to the individual to strike a balance between his beliefs and behaviors (Hazen, 2006).
OS leads to poor organizational learning, arguing that employees failed to talk with their superiors about the problems of work, which is often a constraint for organizational learning, because silence prevents the organization from correcting mistakes or learning from them.There is also a relationship between OS and job withdrawal, as employee's preference of silence to talking is a matter of time before making the decision of withdraw or leave (Brinsfield, 2009).
OS correlates negatively with three dimensions of organizational trust (trust in the organization, trust in leadership, trust in the supervisor).This means that the more silence means less trust (Nikolaous, et al., 2011).
There are several implications of OS, as silence is of a significant impact on individuals and the organization (Bogosian, 2012).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior
OCB is one of the most widely studied topics in organizational behavior research (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997;Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004).
OCB is very important to organizations because they need employees who will do more than their usual job duties and provide performance that is beyond expectations.OCB describe actions in which employees are willing to go above and beyond their prescribed role requirements.High levels of OCB should lead to a more efficient organization and help bring new resources into the organization (Organ, 1988).
OCB is important in organizations because it can be highly valuable to organizations and can contribute to performance and competitive advantage.OCB include actions in which employees are willing to go above and beyond their defined role requirements (Katz & Kahn, 1978).
OCB is individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system.In Organ's explanation, securing needed resources refers not only to the attraction of new members or raw materials, but also to such intangible factors as company good will, or the external image and reputation of the organization.OCB is usually understood as exerting exceptionally good behaviors for the sake of the organization and informally supporting its members (Organ, 1988).
OCB can assist organizations to develop performance and increase competitive periphery as it encourages employees to perform beyond the formal job requirement.It can assist the organization to be successful in current environment and accelerate novelty and creative approaches for organizations (Nemeth & Staw, 1989).
OCB can be classified into two groups.They are OCB-Organizational and OCB Individual.OCB-Organizational benefits the organization in general such as adhering to informal rules devised to maintain order.OCB-Individual benefits specific individuals and indirectly contributes the organization such as taking a personnel interest in other employees (Williams & Anderson, 1991).
OCB is individual behaviours that promote the good of the organization by contributing to its social and psychological environment.Such behaviours include helping another employee finish a project, providing helpful advice or suggestions, and offering positive feedback on work tasks (Podsakoff, et al., 1993).
OCB is referred to as "contextual performance" or "prosocial organizational behaviour" to emphasize the voluntary nature of the activity and to distinguish it from "task performance" or one's assigned duties (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997).OCB contributes to improved organizational effectiveness, it takes considerable amount of attention (Podsakoff & Mackenzie, 1997).
There are some features of OCB.They are (1) beneficial and informal behavior or gestures, (2) discretionary; not enforceable requirement of the role or job description, (3) not directly or explicitly recognized by formal reward system; uncompensated individual contributions in the workplace that does role requirement, and (4) enhances the effective functioning of the organizations in the aggregate (Paine & Organ, 2000).
OCB is one of the emerging management concepts that are being emphasized for the organizational effectiveness, efficiency and profitability of the organizations (Ertürk, et al. 2004).
OCB can improve co-worker and managerial productivity, provide superior efficiency in resource use and allocation, reduce managerial expenses, provide better coordination of organizational activities across individuals, groups and functional departments, improve organizational attractiveness for high quality new recruits, increase stability in the organization's performance, and enhance organizational capability to adapt effectively to environmental changes (Cohen & Vigoda, 2000;Ertürk, et al. 2004).
OCB is an extra role and behaviours such as teamwork with employees, approaching workplace earlier and leaving late, helping other employees, using organizational possessions with care, and disseminating positively in organization (Turnispeed & Rassuli, 2005).
OCB has been related to wide range of antecedents such as job satisfaction, leadership, fairness, perceived organizational support, psychological contact, and commitment (Ravichandran, et al., 2007).Organ (1988) identified five categories of OCB (1) Altruism: the helping of an individual coworker on a task, (2) Courtesy: alerting others in the organization about changes that may affect their work, (3) Conscientiousness: carrying out one's duties beyond the minimum requirements, (4) Sportsmanship: refraining from complaining about trivial matters, and (5) Civic Virtue: participating in the governance of the organization.
There are five dimensions of OCB.They are as follows (Organ, 1988;Podsakoff et al, 1990): 1. Altruism: The helping of an individual coworker on a task; voluntary actions that help a fellow employee in work related problems.

Civic virtue:
Participating in the governance of the organization; voluntary participation in, and support of, organizational functions of both a professional and social nature.
3. Conscientiousness: minimum requirements; a pattern of going well beyond minimally required role and task requirements.

Courtesy:
Alerting others in the organization about changes that may affect their work; the discretionary enactment of thoughtful and considerate behaviors that prevent work related problems for others.

Sportsmanship:
Refraining from complaining about trivial matters; a willingness to tolerate the inevitable inconveniences and impositions that result in an organization without complaining and doing so with a positive attitude.
Each dimension of OCB offers a different rationale for this relationship.Altruism or helping coworkers makes the work system more productive because one worker can utilize his or her free time to assist another on a more urgent task.
To a lesser extent, conscientious employees, as well as those who avoid personal gain or other negative behaviors, demonstrate compliance with company policies and maintain predictable, consistent work schedules, increasing the reliability of the service.As reliability increases, the costs of rework are reduced, making the unit more efficient (Berry & Parasuraman, 1991).
There are seven ways that OCB contributes to organizational superior performance.They are (1) increasing co-worker or managerial productivity, (2) releasing resources so they can be used for more productive purposes, (3) coordinating activities within and across work groups, (4) reducing the need to devote scarce resources to purely maintenance functions, (5) strengthening the organizations' ability to attract and retain the best employees, (6) increasing the stability of the organization's performance and (7) enabling the organization to adapt more effectively to environmental changes (Podsakoff, et al., 2000).

Research Model
The proposed comprehensive conceptual model is presented in Figure ( 1).The diagram below shows that there is one independent variable of OS.There is one dependent variable of OCB.It shows the rational links among the variables.The research model is as shown in the following figure.

Research Questions and Hypotheses
The research framework suggests that OS has an impact on OCB.OS as measured consisted of support of the top management of silence, lack of communication opportunities, support of supervisor for silence, official authority, and subordinate's fear of negative reactions (Schechtman, 2008;Brinsfield, 2009).OCB is measured in terms of altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, and civic virtue (Podsakoff, 1990;Konovsky & Pugh, 1994;and Konovsky & Organ, 1996).

Research Questions and Hypotheses
The researcher found the research problem through two sources.The first source is to be found in previous studies, and it turns out that there is a lack in the number of literature reviews that dealt with the analysis of the relationship between OS and OCB.This called for the researcher to test this relationship in the Egyptian environment.
The second source is the pilot study, which was conducted in an interview with (30) employees in order to identify the relationship between OS and OCB.The researcher found several indicators; notably the important and vital role that could be played by OS.As a result of the discussions given above, the research questions are as follows: Q1: What is the nature and extent of the relationship between OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
Q2: What is the nature of the relationship between OS (lack of communication opportunities) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
Q3: What is the statistically significant relationship between OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
Q4: What is the nature and extent of the relationship between OS (official authority) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
Q5: What is the nature of the relationship between OS (subordinate's fear of negative reactions) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
There are studies in literature that study OS and OCB factors separately and within the frame of bilateral relation but there is no study that examines these two factors collectively at the Egyptian environment.This study aims to contribute to the

Organizational Silence Scale
The researcher will depend on the scale developed by Schechtman, 2008;and Brinsfield, 2009 in measuring OS, which has been divided into five elements (support of the top management of silence, lack of communication opportunities, support of supervisor for silence, official authority, and subordinate's fear of negative reactions).
The 27-item scale OS section is based on Schechtman, 2008;and Brinsfield, 2009.There were five items measuring support of the top management of silence, six items measuring lack of communication opportunities, five items measuring support of supervisor for silence, five items measuring official authority, and six items measuring subordinate's fear of negative reactions.The survey form is used as the main tool for data collection in measuring OS at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.

Data Analysis
The researcher has employed the following methods: (1) Cronbach's alpha or ACC, (2) (MRA), and (3) F-test and T-test.All these tests are found in SPSS.

Evaluating Reliability
Before testing the hypotheses and research questions, the reliability of OS and OCB were assessed to reduce errors of measuring and maximizing constancy of these scales.To assess the reliability of the data, Cronbach's alpha test was conducted.
Table 3 shows the reliability results for OS and OCB.All items had alphas above 0.70 and were therefore excellent, according to Langdridge's (2004) criteria.
Regarding Table 3, the 27 items of OS are reliable because the ACC is 0.9846.Support of the top management of silence, which consists of 5 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9530.Lack of communication opportunities, which consists of 6 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9392.Furthermore, support of supervisor for silence which consists of 5 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9046.Official authority, which consists of 5 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.8814.Subordinate's fear of negative reactions, which consists of 6 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9060.Thus, the internal consistency of OS can be acceptable.
According to Table (3), the 18 items of OCB are reliable because the ACC is 0.9884.Altruism, which consists of 3 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9501.Courtesy, which consists of 3 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9916.Furthermore, sportsmanship, which consists of 3 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9524.Conscientiousness, which consists of 3 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9901.Civic virtue, which consists of 3 items, is reliable because the ACC is 0.9407.Thus, the internal consistency of OCB can be acceptable.

Correlation Analysis
The researcher calculated means and standard deviations for each variable and created a correlation matrix of all variables used in hypothesis testing.Arithmetic mean and standard deviation values related to dependent and independent variables of this study and correlation coefficients between these variables are given in Table 4.  4) proves that there is a significant and negative correlation between OS and OCB.So our hypothesis is supported and it can be said that there is a significant and negative correlation between OS and OCB.

OS (Support of the Top Management of Silence) and OCB
The relationship between OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt is determined.The first hypothesis to be tested is: There is no relationship between OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.
Table 5 proves that there is a relationship between OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB at significance level of 0,000.As a result of the value of R 2 , the 5 independent variables of support of the top management of silence can explain 22.4% of the total differentiation in OCB level.For the results of a structural analysis of the MRA, the direct effect of OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB is obtained.Because MCC is 0.474, it is concluded that there is enough empirical evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

OS (Lack of Communication Opportunities) and OCB
The relationship between OS (lack of communication opportunities) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt is determined.The second hypothesis to be tested is: There is no relationship between OS (lack of communication opportunities) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.6) proves, the MRA resulted in the R of 0.476.This means that OCB has been significantly explained by the 6 independent variables of lack of communication opportunities.
Furthermore, the R 2 of 0.226 indicates that the percentage of the variable interprets the whole model, that is, 22.6%.It is evident that the six independent variables justified 22.6% of the total factors of OCB.Hence, 77.47% are explained by the other factors.Therefore, there is enough empirical evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

OS (Support of Supervisor for Silence) and OCB
The relationship between OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt is determined.
The third hypothesis to be tested is: There is no relationship between OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.Table 7 proves that there is a relationship between OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB.As a result of the value of R 2 , the 5 independent variables of support of supervisor for silence can explain 21.9% of the total differentiation in OCB level.For the results of a structural analysis of the MRA, the direct effect of OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB is obtained.Because MCC is 0.468, there is enough empirical evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

Organizational Silence (Official Authority) and OCB
The relationship between OS (official authority) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt is determined.The fourth hypothesis to be tested is: There is no relationship between OS (official authority) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.8 proves that there is a relationship between OS (official authority) and OCB at significance level of 0,000.As a result of the value of R 2 , the 5 independent variables of official authority can explain 21.2% of the total differentiation in OCB level.
For the results of a structural analysis of the MRA, the direct effect of OS (official authority) and OCB is obtained.
Because MCC is 0.461, it is concluded that there is enough empirical evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

Organizational Silence (Subordinate's Fear of Negative Reactions) and OCB
The relationship between OS (subordinate's fear of negative reactions) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt is determined.The fifth hypothesis to be tested is: There is no relationship between OS (subordinate's fear of negative reactions) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.

Research Findings
The present study on analyzing the relationship between OS (support of the top management of silence, lack of communication opportunities, support of supervisor for silence, official authority, subordinate's fear of negative reactions) and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt revealed the following results: There is a significant relationship between OS and OCB at Teaching Hospitals in Egypt.OS plays an important role in influencing OCB.Organ (1988) developed a taxonomy of OCB that included altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue.Measures commonly used to assess the sportsmanship dimension include the items, "Is the classic 'squeaky wheel' that always needs greasing" (item reverse scored), and "Consumes a lot of time complaining about trivial matters" (Podsakoff, et al., 1990).
ES may arise due to underlying prosocial motives.It is withholding of work related ideas, information, or opinions with the goal of benefiting other people or the organization -based on altruism or cooperative motives (Van Dyne et al., 2003).
For organizations to function effectively, employees must frequently go beyond the often narrowly defined formal roles of their jobs.These types of extra-role work-related behaviors have been identified and defined in numerous ways, but in general they are prosocial work-related behaviors which are not specified in formal role prescriptions, not recognized by formal reward systems, and not a source of negative consequences when not performed by employees (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998).
There are two dimensions of OCB: altruism, which appears to assess behavior that is directly and intentionally meant to help a specific person in face-to-face situations, and generalized compliance, which refers to a more impersonal form of conscientiousness which is beneficial to general organizational systems (Smith et al., 1983;Podsakoff, et al., 2000).
Moreover, voice and related behaviors are specified in many OCB measurement items, for example: "Makes innovative suggestions to improve department" (altruism dimension; Smith et al., 1983)."Passes along information to co-workers" (OCB-Individual dimension; Williams & Anderson, 1991)."Frequently communicates to co-workers suggestions on how the group can improve" (individual initiative dimension; Moorman & Blakely, 1995)."Encourages hesitant or quiet co-workers to voice their opinions when they otherwise might not speak up" (loyal boosterism dimension; Moorman & Blakely, 1995)."Often motivates others to express their ideas and opinions" (individual initiative dimension; Moorman & Blakely, 1995)."Defends the organization when other employees criticize it" (loyal boosterism dimension; Moorman & Blakely, 1995)."Offer ideas to improve the functioning of the organization" (OCB-Other dimension; Lee & Allen, 2002).

Research Recommendations
1. Officials should work in the organization to create a culture that will encourage employees to speak, and not to keep silent regarding all critical business issues so that we can know their problems and try to resolve them.
2. The need to increase attention and action on the coherence of the Organization group, as well as the professional commitment and procedural justice because of its inverse relationship to silent workers.It has been found that the more these variables exit, the less workers keep silent.
3. The need for increased attention on the part of senior management to support the exchange of information and ideas with employees in the organization process because its significant correlation effect is obvious to silence workers.The civil servant who feels that his heads do not care about his views would be more silent.
4. Notes from the results of the study also showed significant correlation between the extent of adoption of the supervisors of the behavior of silence and silent workers.This means that supervisors ought to pay due attention to the opinions and suggestions of subordinates so that the behavior of silence regarding many of the important issues in the organization may decline.
5. Paying attention to officials in the organization, including the development of effective communication channels between workers, as well as transferring their knowledge and skills to those responsible for decision-making.This is reflected in increased confidence of senior management personnel lowering their silence about the critical issues in the organization.
6. Preparation and training of administrative leaders, as the training is the mainstay of administrative development.
Hence, managers should provide an opportunity for subordinates to participate in matters relating to their work and listen to and study their views, desires, needs and then execute the good ones.There is a need for continuous encouragement to them for the good work and giving them more confidence about the effective performance.Heads should pay attention to each new initiative of the workers and convince them with the interest and desire of the administration in innovation and continuous improvement in the ways and methods of work.It gives them the opportunity to participate in the administration as a kind of stimulus, encouraging participation and innovation through involvement in setting goals of the organization, the decision-making process, and determining the stage of their participation.
7. Improving leadership patterns requires a scientific approach to stimulate the administrative leaders for continual good performance.This requires adopting modern systems of management, such as management by goals which achieves flexibility and freedom in performance besides saving management time in the planning and follow-up of work.Add to this development of subordinates who are the second row capable of leadership.This is one of the important results.
8. Encouraging personal initiative of the workers by offering rewards and incentives for new ideas that contribute to the treatment of problems of the organization and help in its development.
9. Formation of specialized committees to study the proposals and issues that relate to subordinates and commitment to their recommendations.
10. Promote open-door policy by opening channels of communication to the subordinates to communicate their ideas to their heads, either through personal meetings, suggestion funds or regular meetings, as well as facilitating communication with higher heads in case direct head does not respond.

Research Implications
The findings of the study should contribute to managers and practitioners becoming more aware of ES.In addition, management should encourage employees to express their relevant ideas, information and opinions.
The ambiguity of the role or tasks of the employee leads to role conflict, which contributes to an increasing climate of silence.
Therefore, the clarity of the role and duties of the employee lead to a sense of employee comfort and some kind of harmony or balance between the formal role and the role expected, which helps reduce OS (Deci, et al., 1989).
The nature of silence behavior makes it difficult to break.This may be due to the fact that OS may be a result of lack of confidence in the organization.
It may be difficult to restore that trust in a short period of time.This is because breaking silence and transition from a climate of silence to one that encourages talking may need a revolutionary or radical change of system (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
Silence climate has an impact on the ability of an organizations to detect errors and learn.Therefore, organizational effectiveness is negatively affected.ES behaviour can also create stress, cynicism, and dissatisfaction (Tamuz, 2001).
Breaking silence needs a vision which can provide a climate that helps in engagement and talking.Silence can be overcome through (1) encouraging employees to talk about work issues and choosing the appropriate time for that, (2) increasing employees' exchange and circulation of new ideas, (3) coordination between different departments and divisions within the organization, (4) provision of good channels of communication between the employees within the organization, (5) paying attention to the moral of the employees within the organization, (6) provision of organizational support for the exchange of ideas associated to labor issues, and (7) encouraging employees to creative thinking within the organization (Piderit & Ashford, 2003).
Another way of breaking silence would be through the keenness of the leaders of organizations to fight or prevent any impediments to the transfer or exchange of upwards information relating to problems and issues of work (Edmondson, 2003).
Top managers and supervisors have to create a workplace where employees will feel safe to express their views and will be encouraged to offer their ideas and suggestions.
Therefore, top managers and supervisors should develop attitudes and engage in behaviours that would create a psychologically safety net for their employees.(Vakola & Bouradas, 2005).
There are some tools that can be used for the purpose of breaking OS.They are (1) the need to motivate employees to talk and provide their opinions and suggestions about work problems, (2) developing effective communication channels which support exchange and transfer of ideas and information, and (3) the need to employ and attract talented employees, especially those who have high levels of organizational commitment.This is because these employees have a high tendency to speak and participate in labor issues.Thus, OS can be reduced or faced focusing on the selection and retention of this distinctive quality of the staff (Vakola & Bouradas, 2005).
Finally, employees are regarded as major sources of change, creativity, learning, and innovation, which are critical factors to the success of organizations.However, many employees choose not to voice their opinions and concerns about matters in their organizations.Employees choose organizations in which they can express themselves.How to break silence culture and establish a free climate to encourage employees' voice are big challenges to be faced by managers (Liu, et al. 2009).

Limitations and Future Research
There are some limitations of this study.They are (1) data was gathered from one private sector in Egypt.Therefore, the findings of this research need to be evaluated with this in mind.The survey answers are related to the perception of employees at that moment, (2) the respondents were unwilling to answer the questionnaires accurately.Therefore, before distributing questionnaires among respondents, we attempted to describe the positive effects of the results of this research on their work-life quality and satisfying their needs, (3) the current study is about cause and effect relationship among research variables; maybe there are other factors that affect research variables, which need to be identified.
Although the current research has contributed to the study of the determinants of silence, the field is still open to continue and complete research in this area.There are several areas for future research.They are (1) identifying factors that affect ES (2) identifying the effects of ES on job satisfaction and organizational commitment (3) identifying the effects of leadership style on ES, (4) identifying the effects of demographic variables on ES, (5) identifying the relationship between organizational culture and OS, (6) identifying the relationship between organizational success and OS, (7) identifying the relationship between organizational excellence and OS, (8) silence motivations (defensive silence, relations supportive silence, de facto silence, the silence of negligence) in service organizations, (9) the relationship between silence and organizational justice within business organizations, (10) comparing determinants of silence in the production and service organizations, and (11) the relationship between the determinants of OS and work involvement.

Conclusion
This study attempted to find out the relationship between OS and OCB.In present day, there are many threats for organizations in competitive business environment.To survive longer, organizations have to utilize their human resources especially in terms of using their unknown potentials.Voice is a way to obtain individuals' valuable thoughts and ideas which might contribution to the objectives of organization.On the other hand, employees' over efforts not mentioned officially are very important to achieve strategic goals and take advantages in the market.
The study proved that there is a strong and negative relationship between OS and OCB.This means, if employees are not allowed to express their ideas related to work, their OCB level decreases.Thus, the organization loses new ideas, thoughts, creative solutions and employees' effort more than usual job duties which might be very beneficial to the organization.It can be recommended that organizations should support and create an organizational climate in which employees are able to talk.

Table 3 .
Reliability of OS and OCB

Table 4 .
Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix of ConstructsBased on Table (4), the first issue examined was the different facets of OS.Among the various facets of OS, those who responded identified the presence of official authority (M=3.49,SD=0.824).This was followed by lack of communication opportunities (M=3.46,SD=0.888),support of supervisor for silence (M=3.41,SD=0.879),support of the top management of silence (M=3.36,SD=0.945),andsubordinate's fear of negative reactions (M=3.35,SD=0.855).The second issue examined was the different facets of OCB (altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, and civic virtue).Most of the respondents identified the overall OCB (M=3.26,SD=1.346).According to Table (4), OS dimensions have negative and significant relation with OCB dimensions.The correlation between OS (support of the top management of silence) and OCB is 0.291.For OS (lack of communication opportunities) and OCB, the value is 0.255 whereas OS (support of supervisor for silence) and OCB show correlation value of 0.272.For OS (official authority) and OCB, the value is 0.258 whereas OS (subordinate's fear of negative reactions) and OCB show correlation value of 0.237.Finally, Table( According to Table4, the reasons of the employees' remain silent was generated according to the respondents' answers to determine what reasons affect employees to remain silent at work.Reasons were grouped under five factors.They are (1) support of the top management of silence, (2) lack of communication opportunities, (3) support of supervisor for silence, (4) official authority, and (5) subordinate's fear of negative reactions.

Table 5 .
MRA Results for OS (Support of the top Management of Silence) and OCB

Table 6 .
MRA Results for OS (Lack of Communication Opportunities) and OCB

Table 7 .
MRA Results for OS (Support of Supervisor for Silence) and OCB

Table 8 .
MRA Results for OS (Official Authority) and OCB

Table 9 .
MRA Results for OS (Subordinate's Fear of Negative Reactions) and OCB ) proves, the MRA resulted in the R of 0.443.This means that OCB has been significantly explained by the 6 independent variables of subordinate's fear of negative reactions.Furthermore, the R 2 of 0.196 indicates that the percentage of the variable interprets the whole model, that is, 19.6%.It is evident that the six independent variables justified 19.6% of the total factors of OCB.Hence, 80.4% are explained by the other factors.Therefore, there is enough empirical evidence to reject the null hypothesis.