Conceptualizing defensive silence in project-manager-to-project-sponsor communication

Coping with workplace ostracism through ability-based emotional intelligence

Purpose

With a basis in the conservation of resource (COR) theory, this study examines the relationship between workplace ostracism and job performance while also investigating the mediating role of defensive silence and the moderating role of emotional intelligence.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses a multisource, three-wave data collection technique to gather data from employees and their peers working in Pakistan's service sector organizations. Data are analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) (v 3.2.7) to assess the measurement model and the structural model.

Findings

The findings reveal that the perception of workplace ostracism provokes self-avoidance strategy, defensive silence, which attenuates job performance. However, defensive silence's mediating role is mitigated if employees can draw from their emotional intelligence ability, which induces a self-regulation mechanism that curbs workplace ostracism's negative consequences.

Practical implications

The study demonstrates how employees in collectivist, high-power distance cultural settings may strategically choose silence by exercising emotional intelligence to enhance job performance.

Originality/value

This study is one of the few efforts that examined defensive silence in non-Western cultural settings. This is also the first study that examined emotional intelligence's role in the proposed moderated mediation framework.

The effect of total quality management-enabling factors on corporate social responsibility and business performance: evidence from Vietnamese coffee firms

Purpose

This article aims to evaluate total quality management (TQM)-enabling factors' impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and business performance through evidence from Vietnamese coffee firms.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on collecting data via in-depth face-to-face interviews with employees, who are working in the Vietnamese coffee companies. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach has been employed to investigate the relationship among the TQM-enabling factors, corporate social performance (CSP) and business performance.

Findings

A total of 13 TQM-enabling factors have been identified and divided into two categories, namely human and functional. The statistical results revealed a positive signal to remarkably enhance CSP and business performance by adopting those TQM-enabling factors into Vietnamese coffee firms.

Research limitations/implications

The framework model of this research should be evaluated in different contexts worldwide or in another sector that can further identify the TQM-enabling factor and the correlation among these constructs.

Practical implications

This article provides top managers of Vietnamese coffee firms with knowledge of TQM-enabling factors that may enable them to meet superior performance, including CSP, finance and reputation.

Originality/value

This is a unique study to employ the approach into the Vietnamese coffee industry context up-to-date, which is one of the essential sectors affecting Vietnam's sustainable development.