Employee Ethical Silence and Turnover Intention: Investigating the Role of Workplace Boredom and Exhaustion with Moral Disengagement

Abstract

Employee ethical silence refers to employees' intention to leave a company and their refusal to speak out about moral aspects of their duties or concerns about the organization. To control moral disengagement, the corporate ethics literature does not yet adequately explain how and why it happens. In this study, we look into the ways and times that supervisor phubbing is linked to boredom and exhaustion at work, as well as ethical silence and turnover intention. This study proposes a dual-process model to investigate how moral disengagement lowers ethical silence and turnover intention, drawing on the dual system theory for ethical behaviors. Three waves of data were gathered from 314 employees of a major Indian manufacturing company. At time 1, demographic and IV data was collected; at time 2, moderator and mediator data was collected; and at Time 3, DV data was collected. 1 month gap in each time interval started data collection on November 1, 2024, and completed on February 15, 2025. In particular, supervisor's phubbing significantly impacts workplace boredom and exhaustion. Also, the moderating impact of moral disengagement on supervisor's phubbing and workplace boredom and exhaustion. Lastly, mediating the impact of workplace boredom and exhaustion between supervisors' phubbing with ethical silence and turnover intention