A research on the effect of cultural dimensions as locus of control, individualism and collectivism on employee silence

Employee silence, referring to situations ?where employees withhold ideas, opinions and worries thereof intentionally vis a vis organizational issues and problems?, is quite a common phenomenon in organizations of our day. The purpose of this study is to reveal whether any relationship exists between the silence level of academicians and some cultural factors (locus of control, and individualism- collectivism) and how cultural factors affect the silence level of academicians in case of a such relation. In addition, another objective is to find the answer to the question of whether the silence level of academicians differs according to demographic characteristics.The sample for the study consists of 140 local and foreign academics who work in state and private universities in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The data collected through standard questionnaires was evaluated using IBM?s SPSS Statistics 20 program using mean and standard deviation, frequency, independent samples t-test, One-Way ANOVA, correlation and lineer regression analysis.According to the findings there is a weak and positive correlation between the silence level of academicians and locus of control, and the locus of control variable has a positive and significant effect on the silence level of academicians. There is a weak and positive correlation between the silence level of academicians and the values of individualism, and the values of individualism have a significant and negative impact on the silence levels of academicians. There was no significant statistical relation between the values of collectivism and the silence levels of academicians. According to the results of the analysis conducted, it was established that the silence levels of academicians did not differ by age group, gender or title.