The effect of organizational silence on emotional labor in hotels: The case of Muğla

Organizational silence refers to the situation in which an employee does not want to express this for various reasons, despite having knowledge, opinions and thoughts about organizational issues in the workplace. It is thought that individuals who exist in organizational silence and lack of communication do not have the desire to exhibit positive emotional labor behavior at the same time. Emotional labor behavior, which is frequently exhibited especially in the service sector today, is the situation in which emotions are exhibited as demanded by the enterprise as well as physical labor. Although the individual cannot express his/her ideas within the organization, he/she may have negative feelings towards the organization by keeping them inside of her/himself. Therefore, the issue of organizational silence is very important for the hotel employees who are in close contact with the customers. It is claimed that the negative consequences of organizational silence also affect the emotional labor behavior of the individual in the business. The fact that positive emotional labor behavior does not occur as a result of organizational silence due to the attitudes and behaviors of managers results in negative results for the organization. This research was conducted to determine the effect of organizational silence on emotional labor behaviorsof hotel employees. The data were collected by questionnaire technique. The universe of the research consists of the employees of the four and five star hotels in the province of Muğla. The research data were analyzed via descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analyzes, reliability analyzes, t test, and variance analyzes. Multiple regression analysis was applied to determine the impact of organizational silence and its sub-dimensions on the emotional labor and its sub-dimensions. As a result of the research, it was determined that only the level of acquiescent silence of the hotel employees was above the average level and the level of emotional labor was high. Besides, multiple regression analysis showed that the acquiescent silence dimension of organizational silence behavior positively effected on emotional labor and its dimensions of the hotel employees. The thesis was concluded by evaluation of research findings and presentations of suggestions. Keywords: Organizational Silence, Emotional Labor, Hotel Employees, Tourism.