3 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers 1 Received: 29th September 2020; revised: 3rd December 2020; accepted: 23th December 2020 Silence in Aviation: Development and Validation of a Tool to Measure Reasons for Aircraft Maintenance Staff not Reporting Ilker UNDER 1 , Ender GEREDE 2 1 Anadolu University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Eskisehir, Turkey, ilkerundr@gmail.com (corresponding author) 2 Eskisehir Technical University, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Eskisehir, Turkey egerede@eskisehir.edu.tr Background and purpose: Organizational silence, seen as the greatest obstacle to the success of organizations and expressed as a refraining from expressing feelings, and ideas about problems encountered in their organi- zations, is identified as the avoidance of voluntary reporting in aviation organizations. The main purpose of this research is to identify and develop a tool to measure the various reasons for aviation employees’ remaining silent about the unsafe acts and events they witness, and the factors causing them to refrain from adopting safety en- hancement proposals. Methodology: Within the scope of the study, a data collection tool was developed. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis of the data obtained from 483 employees was conducted to test the reasons for not reporting volun- tarily in aviation. Results: As a result, it was found that employees did not participate in voluntary reporting due to factors of silence based on relational and prosocial factors, disengagement, quiescence and acquiescence, along with fear and defen- siveness. Conclusion: Accordingly, organizations need to acknowledge and act with the awareness that organizational silence is a common phenomenon. The importance of voluntary reporting should be explained to employees at every oppor- tunity and the number of quality voluntary reports should be increased. However, this should go beyond the simple slogans of ‘Safety comes first in this workplace’ or ‘Safety first’ hanging on the wall of every organization. Keywords: Organizational silence, Reporting, Safety management system, Aircraft maintenance DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0001 1 Introduction Many aviation regulations are in place for the safe operation of air transport activity located at the center of the civil aviation system because air transportation offers many benefits, especially in the economic and socio-cul- tural areas (IHLG, 2019). However, the expected benefits of air transportation depend on the safe operation of air transportation procedures (Doganis, 2002). How can aviation safety be improved? There are cer- tainly many different answers to this question, but all of these answers require information that can be used to in- crease safety. The new generation safety management ap- proaches assert that employees’ experience, knowledge, opinions, suggestions, and predictions have to be drawn upon to obtain information towards enhancing safety 4 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers (Jausan et al., 2017). To make such an approach work, the voices of employees are necessary (Chen, 2017). It is underlined that if such voices are scarce or absent (Morri- son and Milliken, 2000) it would be very difficult to im- prove safety because safety data and information cannot be obtained (Bienefeld and Grote, 2012). In this case, it is important to identify factors that reduce the voices of em- ployees and even remove them altogether. Managers and civil aviation authorities who are striving to increase avi- ation safety spend great effort to identify and remove the reasons for organizational silence. For aviation safety, the most important voice for employees is voluntary reporting and, without it, any new generation of safety management approaches is destined to fail (Gerede, 2015a; Jausan et al., 2017) Despite the fact that organizational or employee silence has recently been among the topics frequently discussed in management literature, the number of studies in which this subject is discussed, within the context of aviation, has unfortunately, been limited. This studies have focused on reasons for flight personnel to remain silent (Bienefeld and Grote,2012), cockpit interpersonal dynamics (Milan- ovich et al. 1998) and the source of motivation for cabin staff voicing their safety concern (Chen, 2017). While it is thought that employees do remain silent and avoid volun- tary reporting by not expressing safety hazards, not pro- viding information about unsafe incidents, and not mak- ing risk mitigation proposals that are all essential for an increase of safety, yet there is no a reliable and valid tool in the literature to measure the reasons aviation employees not reporting. Despite the criticality of voluntary reporting on safety performance, little is known about why aviation employees remain silent. In response to such research gaps, this research is aimed find the reasons behind reporting failure behaviour, which is viewed as organizational silence, of the mainte- nance personnel of airline companies and the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Organizations (MROs) in Turkey and develop a tool to measure that. Voluntary reporting covers factors that may create unsafe conditions, such as hazards and incidents that cause such incidents, their pos- sible consequences, the probability and severity of these consequences, and risk mitigation measures. In this study, organizational silence is defined as remaining silent even though these issues are known, seen or observed. 2 Literature Review 2.1 The Relationship between Safety Management and Voluntary Reporting The performance-based approach sees and evaluates the world as it is, which is contrary to the traditional safety management approach that views the world as it should be (Reason, 2008). It places people in the center of the sys- tem by acknowledging that people and organizations can make errors and violate rules, and that risks cannot be to- tally eliminated (Karanikas & Chionis, 2019). As stressed by Reason (2008), human errors are inevitable and it is necessary to have systems to counter and capture them by ‘voluntary reporting’ in a ‘just culture’ environment. The key to this approach is that the organization proactively enhances its safety performance through real-life condi- tions by way of organizational learning, and finding and solving implicit organizational problems that arise in its own context (Gerede, 2015b). For this, the organization certainly needs safety data and knowledge from its own context. On the other hand we think that the shift from a culture of compliance based approach to a performance based approach may have some difficulties for some in- spectors. The management tools that apply to the perfor- mance-based approach are the State Safety Program (SSP) and the Safety Management System. The ICAO, which published its last comprehensive regulation (Annex-18) in 1984, published Annex-19 concerning ‘Safety Man- agement’ on November 14, 2013, 29 years later. With Annex-19, the ICAO makes it compulsory for states to implement the SSP, and the aviation organizations to im- plement the SMS (ICAO, 2013a). It is necessary to have a timely, accurate and rich safety data set so that the SMS can be successfully implemented and safety performance improved (Gerede, 2015a). The most important source of rich and qualified data that the SMS needs is employees (Liao, 2015). V olun- tary reporting is the process by which employees volun- tarily report safety hazards, human error and violations, incidents and their causes, and risk mitigating proposals to relevant units of the organization in order to increase safety (ICAO, 2013b). V oluntary reporting is feedback that members of the organization voluntarily provide, without any legal obligation or management pressure (FAA, 2020; SkyBrary, 2020). Mandatory reporting includes unsafe events that are required by the civil aviation authority to be notified compulsorily by service providers. The specific procedure regarding how to report about the who, what, and how questions in mandatory reporting is explained in detail by the ICAO (2013b). Civil aviation authorities, for example, are required to report accidents, near air misses, and fires during flight (Wood, 2003). New generation per - formance-based safety management tools cannot succeed without safety data and information; in other words, with- out voluntary reporting. For this reason, the ICAO requires relevant civil aviation authorities to use the voluntary re- porting system (ICAO, 2013b). Such data and informa- tion provide proactivity in safety management, making it possible to identify specific contextual issues of aviation organization and to make successful predictions about fu- ture safety performance (Jausan, et al., 2017). As a result, 5 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers voluntary reporting has the potential to produce valuable information to increase safety. In addition, being informed about incidents that do not produce serious consequences, but which are caused by the presence of safety hazards, can also produce useful in- formation, since factors that are present in the organization regarding such incidents threaten safety, but fail to produce significant results (Liao, 2015). In other words, accidents that produce serious negative consequences and factors that cause unsafe incidents of low importance are, in fact, the same. The only difference being the degree of negativ- ity in the outcome of the event. For this reason, having in- formation about incidents with low-priority consequences is also crucial to the improvement of safety (FAA, 2018). However, incidents that are thought to have had no se- rious consequences are not reported (Reason, 1997). Avi- ation organizations’ awareness of accidents, of incidents that threaten safety, and of the factors that cause such in- cidents, is vital for the prevention of future unsafe events by taking lessons from the past. Such data and information in aviation activities can be obtained through voluntary re- porting by employees (ICAO, 2013b). 2.2 Silence and the Concept of Organizational Silence Silence is defined as the conscious concealment of knowledge, suggestions, thoughts, and anxiety by an in- dividual about his/her job or organization (Morrison and Milliken, 2000; Tangirala and Ramanujam, 2008). Employees have to make decisions regarding the ex- plaining of their thoughts and concerns about their organ- ization or remaining silent (Kıcır, 2018). However, it is generally observed that employees often keep information that may be valuable to an organization to themselves be- cause they think it is safer for them not to speak, and thus they prefer to remain silent (Morrison and Milliken, 2000). This deprives decision-makers of the organization of this information when making decisions (Morrison, 2011). The phenomenon of silence can occur, not only at an individual level, but also at a group or organizational level. Silence has a contagious nature that starts at the level of individu- als and then spreads to the group or organization, ending up with organizational silence (Brinsfield et al., 2009). However, research has shown that organizational si- lence can degrade performance, create a potential barri- er to development and innovation, and can have negative consequences at the individual/organizational level (Mil- liken, et al., 2003; Pope, 2019). Organizations use a number of mechanisms to en- courage employees not to remain silent and to have them point out problems or suggest solutions to these problems. This mechanism for safety in aviation organizations is the voluntary reporting system. In other words, voluntary re- porting is a written feedback tool that employees use to communicate. Employees in aviation organizations can voluntarily report incidents, unsafe acts, circumstances, conditions and the factors that cause them, and risk mit- igation measures to be used to increase safety. However, employees prefer to remain silent by not participating in voluntary reporting, which is an important data source in assuring safety for various reasons and for taking neces- sary preventive measures (Kongsvik, et al., 2012). In this study, silent behavior is considered as not reporting vol- untarily. 2.2.1 Types of employee silent behavior There are variations in employee silence classifica- tions based on employee behavior (Morrison and Milliken, 2000; Pinder and Harlos, 2001; Dyne et al., 2003). First examined by Pinder and Harlos (2001), employee silence is characterized by four different types of silence behavior (Dyne et al., 2003; Morrison and Milliken, 2000; Brins- field, 2013), which will be further elaborated on below. On the other hand, Brinsfield (2013) has added a new di- mension to previously revealed dimensions of employee silence; relational silence. Morrison and Milliken (2000) argue that a climate of silence emerges when employees in organizations think that it is not worth the effort to talk about problems. In organizations where a climate of silence is dominant, em- ployees think that their opinions will not be taken into consideration when they express a problem or idea, that their reports will not lead to change, and that the effort they are putting into express their thoughts is wasted; thus, they choose to remain silent (Dyne, et al., 2003). Employees who internalize the assumption that their ideas will not be considered ignore the desire to make a declaration by ac- cepting that they will not be able to change this situation by their own efforts, remain disengaged to making any re- ports and prefer to accept without objection (Pinder and Harlos, 2001). Therefore, employees remain unconcerned about their organization’s problems, which is reflected on the negative outcomes of the organization (Morrison and Milliken, 2000). Underpinning another type of silent behavior is fear (Brinsfield, 2013). Propounded by Pinder and Harlos (2001) for the first time, this type of silent behavior is de- fined as employees remaining deliberately silent fearing being made being subject to consequences if they speak out. Based on silence, there is a fear of encountering neg- ative consequences, such as punishment or even dismissal from the workplace (Morrison and Milliken, 2000; Kıcır, 2018). Dyne et al. (2003) argue that such silent behavior results from a wish on the part of employees to protect themselves from any possible harm. The prosocial silence associated with organization- al citizenship behavior is consciously concealed by em- ployees thinking that they will harm their colleagues or 6 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers their organizations if they share thoughts, knowledge, and opinions about any issue within the organization (Dyne et al., 2003). In this kind of silence behavior, rather than being afraid of suffering personal harm, the employee is concerned that his/her colleagues may face negative out- comes if s/he speaks. Underlying such concealment by the employee is his/her wish to participate in some sort of co-operation with co-workers and thus, acts altruistically, without expecting anything in return (Dyne et al., 2003). Employees exhibiting this kind of behavior remain silent to protect the interests of their organizations or colleagues. Employees prefer to remain silent if they think that their relationships will be harmed if they talk (Brinsfield, 2013). The first of such relationships is the one with man- agers. Employees do not want their relationship with their managers to be harmed, worrying that they will lose man- agerial support, or that their managers will impose vari- ous sanctions on them (Perlow and Williams, 2003). The second type of relationship is the one established with co-workers. When employees do not remain silent and speak out, they are afraid that they will be stigmatized by their co-workers as a whistleblower, troublemaker, spoil- sport, killjoy, or complainer. Thinking that such percep- tions would harm their relationships with their co-workers, they prefer to remain silent. Employees do not want to de- stroy good relationships with their colleagues (Milliken et al., 2003). In fact, employees do not talk about issues that have the potential to harm their managers or colleagues or about issues that they would not be pleased to hear them- selves (Perlow and Williams, 2003) 3 Method 3.1 Population and Sample The population of this study is composed of all the technicians, engineers, managers and maintenance plan- ners working in aircraft maintenance organizations and aircraft maintenance units of airlines operating throughout Turkey. The main reason for choosing this study popula- tion is that maintenance personnel play a key role in ensur- ing safety, since the success of aircraft maintenance activ- ities directly affects aviation safety. Another reason is that aircraft maintenance activities are extremely comprehen- sive, sophisticated and complex. For this reason, there are many data types and much information to be reported. If data and information subject to reporting are not reported due to silence, maintenance activities create a rich source of data for this study. Convenience and snowball samplings are methods used in the study. In order to ensure the anonymity of the aircraft maintenance staff in the research population, and to encourage them to participate in the survey, no data was collected about the companies they were working for. 3.2 Data Collection The researchers themselves developed the data col- lection tool. In order to create the item pool, the related scales were first reviewed. In addition, the views of acade- micians, recognized experts in organizational behavior and aviation safety, were consulted. As a result, an item pool of 53 items was obtained. After this, expert opinion was sought for content validity. At this stage, assistance was provided by academic staff specialising in organizational behavior, aviation safety and scale development. Between 5 January and 11 March, 2016, a total of seven experts, in- cluding three organizational behavior specialists, three avi- ation safety experts and one measurement and evaluation expert, was consulted through the Expert Opinion Form. For each item on this form, the experts were asked to high- light one of the following options; appropriate (keep in the data collection tool), inappropriate (remove from the data collection tool), and revision necessary (keep in the data collection tool following revision). In the case of choos- ing the ‘inappropriate’ option, the experts were asked to state their reason for so doing. The items on which the ex- perts agreed were retained in the data collection tool, those identified for removal were dropped, and those requiring revision were revised accordingly. Finally, a 43-item data collection tool was created. A 5-point Likert-type scale was used for data collection. To ensure the face validity of the data collection tool, the survey was piloted face-to-face with five aircraft main- tenance technicians. Between 17 March and 18 April, 2016, this survey was distributed in person and via email to 1000 people using convenience sampling, with 571 of these responding. As a result, a total of 483 surveys are included in the analysis. To digitize and record the survey data, an EXCEL program was utilised. The data was then transferred into SPSS for Windows 15.0 (Statistical Pack- age for Social Sciences) and LISREL 9.1 (Linear Structur- al Relations) programs. 4 Results 4.1 Sample Characteristics Table 1 shows the demographic information of the par- ticipants. A total of 483 participants in this study. When the ages of those participating in the study are examined, it can be seen that the ratio of participants in the age group of 35 and above constitutes 31% of the total participants. When the various lengths of the participants’ occupational experience are considered, it can be seen that 50% have worked for longer than five years. When the participants’ age and professional experience are considered together, participants working in aircraft maintenance can be con- sidered as experienced. It is noteworthy that, considering 7 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers their level of education, 72,3% of the participants are edu- cated to at least an undergraduate level. On the other hand, 174 of the participants are Certify- ing Staff (CS) maintenance technicians, followed by 109 non-CS maintenance technicians. Regarding their work units, 244 employees are employed in line maintenance and 164 work in base maintenance. 4.2 Reliability Analysis Reliability analysis is defined as the degree to which a data collection tool produces consistent results or achieves the same results under the same conditions (Field, 2009). For this purpose, a reliability analysis was performed ac- cording to the answers provided for the 43 Likert type questions in the study. The reliability coefficient (Cron- bach’s Alpha coefficient of the whole scale = .96, relational and prosocial silence .91, disengaged silence .81, quies- cence and acquiescence silence .84 and fear and defensive silence .80), which was calculated for the sub-dimensions of the survey and for the whole, shows that the results have a high level of reliability. Measurements with high reliabil- ity produce observable results that are close to real results (Punch, 2005). Table 1: Demographic and Occupational Characteristics Variables n % Variables n % Age Gender 34 and younger 312 69.6 Female 19 3.9 35-44 83 18.6 Male 459 95 45+ 53 10.8 No response 5 1.1 No response 35 7.2 Total 483 100.0 Total 483 100.0 Level of Education Status of Occupation High School 72 14.9 Unemployed 6 1.2 Associate 54 11.2 Employed in Civil Aviation 470 97.4 Bachelor’s 295 61.1 No response 7 1.4 Postgraduate 54 11.2 Total 483 100.0 No response 8 1.7 Total 483 100.0 Maintenance position Maintenance unit CS Maintenance Technician 174 36.0 Line Maintenance 244 50.5 Non-CS Maintenance Technician 109 22.6 Hangar Maintenance 164 33.9 Assistant Technician 101 20.9 Engineering Department 20 4.1 Engineer 28 5.8 Production/ Maintenance Planning 12 2.5 Other* 51 10.6 Other** 28 5.9 No response 20 4.1 No response 15 3.1 Total 483 100.0 Total 483 100.0 Professional experience Experience in the current organization 5 years or less 231 51.6 5 years or less 318 65.6 5-10 years 99 22.1 5-10 years 71 14.7 10-20 years 66 14.7 10-20 years 38 8.1 20+ years 52 11.6 20+ years 6 1.2 No response 35 0.6 No response 50 10.4 Total 483 100.0 Total 433 100.0 *Component technicians, managers and warehouse staff. **Workshops and warehouses. 8 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers 4.3 Factor Analysis The first analytical goal in the study is to determine the factor structure by performing an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). 4.3.1 Exploratory factor analysis Before starting an EFA, certain basic concepts need to be questioned in order to be able to minimize problems that may arise and to test the suitability of the data set for the EFA (Field, 2009). As such, a number of key elements that require correct attention are sample size, Kaiser-Mey- er-Olkin (KMO) and the Bartlett Test, and correlation ma- trix. There are various views about an ideal sample size (Hair et al., 2010, Field, 2009). There are 43 items in this study. Considering the most conservative researchers in determining the size of the sample, 430 participants need to be accessed. The fact that we reached 483 participants in our study indicates that our sample size is sufficient. To determine the adequacy of the data set for an EFA, KMO and Bartlett test analyses were conducted. The KMO test result was found to be 0,923, and KMO>0,90 can be interpreted as the perfect result. The Bartlett test was also significant (Sig. = 0,001 < α = 0,05). The high correlation between the variables and the obtained values indicate that the data set is adequate for a factor analysis. Different methods are used to determine the number of factors. The most commonly used method is Kaiser cri- terion. The Eigenvalue is based on continuing with factors greater than 1 (Kaiser, 1970). Another method is the scree plot graph. This graph determines the number of factors more successfully than the Kaiser criterion (Field, 2009; Thompson, 2004). In order to obtain the best possible factor structure, more than one analysis was performed considering various criteria. Finally, it was decided that the number of factors should be four. This also coincides with the number of fac- tors expected from the theoretical explanation of the data collection tool reported in the relevant literature. According to the factor analysis, it appears that the items are grouped under four different dimensions. When items are evaluated in terms of not meeting the level of acceptance and factor loadings, certain items are clearly in line with other items and some items cannot meet the ac- ceptance level for the factor load value. According to this, it can be said that these items do not sufficiently contribute to explain the variance of the latent variable (Netemeyer, et al., 2003). Therefore, the mentioned items are excluded from the analysis. The appropriateness of the data set to the factor anal- ysis needs to be tested after each procedure. For this pur- pose, KMO and Bartlett tests were performed again. A new factor analysis was performed following the removal of overlapping and low factor loadings. Starting with 43 items, the final version of the data collection tool included a total of 25 items after dropping 18 items based on the factor analyses. Table 2 shows the values of the rotated factor analysis obtained after item removal. Table 2: KMO and Bartlett Test Results KMO and Bartlett Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy ,922 Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Chi-square 5607,065 Degree of freedom (df) 300 Significance ,000 Table 3: Total Variance Explained Factors Initial Eigenvalues Rotated Squared Weights Total Rotation Squared Weights Total Total Variance % Cumulative % Total Variance % Cumulative % Total Variance % Cumulative % 1 10.104 40.416 40.416 10.104 40.416 40.416 4.973 19.892 19.892 2 1.955 7.818 48.235 1.955 7.818 48.235 3.892 15.567 35.459 3 1.762 7.049 55.283 1.762 7.049 55.283 3.441 13.764 49.223 4 1.248 4.993 60.276 1.248 4.993 60.276 2.763 11.054 60.276 … … … … 25 0.172 .689 100.00 9 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers After reducing the number of items, the result of the KMO test was found to be 0,922. Since KMO is>0.90, an excellent result is obtained and each variable in the meas- ure can be predicted perfectly by other variables (Tabach- nick and Fidell, 2007). According to the factor analysis after subtracting the items that do not meet the overlapping and factor load value, the four factors obtained account for 60,276% of the total variance. In the factor analysis conducted in so- cial sciences, the variance explained may be between 40 and 60% (Hair, et al., 2010). Therefore, a contribution of 60,276% is sufficient in explaining the total variance of these four factors in the study. The high total variance ex- plained suggests that the structure developed on the causes of voluntary reporting is well measured (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Table 4: Rotated Factor Matrix Items Rotated Factor Loads Relational and Prosocial Silence Disengaged Silence Quiescence and Acquiescence Silence Fear and Defensive Silence S12 I do not want to stir up trouble with my co-wor- ker(s) by reporting them .776 S27 I do not want to damage my relationships with my co-worker(s) by reporting them .697 S11 I am concerned about being cast out by my co-workers .694 S43 I do not want to stir up trouble with my mana- ger(s) by reporting them .681 S23 I do not want to be stigmatized as the ‘complai- ner’ in my company/among my co-workers .664 S42 I do not want to reveal my company’s faults and cause it to be penalized by the DGCA 1 .655 S34 I do not want to damage my relationships with my manager(s) by reporting them .641 S24 I do not want to reveal my company’s faults and cause it to be penalized by the EASA 2 .640 S36 I do not want to reveal my co-workers’ faults and cause them to be punished .634 S20 I do not want to waste my free time reporting .716 S29 I do not want to bother with learning how to report .682 S18 I do not think reporting is my job .679 S37 I do not want to waste time reporting when I do not have time for my own duties .651 S17 I do not think reporting will do me any good .638 S21 I do not know how to report .590 S35 I think that the issue to be reported has already been reported by someone else .568 1 1 Directorate General of Civil Aviation. 2 European Aviation Safety Agency 10 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers S31 I think that previous reports have been covered up .803 S30 There has been no feedback on previous reports .756 S28 I think our managers do not encourage reporting .744 S22 I think our managers urging us to report is only lipservice .726 S19 I do not think that our managers like to hear anything negative .573 S2 I think the DGCA will punish me .803 S1 I think my company will punish me .756 S4 I think that I will face the same problems expe- rienced by my co-workers who have previously reported .700 S3 I do not think there is any legislation in place to protect me in case of an accident investigation .651 Mean 2.479 2.162 2.612 2.484 SD .852 .677 .913 .917 Table 4: Rotated Factor Matrix (continues) According to the analysis results, it is obvious that all the items meet the acceptance level of the factor load values. Analysis of basic components such as the factori- zation method was used to reveal factor design, and max- imum variability (Varimax) was chosen as an orthogonal rotation method. The most important reason for choosing the orthogonal rotation method is that this method offers the opportunity to easily interpret, describe and report re- sults (Field, 2009, Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007; Hair, et al., 2010). The first factor corresponds to the dimension of rela- tional and prosocial silence in the organizational silence literature. For this reason, this factor is called ‘relational and prosocial silence’. In the study, aircraft maintenance employees not reporting voluntarily, based on relation- al and prosocial inclination, accounts for 19.8% of total variance. This is the strongest factor among the four fac- tors explaining voluntary reporting. With the highest item load among all items, the item, ‘I do not want to stir up trouble with my coworker(s) by reporting them’ indicates that employees remain silent because they do not want to harm their relationships within their organization. The employees think that if they talk about a coworker whose behavior is the subject of the report, then the relationship with him/her will be damaged and they may be stigmatized as a snitch that constantly complains and causes harm to colleagues. Employees do not want to end up in such a problematic situation. With high item loads, the statements, ‘I do not want to reveal my company’s faults and cause it to be penalized by the DGCA’ and, ‘I do not want to reveal my co-work- ers’ faults and cause them to be harmed’ demonstrate that employees display prosocial behavior and thus feel forced to remain silent. In the light of this finding, it can be con- cluded that employees do not want to report voluntarily on matters involving their colleagues. The second factor is labeled ‘disengaged silence’. The item, ‘I do not want to waste my free time reporting’, had the highest load here. Employees do not see reporting as a worthwhile endeavor. In addition, the item, ‘I do not think reporting will do me any good’, indicates that employees display silent behavior in voluntary reporting. By perform- ing benefit-cost analysis, Premeaux and Bedeian (2001) states that an employee will be silent if s/he thinks s/he cannot benefit by speaking up. When these two items are considered together, it is clear that the employee remains silent because he/she does not care to waste time reporting, thinking that it will not be of any use to him/her. Since the third factor is similar to the acquiescent si- lence reported in the relevant organizational silence liter- ature, it is labeled ‘quiescence and acquiescence silence.’ The items ‘I think that previous reports have been covered up’ and ‘There has been no feedback on previous reports’ had the highest loads among the other items. These state- ments and their values indicate that employees will not re- port when they think that that reporting matters that they care about and want to be valued will be of no use. When organizations do not act on voluntary reports or do not in- form their employees about their responses to the reports, employees are led to believe that reporting will be useless. 11 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers Moreover, the employee feels worthless when failing to receive feedback from the company. Consequently, in line with findings reported by Wood (2003), employees who think that their ideas are not valued become less motivated to contribute to the safety performance of their organiza- tion by reporting voluntarily. Finally, the fourth factor in our study corresponds to silence based on fear and defensiveness as reported in the organizational silence literature. The silence factor based on fear and defensiveness, which accounts for 11.0% of total variance, draws attention as the highest item load among all the items included in the measurement tool. Ar- guably, the most important factor causing silence based on fear and defensiveness is the existence of a weak positive just culture in organizations. Dekker and Breakey (2016) state that such a weak culture negatively affects reporting. This can be explained by the fact that filing a report can result in penalties for the employee, and the employee does not want to suffer such harm (Morrison and Milliken, 2000). If disciplinary system practices in an organization causes such an unfair perception of unfairness, employees’ fear and worries concerning reporting will increase and the weak positive just culture will force them into silence. Employees are sometimes afraid that the information con- tained in a report may be used against them and that they will be penalized. Such penalties include humiliation in front of co-workers, being fined, being dismissed from work, or even losing a professional license. The fact that these survey items received high item loads can be inter- preted as an indicator of such employee fears. Another important finding of this study is that a num- ber of the factors (relational and prosocial silence) pro- posed in the literature are combined, while some (disen- gaged silence, quiescence and acquiescence silence, and fear and defensive silence) emerge as separate factors, in harmony with the relevant literature. 4.3.2 Confirmatory factor analysis Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is employed to test the accuracy of a previously established relationship by the researcher (Netemeyer, et al., 2003). For this purpose, in this study, firstly, a four-factor structure is obtained by EFA. In the second phase, the research aims to test four latent variables; prosocial silence, fear and defensive si- lence, disengaged silence, and quiescence and acquies- cence silence. 4.3.2.1 First-order confirmatory factor analysis The purpose of the first-order CFA is to test wheth- er the resulting structure of the EFA yields the voluntary reporting variable in aviation. The four-factorial structure obtained as a result of the EFA was first tested by a first order CFA. In the first-level CFA analysis as shown in Table 5. Good fit index values correspond to a good fit (Thompson, 2004). The goodness of the GF values can be interpreted as being appropriate for the aggregated data on the model being tested for the reasons for failure to report voluntarily. 4.3.2.2 Second-order confirmatory factor analysis In the first-order CFA, four dimensions came togeth- er to form the voluntary reporting variable. However, the ‘Failure to Report V oluntarily’ variable was not included in this analysis. By adding this variable to the model, the second-order CFA was performed to see whether the four factors (latent variables) obtained after the first-order CFA explained the ‘Failure to Report V oluntarily’ latent varia- ble. In the first-order analysis, the four factors that can be seen as relatively independent, but interrelated, bases are components of the ‘Failure to Report Voluntarily’ latent variable, which is meant to be a higher level structure. One-way linear relationships are defined for latent varia- bles from the variables observed in the first-order analysis. One-way linear relationships are also defined in the direc- tion from the observed variables to the observed variables in the second order analysis. One-way linear relationships demonstrate that latent variables predict observed varia- bles. The results of second-order CFA are shown in Figure 1. According to the goodness of fit indices obtained af- ter the retest, the four-factorial structure was accepted as adequate to explain the latent variable ‘Failure to Report V oluntarily in Aviation’. In other words, the reasons for the lack of voluntary reporting by aircraft maintenance work- ers were tested by second-order CFA, and it was concluded that the four latent variables together create an absence to report voluntarily in aviation. At this stage of the analysis, each goodness of fit value will be examined, and the relationship of the four latent variables with the silence in aviation variable will be test- ed. When the relevant goodness of fit values is analyzed, it clearly corresponds to a good fit (Thompson, 2004). 12 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers Figure 1: Second-order Confirmatory Factor Analysis (The values in the figure are standardized coefficients) Table 5: Goodness-of-Fit Values Obtained from the First-order and Second-order Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model No. N Chi-square/ df GFI AGFI CFI NNFI RMSEA RMR First-order CFA 483 3.04 0.87 0.86 0.97 0.96 0.06 0.07 Second-order CFA 483 3.11 0.87 0.85 0.97 0.96 0.06 0.06 13 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers To sum up, the four-factorial structure, resulting from the EFA, was first tested by first order CFA. Second-order CFA was performed after the first-order analysis and the relationship between the four-factorial latent variable and the ‘silence in aviation’ latent variable was tested. The sec- ond-order factor analysis shows that the four latent compo- nents explained the ‘failure to report voluntarily’ variable on the basis of relational and prosocial silence, disengaged silence, quiescence and acquiescence silence, and fear and defensive silence. 5 Discussion With the developed data collection tool, the collected data were first subjected to EFA and a four-factorial struc- ture was obtained. The obtained four-factorial structure was tested in a model created by first-order CFA and it was concluded that the 25 observed variables explain the latent variables of relational and prosocial silence, disengaged silence, quiescence and acquiescence silence, and fear and defensive silence. In the second order CFA, voluntary re- porting was accepted to be measured with four latent var- iables, and was assembled into a holistic model. Based on the obtained goodness of fit values, it was concluded that the ‘Failure to Report V oluntarily’ latent variable was ex- plained by the four latent variables. According the results of our study, the relational and prosocial silence is the primary factor among the factors that lead to aircraft maintenance employees’ exhibiting si- lence behavior and their lack of voluntary reporting. The fear of harming relationships, the anxiety of becoming a wet blanket in the group, the fear of getting stigmatized as a whistle-blower, the risk of being perceived as a trou- blemaker and a complainer force employees into silence (Milliken et al., 2003). In addition, it can be argued that, the high femininity and collectivism characteristics of the Turkish culture (Göregenli, 1997) may be playing an im- portant role in such employee silence. In societies where collectivism is dominant, people remain loyal to their com- munities throughout their lives, and the social relationships have to be good (Hofstede, et al., 2010). Deterioration of relationships is avoided because it causes individuals to feel stressed. Therefore, collectivist traits lead employees to prosocial behaviors by making them care about other people and try to prevent harm to the organization or group they belong, which ultimately keeps them from reporting voluntarily. Notifying authorities about coworker faults through voluntary reporting corresponds to whistleblow- ing and sycophancy, which are not approved by the larger society (Çakıcı, 2010). Besides, the teamwork required for aircraft maintenance and the fact that these teams are com- posed of small groups results in revealing which employee knows or reports what, and thus in the event that a work- er reports voluntarily, s/he knows that s/he will be easily figured out as the person doing the reporting. As another characteristic of the Turkish culture, employees view re- porting, which is to cause trouble for their organization, as biting the hand that feeds them, something clearly frowned upon by the mainstream society. In our study, another factor causing employees not to be involved in voluntary reporting is the disengaged si- lence. It was concluded that, employees display selfish behaviors (Premeaux and Bedeian, 2001), and after doing a benefit-cost analysis between silence and voluntary re- porting, if they decide that remaining silent would be more advantageous, they may prefer staying quiet even if the safety is threatened. On the other hand, psychological con- tract violations and procedural injustice in organizations cause employee disappointment and cynicism. Experienc- ing such disappointment, employees exhibit cynical be- haviors (Özgener, et al., 2008), which leads employees to remain silent based on disengaged. In addition, employees’ not knowing how to report, or their lack of motivation to spend time learning how to do it indicates that they are disengaged to reporting. Another factor negatively affecting employees’ volun- tary reporting is the acquiescence and quiescence silence. Based on the findings from the present study, which con- firm other related research, the reason underlying this si- lence is the belief held by employees that their opinions do not count and that they cannot make a difference or change anything by reporting (Wood, 2003). According to the Turkish values survey conducted throughout Turkey be- tween 2011 and 2012, Turkish employees believe that they have to follow the orders given by their superiors whether they make sense or not (40% of the participants stated that the instructions must be followed). This rate is 10% high- er than the average found for Europe. In other words, the tendency of employees in Turkish society to fulfill orders without question is higher than the European average (Es- mer, 2012). These findings indicate that employees in the Turkish society are obedient, that they do not feel the need to make extra effort to make reporting work, and that they accept the situation more easily. The motivation underlying the quiescent and acquies- cent and disengaged silences can be explained by Vroom’s Expectation Theory. According to Vroom, if certain behav- ior helps a person attain desired results, or leads to unde- sired results but the outcome is predicted to be more posi- tive, s/he tends to exhibit certain behavior with a positive attitude. If employees keep getting positive results when they express their opinions clearly, it seems reasonable to assume that the value they attach to reporting will increase and that they will repeat their reporting behavior. Howev- er, if employees face adverse outcomes due to reporting, their reporting behavior may become less frequent. By try- ing to predict the benefits and losses depending on their reporting, employees carry out a cost-benefit analysis. This analysis could indicate a future benefit or cost involved in 14 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers reporting. Therefore, it can be argued that the aforemen- tioned dimensions of silence may be influenced by this analysis (Premeaux and Bedeian, 2001). The last factor that led to the absence of voluntary re- porting in the survey is fear and defensive silence. It has been emphasized in many studies that employees remain silent based on fear and defensiveness (Morrison and Mil- liken, 2000; Dyne et al., 2003; Brinsfield, 2013). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory (1943) can help to explain the motivation source of fear and defensive silence. According to this theory, the behavior of an individual is directed to- wards satisfying a need, within an order of hierarchy. One of these is a need for safety. Safety refers to protection from physiological and psychological harm. It is an im- portant necessity to have work and regular income so that people can meet their needs and feel safe. Aircraft mainte- nance personnel may feel threatened by the risk of losing their jobs or licences. If reporting is likely to produce such consequences, employees who need to feel safe may avoid reporting (Schepers, et al., 2008). Perhaps counter-intuitively, the factor comprising items with the highest item loads in all factors makes less of a contribution to the total variance than the relational and prosocial silence. One factor that causes this situation could be the collective characteristics of Turkish culture. Combined with its collectivist characteristics (Hofstede, et al., 2010), the individual characteristics of Turkish culture (Göregenli, 1997) may have resulted in this type of more relational and prosocial employee silence. The individual characteristics of this society may mean that, taking into account personal interests, the employee remains silent in order not to strain his/her relationships with co-workers or managers. On the other hand, a majority of previous research indicates that the most important factor leading to a failure to voluntarily report by employees is fear (Jausan et al., 2017; Bienefeld and Grote, 2012; Gerede, 2015b). Our study finds that employees remain silent, based on fear and defensiveness. 6 Conclusion and suggestions In aviation organizations, employees’ preference of reporting critical information about incidents or remain- ing silent about them can determine the fine line between life and death. Employees’ silent behaviors can threaten aviation safety and cause irreparable accidents. Reporting is also the basis of proactivity and without reporting the performance based safety management approach cannot succeed. Therefore, in order to encourage voluntary reporting that would provide very valuable data for increased avia- tion safety, identifying why employees remain silent is an urgent research problem. This study aimed at determining the reasons for the behaviors of not voluntarily reporting and remaining silent displayed by the employees working in aircraft maintenance organizations, which are the key hubs of the activities directly affecting aviation safety. To achieve this, we developed a tool to measure reasons aviation employees not reporting and made validity and reliability analysis. The four-factor structure of the failure of aircraft maintenance employees to report based on re- lational and prosocial, fear and defensive, quiescence and acquiescence, and disengaged silence was found to be structurally valid. Accordingly, organizations need to acknowledge and act with the awareness that organizational silence is a com- mon phenomenon. The importance of voluntary reporting should be explained to employees at every opportunity and the number of quality voluntary reports should be in- creased. However, this should go beyond the simple slo- gans of ‘Safety comes first in this workplace’ or ‘Safety first’ hanging on the wall of every organization. Organi- zations absolutely need to embrace the strong just culture. In the presence of such a positive just culture, when em- ployees want to report, they will be free from any fear of punishment or harm. Although this study has contributed to the knowledge of organizational silence and voluntary reporting litera- ture, it still has certain limitations. Therefore, further re- search is recommended to strengthen the findings. In some cases, even if legal mechanisms and voluntary reporting systems created in organizations are sufficient for employ- ees to speak or voluntarily report, employees could prefer to remain silent. It would be interesting to investigate how organizational trust, organizational justice, national cul- ture, organizational culture and laws system effect volun- tary reporting. In addition, the tool developed in this study has only confirmed on aircraft maintenance employees and both EFA and CFA is conducted to the same sample. 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Personnel Psychology, 61, 37-68, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/j.1744- 6570.2008.00105.x Thompson, B. (2004). Exploratory and Confirmatory Fac- tor Analysis (1st edition). Washington: American Psy- chological Association. Wood, R. H. (2003). Aviation Safety Programs, A Man- agement Handbook (3rd Edition). America: Jeppesen. Ilker Under is a research assistant at Graduate School of Social Sciences, Anadolu University, Turkey. He is a PhD candidate from Civil Aviation Management, Anadolu University. His research interest mainly focuses on organizational behavior, aviation safety and human factors. This study is based on the Master›s thesis of the first author under the supervision of the second author. Ender Gerede, PhD, currently works at Air Transport Management Department of Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Eskisehir Technical University as a Professor, in Eskisehir, in Turkey. He teaches and conducts researches on Safety Management, Human Factors, Crew Resource Management, Airline Management and Aircraft Maintenance Management both at undergraduate and graduate levels. 17 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 1, February 2021 Research Papers Molk v letalstvu: razvoj in validacija orodja za merjenje razlogov, da osebje za vzdrževanje letal ne poroča Ozadje in namen: Organizacijski molk, ki je često največja ovira za uspeh organizacij, se kaže kot izogibanje izra - žanja čustev in idej o težavah, s katerimi se srečujejo njihove organizacije. Opredelimo ga lahko kot izogibanje pro - stovoljnemu poročanju v letalskih organizacijah. Glavni namen te raziskave je opredeliti in razviti orodje za merjenje razlogov, zaradi katerih letalski uslužbenci molčijo o nevarnih dogodkih in dogodkih, ki so jim priča, ter dejavnikih, zaradi katerih se vzdržijo sprejemanja predlogov za izboljšanje varnosti. Zasnova / metodologija / pristop: V okviru študije je bilo razvito orodje za zbiranje podatkov. Pojasnjevalna in potrditvena faktorska analiza podatkov, pridobljenih od 483 zaposlenih, je bila izvedena za preizkus razlogov za prostovoljno poročanje v letalstvu. Rezultati: Posledično je bilo ugotovljeno, da zaposleni niso sodelovali pri prostovoljnem poročanju zaradi dejavni - kov molka, ki temeljijo na relacijskih in prosocialnih dejavnikih, razdruževanju, mirovanju in popuščanju ter strahu in obrambnosti. Zaključek: V skladu s tem morajo organizacije priznati in delovati z zavedanjem, da je organizacijski molk pogost pojav. Pomen prostovoljnega poročanja je treba zaposlenim razložiti ob vsaki priložnosti in povečati število kakovo- stnih prostovoljnih poročil. Vendar bi to moralo presegati preprosta gesla „Varnost je na prvem mestu na delovnem mestu“ ali „Varnost najprej“, ki visi na steni vsake organizacije. Ključne besede: Organizacijska tišina, Poročanje, Sistem varnega upravljanja, Vzdrževanje letal