When passion breeds silence: How coworkers’ work passion elicits envy and employee silence in hospitality workplaces

Abstract

While work passion is well-studied as an intrapersonal motivational construct, its interpersonal consequences for coworkers remain underexplored. Drawing primarily on the Social Functional Theory of Emotions, we examine how employees' observed work passion functions as a social signal that elicits coworker envy and, in turn, shapes silence behaviors. Across four studies (three experiments and a multi-source dyadic field study with hotel employees), we find a robust asymmetric pattern: harmonious passion primarily elicits benign envy, which is associated with prosocial silence, whereas obsessive passion primarily elicits malicious envy, which is associated with deviant silence. Cross-path effects were weaker and less consistent across studies. An exploratory field-study finding suggests that obsessive passion may occasionally relate to benign envy, although this association did not emerge in the experiments and warrants replication. This research extends passion theory by highlighting its interpersonal signaling effects and reframes silence as a strategic emotion-regulation response.