Shades of Silence: Emerging Themes and Future Directions for Research on Silence in Organizations

摘要

Individuals in organizations face a choice about whether to speak up or remain silent I about concerns that they have at work. Individuals make this choice within the context of an organizational hierarchy in which bosses who do not wish to hear about problems can punish people for speaking up and within the context of a social system that has implicit norms about the desirability of speaking up. Not surprisingly, it appears that the decision to remain silent about developing issues or problems is a fairly common one (Milliken, Morrison, and Hewlin, this issue; Ryan and Oestreich, 1991). This decision to not speak up about issues or problems is important to understand not only because it has the potential to undermine the reporting of unethical and illegal practices and the likelihood of effective organizational learning (Argyris and Schon, 1978; Beer and Eisenstat, 2000; Edmondson, this issue; Morrison and Milliken, 2000) but also because it affects the lives of the individuals making these decisions (Greed, this issue). Speaking up about problems or issues is not without risks but staying silent comes with its own set of potentially negative consequences for individuals. Over time, the feeling of being unable to speak up about issues and concerns may result in a sense of helplessness as well as reduced job satisfaction, turnover, and other more long-lasting personal consequences. Thus, the purpose of this special issue was to try to understand more about how people in organizations make the decision to speak (or be silent) about issues or problems that concern them at work, what types of issues employees are likely to be silent about, why they are silent, the range of ways that people report using to raise issues, and how organizations can help create conditions that facilitate the upward transfer of information about problems or issues.