HR
OB
Michael Knoll
Leipzig U., Germany
Matteo Ronchetti
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene
Wim Vandekerckhove
EDHEC Business School, France
Lewis Garippa
U. of Dundee
Jennifer Ho
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster U., Canada
Roberta Fida
Aston Business School, United Kingdom
Anindo Bhattacharjee
Woxsen U., Hyderabad, India
R Searle
Adam Smith Business School, U. of Glasgow, UNITED KINGDOM
Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison
New York U., United States
Catherine Connelly
McMaster U., Canada
Lotta Dellve
U. of Gothenburg
Ivan Marzocchi
Sapienza U. of Rome
Whether employees express (i.e., voice) or withhold (i.e., silence) their ideas, questions, opinions, and concerns at work affects individual and collective development and well-being. Employee voice is a precondition for employees to realize their potential, for organizations to deal with current management challenges (e.g., inclusion of forced and voluntary migration, diversification of life-style choices, dynamization of innovation), and it is essential for the functioning of current management strategies (e.g., total quality management, agile teams) that draw upon proactive and empowered workers. If, in turn, employees do not want to or feel that they cannot address critical issues or make suggestions for change, unhealthy, inefficient, unsafe, and toxic work environments endure and management gives away potential in the form of valuable contributions from diverse perspectives. Moreover, as media reports show time and again, such silence enables unethical practices including fraud, abuse, and discrimination to persist over time, harming cohorts of people repeatedly and at times over many years. Notably, cases of silence and their detrimental effects are not only observed in the corporate world or in singular countries, they also happen in sports teams, educational establishments, entertainment, academia, religious institutions, law enforcement agencies, and the military all over the world. Given that silence has been identified as hampering the sustainable development of organizations and societies in a broad variety of countries and contexts, surprisingly little systematic knowledge is available on the role of context as an antecedent of silence, and as a factor that influences the effects of more proximal antecedents of silence. In this symposium, five talks provide integrative and exploratory approaches to advance understanding of the role of context for the emergence and endurance of silence in organizations. In an extended discussion, Elizabeth Morrison – a central researcher on silence in organizations – will reflect on the journey the concepts of voice and silence have taken during the last 25 years and provide an idea of where the field might head to. The discussion will then open and we invite the presenters and audience to elaborate on challenges and opportunities that context provides to advance silence and voice research and intervention.
Author: Michael Knoll – Leipzig U.
Author: Lotta Dellve – U. of Gothenburg
Author: Jennifer Ho – DeGroote School of Business, McMaster U.
Author: Catherine Connelly – McMaster U.
Author: Roberta Fida – Aston Business School
Author: Michael Knoll – Leipzig U.
Author: Ivan Marzocchi – Sapienza U. of Rome
Author: R H. Searle – Adam Smith Business School, U. of Glasgow
Author: Catherine Connelly – McMaster U.
Author: Matteo Ronchetti – Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene
Author: Anindo Bhattacharjee – Woxsen U., Hyderabad, India
Author: Michael Knoll – Leipzig U.
Author: Wim Vandekerckhove – EDHEC Business School
Author: R H. Searle – Adam Smith Business School, U. of Glasgow
Author: Lewis Garippa – U. of Dundee