Silence in Organizations: A Review and Discussion of the Literature
Keywords:
Bibliographical Research, Organizational Behavior, Organization Studies, Voice, Silence.Abstract
This paper aims to present how silence has been studied by management researchers or by those of related fields (e.g., Organizational Psychology or Organizational Communication). It is important to study silence in organizations due to its pervasiveness and various consequences for employees (e.g., stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and cognitive dissonance), for organizations (e.g., absenteeism, higher levels of turnover, and lower levels of productivity), and for the society (e.g., no reporting of illegal or unethical behavior by organizations). A bibliographical research is carried on based on Brinsfield, Edwards e Greenberg’s (2009) waves of research of voice and silence in organizations, focusing on silence. From the first wave (1970-1980) it is presented the Spirals of Silence and the MUM Effect. From the second wave (1980-2000) it is presented the whistleblowing, principled organizational dissent, organizational justice, issue selling, organizational citizenship, and the deaf-ear syndrome. From the third wave (from 2000 onwards) it is presented the organizational silence, employee silence, job withdrawal, and organizational learning and knowledge transfer. The research, especially in the case of the third wave, has evolved from conceptual and qualitative research designs to a more quantitative approach, what has been questioned by some researchers calling for the need of theoretical and methodological approaches beyond the positivist conception of most papers. The Brazilian research on silence, despite its small volume, contributes to the understanding of the phenomenon as it fits into the current agenda, seeking to build bridges between the knowledge obtained abroad and its relationship with the local culture (case of the whistleblowing), questioning the one-sided approach on a certain topic (case of the organizational silence) or trying to understand the silence as a necessary pause to understanding and learning. Finally, other bibliographical studies about silence may be carried on considering other Latin languages, as well as the Brazilian research may take into account the local culture and its characteristics to develop new studies on the subject, considering also other theoretical and methodological approaches to it.
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