Even the silent one’s speaks- Organisational silence and its antecedents

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to review the concept of organisational silence and explore the factors influencing organisational silence. The current study will consider other factors which are revealed through gap in existing literature.

Research Design/ Methodology: The paper is based on literature review. The paper suggests that employee silence is pervasive in organisation but it is neglected for number of reasons. It is often said that an organisation is known by the people who work for it. But many times these people who are considered to be an asset for the organisation do not contribute through their knowledge, experience and suggestions. Which give rise to the concept of employee silence collectively known as organisational silence.

Findings: People while working in the organisation depends upon one another to seek more information & validate their views & also influence each other. This social influence forces people to modify their views & conform to others views, which give rise to the concept of social conformity. Social conformity forces people to modify or suppress their views and conform to others belief in order to be accepted in organisation. If people find that majority shares their views then they speak up else they are forced to remain silent. The study revealed that apart from organisational and individual factors, perception of other people also affects one’s ability to speak up.

Originality: Previous studies on organisational silence focussed on organisational factors such as organisational support, top management & supervisory support, justice climate, lack of communication opportunities and individual factors such as fear, lack of experience in organisation, personality of employee but there is dearth of research on how perception of people in organisations affects one’s ability to share opinion or information. The current study considered how perception of people in the organisation affects one’s ability to share his /her views, forces him / her towards conformity and create a silence climate in the organisation.

Paper type: View Point and Conceptual