Manuela i think this is a very interesting question! Perhaps you can look to the field of collusive relationship (for example: Kets de Vries, 1999, Struggling with the Demon, chapter 4 in italian edition ("Organizational theater: collusive relationship in management"). in italian we say 'chi tace, acconsente' (who is silent, agrees...').

According to this approach, the tool is a clinical one

Detert and Edmondson (2011) published their findings from a four stage study on Implicit Voice Theory, which compare two approaches to voice and silence in organisations, in which they developed a five item measure of silence. The article sets out in detail the bases of the four separate phases of the study from qualitative through to regression analysis. An excellent paper. AMJ (2011) Vo. 54, No. 3., 461-488. Good luck!

Some great suggestions so far. I'll add another reference for you that might be helpful as you consider the appropriate scale. Tangirala and Ramanujam (2008) adapted a silence scale from Van Dyne et al. (2003; already provided) for their particular context. It's a five item scale, as well. Good luck! PPsych (2008). Volume 61, pp. 37-68.

Knoll and Dick (2013) Journal of Business Ethcs...i have also developed a measure in India but it is under review process. best Ajay

Dear Manuela:

With all my respect, I can´t understand your organizational silence definition, altough the impact that you want to explore it's clear. I think that all the suggestions are valid, but you must adapt to your definition (reviewed), because it must be clearly developed in your research problem. This is a not common or explored area into organizations, so I wish you success with your research.

Thanks to all your very interesting suggestions! I'll have a look at them all.

We already had read Van Dyne and have come to some adaptations. We checked Vakola and Bouradas (2005), but we feel there has to be something more precise to measure silence. We also came to the piece of work of Morrison, Miliken and Hewlin (2003), though they just provide open questions to be used during an interview and many questions look somehow "naive" or maybe imprecise. We found some Turkish researchers that are dealing with this topic, but unfortunately they haven't published in English (we could just read their abstract) and they told us they were still "walking their first steps".

As for a reviewed definition of what we are studying (answering Javier Gomez-Diaz concern), we are trying to understand why sometimes employees (mainly low-level employees, but maybe also supervisors, middle managers or even executives) decide to avoid providing information, which could be useful for the firm. We want to understand both the antecedents of silence (reasons, why) as well as the consequences of it. Some topics could be both a reason and/or a consequence, e.g. burnout: do people "keep quiet" because they are burned out (so it would be an antecedent) or do people get burned out because they can't express themselves (so it would be a consequence)? Same with commitment, or OCB, or satisfaction.

So, to develop a model, we need first a good definition of organizational silence, of course we need a measure of it, and we will try to design a model that relates all the before mentioned variables.

Thanks a lot for your help. Further suggestions will be most welcome!!

some of the tools for the research of organizational culture cover the area of employees silence and voice while it is a part of culture and arise from it. So the review of various organizational culture toolkits would be suggested.

Try this:

And try this:

Thanks for your suggestion, Snjezana. We'll have a look!

The book chapters you have linked, Baden, look really interesting. In fact, I've seen there is a very pedagogical summary of organizational silence in the second one, based on Morrison and Milliken's research! Could you please tell me the book's publisher and the year of publication?

Thank you very much for all your help!

Manuela,

I can offer an alternative source for organizational silence for you. It is chadt.brinsfield ohio state uni. dissertations. I learned this source from my colleague now. I do not know about the subject anymore.

Greaat Turkmen!! Thanks a lot! I found the dissertation and it looks really appealing!

For those of you who are interested, here is the direct link:

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu1236294604

Hi - apologies if this is off topic but just in case it could be useful - I am studying slience in terms of patient experience in healthcare using a recently developed/emerging framework - The sound of 'silence': a framework for researching sensitive issues or marginalised perspectives in health - I have attached a pdf in case it is of interest/use to you - it may have application potential within your context.

We published an article recently in the Journal of Business Ethics that you might find relevant (in terms of antecedents and outcomes): Whiteside, D. B., & Barclay, L. J. (2013). Echoes of silence: Employee silence as a mediator between overall justice and employee outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 116, 251-266. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1467-3

My colleague, Chad Brinsfield, did his dissertation on employee silence. Here is a publication that should help.

Employee silence motives: Investigation of dimensionality and development of measures.

doi: 10.1002/job.1829

Brinsfield, Chad T.

Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol 34(5), Jul 2013, 671-697.

Manuela, chapters are from a 2012 textbook/2013 ebook I am currently revising:

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP002172.html

http://www.amazon.com/Communicating-21st-Century-Open-University/dp/1118554159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396008031&sr=8-1&keywords=eunson+baden+communicating

Some more:

Grammar:

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-6/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch01.pdf

Intercultural Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-3/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch15.pdf

Team Communication

http://www.johnwiley.com.au/highered/eunson3e/site/lecturer-res/downloads/sample_chapter.pdf

Gender Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-2/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch07.pdf

Leadership and Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-2/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch10.pdf

Organisational Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-4/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch16.pdf

Public Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-5/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch17.pdf

Papers:

Plain English

http://www.anzca.net/component/search/?searchword=eunson&ordering=&searchphrase=all

New Media as Biohazard:

http://eunson.net/upload/biohazard/ANZCA_2012_Eunson_biohazard.pdf

Adjunct Lecturer,

School of English, Communication and Performance Studies,

Monash University

CLAYTON VIC 3800 AUSTRALIA

Phone 613 9905.2144

Email: [email protected]

What employers really want:

http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GOS12_Report_FINAL2.pdf

Table 7, p. 21

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/social_sector/converting_education_to_employment_in_europe

Education to Employment: Getting Europe’s Youth into Work (McKinsey)

Download full report- p. 45, Exhibit 22

Manuela, the chapters are from a textbook of mine- details, plus more:

Grammar:

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-6/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch01.pdf

Intercultural Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-3/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch15.pdf

Team Communication

http://www.johnwiley.com.au/highered/eunson3e/site/lecturer-res/downloads/sample_chapter.pdf

Gender Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-2/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch07.pdf

Leadership and Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-2/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch10.pdf

Organisational Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-4/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch16.pdf

Public Communication

http://eunson.net/upload/c21-5/5_60_66172_com21st3e_Ch17.pdf

Papers:

Plain English

http://www.anzca.net/component/search/?searchword=eunson&ordering=&searchphrase=all

New Media as Biohazard:

http://eunson.net/upload/biohazard/ANZCA_2012_Eunson_biohazard.pdf

Adjunct Lecturer,

School of English, Communication and Performance Studies,

Monash University

CLAYTON VIC 3800 AUSTRALIA

Phone 613 9905.2144

Email: [email protected]

What employers really want:

http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GOS12_Report_FINAL2.pdf

Table 7, p. 21

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/social_sector/converting_education_to_employment_in_europe

Education to Employment: Getting Europe’s Youth into Work (McKinsey)

Download full report- p. 45, Exhibit 22

Baden Eunson,

Manager,

IBE Publications,

Eunson Training and Consultancy,

PO Box 369,

Bentleigh

AUSTRALIA 3204

Phone: 61 3 9557.8733

Mobile/Cell: 0411 986 069

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/baden-eunson/32/959/79

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/baden.eunson

Management Today: http://www.mtmag.com.au/topics/baden-eunson-blog/

Media Alliance 3014528 http://www.alliance.org.au

C21 book: http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP002172.html

http://www.amazon.com/Communicating-21st-Century-Open-University/dp/1118554159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396008304&sr=8-1&keywords=baden+eunson+communicating.

The Annual Review of Organizational Psychology (2014) has a chapter by Morrison title 'Employee voice and silence'. It's free for download at http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091328.

also very nice :-)

Knoll, M. & van Dick, R. (2013). Do I hear the whistle…? A first attempt to measure four forms of employee silence and their correlates. Journal of Business Ethics 113(4): 349-362.

But Chad Brinsfield's scale is also good and there is something from Sharon Parker, I think. Maybe you should combine the measures depending on the motives for silence you want to examine.

Good luck

Michael.

It is an interesting concept! and I ask another question: it is a connection between organizational silence and quality system?

To identify indicators must:

- Analyze the missions of the various services, their commitments and work processes

- Determine the points on which you want progress and those that require continuous monitoring

- Identify what are the relevant figures on these points (which are not always obvious at first glance) give examples

INDICATORS UPSTREAM:

according to the objectives set by the entrepreneur they include:

- Customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction)

- Timeliness

- The rate of non-compliance and / or variance

- Return on investment

- The performance of the organization

- Prices

- Net sales per employee

- Intermediate consumption

The entrepreneur is someone who is always listening to its indicators to exit the passive silence in active silence.

silence as message pre-editing in comm model Table 1.5 

http://www.amazon.com/Communicating-21st-Century-Open-University/dp/1118554159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411351828&sr=8-1&keywords=EUNSON+COMMUNICATING

A bit of self-promotion :) Ditchburn, G., Hames, K., (2014), Voice Climate Perceptions: A Multidimensional Model as a Determinant of Affective Commitment, Work Engagement, Neglect and Exit, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychology, 7, 3, pages 1 - 9.

Thanks, Graeme. I had a look in our library, but we don't have access to the last year of that journal, unfortunately. Could you send me your paper? It soudns really "on the conversation" of what we are trying to research.

By the way, thanks to everybody for your help! Finally we have decided to try and measure silence using Vakola & Bouradas (2005). Brinsfield's PhD was really useful to set the framework, as well as many of the references you all suggested. Thanks a lot!

We are finally working on silence  and defining the relationship between it and commitment, job satisfaction and burnout. We discussed about using grounded theory, as Keith Wolodko suggested, but finally we have decided to follow a quantitative approach, since we found scales for most of the variables we wanted to have in our model. However, I don't discard running a qualitative research after the quantitative one!

Manuela:

ref org silence- Milliken Morrison Hewlin - see also 2003 special issue of journal 

Thanks a lot, Baden!

Here you are also some sources that we have found useful:

Bowen, F. & Blackmon, K., 2003. Spirals of silence: the dynamic effects of diversity on organizational voice. Journal of Management Studies, Volume 40, p. 1393-1417.

Creed, D., 2003. Voice lessons: Tempered radicalism and the use of voice and silence. Journal of Management Studies, Volume 40, p. 1503-1536.

Detert, J. & Burris, E., 2007. Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open?. Academy of Management Journal, Volume 50, p. 869-884.

LePine, J. & Van Dyne, L., 1998. Helping and voice extra-role behaviors: Evidence of construct and predictive validity. Academy of Management Journal, p. 1108-1119.

LePine, J. & Van Dyne, L., 2001. Voice and cooperative behavior as contrating forms of contextual performance: Evidence of diferential relationships with big five personality characteristics and cognitive ability. Journal of Applied Psychology, Volume 86, p. 326-336.

Morrison, E., 2014. Employee voice and silence. Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational Behavior, Volume 1, p. 173-197.

Morrison, E. & Milliken, F., 2000. Organizational silence: A barrier to change development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, Volume 25, p. 706-725.

Morrison, E. & Milliken, F., 2003. Shades of silence: Emerging themes and future directions for research on silence in organizations. Journal of Management Studies, Volume 40, Issue 6, p. 1563-1568.

Nikolau, I., Vakola, M. & Bourantas, D., 2008. Who speaks up at work? Dispositional influences on employees voice behavior. Personnel Review, Volume 37, p. 666-679.

Perlow, L. & Williams, S., 2003. Is silence killing your company?. Harvard Business Review, Volume 81, p. 52-58.

Pinder, C. & Harlos, C., 2001. Employee silence: Quiescence and aquiescence as responses to perceived injustice?. Personnel and Human Resource Management, Volume 20, p. 331-369.

Premeaux, S. & Bedeian, A., 2003. Breaking the silence: The moderating effects of self-monitoring in predicting speaking up in the workplace. Journal of Management Studies, Volume 40, p. 1537-1562.

Schlosser, F. & Zolin, R., 2012. Hearing voice and silence during stressfull economic time. Employee Relations, Volume 34, p. 555-573.

Hope it helps developing research!!!

 hi everyone,

              i find all of the above discussion very useful. I am also a Ph.D Scholar and doing my Ph.D thesis. i have applied expectancy theory on employee silence and now trying to measure employee silence from the perspective of expectancy theory, for which im trying to use "within person decision modelling approach along with fractional factorial design" but need help to further understand and apply it. i am intrested to use this methodology because i am interested in investigating the decision process one go through while selecting silence as the best behavioural choice based on the desired outcome, that is protecting self from negative consequences..Please help

Hi

The references below are from my personal bibliography and I have picked out the ones about “why things go wrong in professional organizations” – particularly hospitals.  Silence or absence of voice seems to me to be a big factor, and is one that is hard to understand.  Two issues that seem related are “cynicism” (i.e. believing that “voice is useless” hence silence), and “normalisation” (i.e. people stop seeing the poor practise because that is “how it is done here” hence there is nothing to voice.

 There is a 2010 edition of Human Relations that was devoted to Silence and Voice, I seem to have two different volume numbers – I think one is a typo.

I hope these are useful

·      Budd JW, Gollan PJ & Wilkinson A (2010) New approaches to employee voice and participation in organizations, Human Relations Vol. 63(3) 303-310 [Introductory review paper for special edition on voice]

·      Kim J, MacDuffie JP & Pil KF (2010) Employee voice and organizational performance: Team versus representative influence, Human Relations Vol. 64(3) 371-394

·       Knoll, M. & van Dick, R. (2013). Do I hear the whistle…? A first attempt to measure four forms of employee silence and their correlates.  Journal of Business Ethics 113.2 (Mar 2013): 349-362.

·      Lewin D and Mitchell DJB (1992) Systems of Employee Voice: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, California management Review Spring 1992

·       Morrison EW (2014) Employee Voice and Silence, Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Behav. 2014 1:173-97 (available on line at http://www.annualreviews.org/toc/orgpsych/1/1 ) about silence and voice

·      Milliken Frances J., Elizabeth W. Morrison and Patricia E Hewlin

 (2003) An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues that Employees Don’t Communicate Upwards and Why Journal of Management Studies 406:6 September 2003

·      Naus F, van Iterson A & Roe R (2007) Organizational cynicism: Extending the exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect model of employees’ response to adverse conditions in the workplace, Human Relations Vol. 60(5): 683 -718

·      Serrant-Green (2011) Sound of “silence”: a framework for researching sensitive issues or marginalized perspectives in health. Journal of Research in Nursing 2011 116: 347   [This has already been suggested.]

·      Turnley WH & Feldman DC (1999) The impact of psychological Contract violations on Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect, Human Relations Vol. 52 (7)

·      Argyris  C and Schon DA (1996) Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice, Reading MA, Addison Wesley

This book contains the concept of certain matters being “un-discussable” and the fact that some matter is “un-discussable” is also un-discussable.  This would seem to be a form of silence. 

·       Andersson L (1996) Employee Cynicism: An Examination Using a Contract Violation Framework, Human Relations, Vol. 49, No. 11 pp. 1395-1418

This is a bit “left-field” but I think cynicism is likely to be linked to silence.

·      Banja J (2010) The normalization of deviance in health care delivery, Business Horizons (2010) 53, 139-148  [Normalisation mean that people stop "seeing" the problem.]

·      Vaughan D (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky technology, culture and deviance at NASA, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

·       Weick KE and Sutcliffe KM (2003) Hospitals as Cultures of Entrapment: A Re-Analysis of the Bristol Royal Infirmary, California Management Review, Vol. 45 No. 2 Winter 2003 pp. 73-84

·        

·       Wicks, D. (2001). Institutionalized mindsets of invulnerability: Differentiated institutional fields and the antecedents of organizational crisis. Organization Studies, 22(4), 659-692.

·       Kane K & Montgomery K (1998) A framework for understanding disempowerment in Organizations, Human Resource Management, Fall/Winter 1998, Vol. 37 No. 3 & 4 pp. 263-275 

Thanks a lot Richard!!!

I also included a list of related articles 2 posts before yours. Hope they'll be of help for your research, too!!

For some work on the connection between individual and collective voice with implications for silence see some of our works. All the best, Andrew

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279033571_Balancing_efficiency_equity_and_voice_The_impact_of_unions_and_high-involvement_work_practices_on_work_outcomes

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4736991_What_Kind_of_Voice_Do_Loyal_Employees_Use

Article Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice: The Impact of Union...

Article What Kind of Voice Do Loyal Employees Use?

Thank you, Andrew! We'll have a look at your research!