Organizational silence: concepts, antecedents, and consequences

Current management and organizationliterature has focused on employee empowerment and use of open communication channels. Despite this fact, results of empirical research has shown that employees believe that open communication, information, explicit or implicit knowledge sharingare not supported within their organizations. Lack of information and trust and presence of organizational silence is one of the most important obstacles to organization success. Organizational silence refers to situationswhere employees withhold information, ideas and suggestions about potential problems. In response to the need for further research regarding organizational silence, this paper addresses the concept of organizational silence and voice, types of employee silence and voice, and the philosophical dimensions of silence. In addition, negative consequences of this behavioral problem are discussed in this paper.