Silence in organizations and psychological safety: a literature review

What is the relationship between different types of employee voice and silence, and how are these influenced by psychological safety?

This systematic review may interest you – as it explored those questions.

Not a summary, as you can read the full paper via the link.

First, they identified several motivators and inhibitors of employee voice and silence, including:

· Individual dispositions

· Job and organisational attitudes and perceptions

· Emotions, beliefs, and schemas

· Supervisor and leader behaviour

· Other contextual factors

They also identify different type of employee silence, being:

· Acquiescent silence

· Defensive silence

· Prosocial/relational silence

· Deviant silence

· Diffident silence

They argue that psychological safety may be negatively related to defensive, relational and diffident silences because “in a good psychological safety environment employees can be themselves, without fearing to receive negative outcomes in case they decide to express their suggestions, concerns, work-related opinions or information about problems to someone in a higher organizational position”.

The authors don’t believe that psychological safety isn’t prominently related to acquiescent and deviant silences.

Ref: Pacheco, D. C., Moniz, A. I. A., & Caldeira, S. N. (2015). Silence in organizations and psychological safety: a literature review. European Scientific Journal, (Special Edition), 293-308.

Study link: https://repositorio.uac.pt/bitstream/10400.3/3725/1/6156-17924-1-PB.pdf

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_what-is-the-relationship-between-different-activity-7185411204012507136-dh-1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop