2012.08.17 employee silence - a critical review and prognosis
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Dr. Niall Cullinane, Queen's University Belfast presented this seminar "Employee Silence - A Critical Review and Prognosis" as part of the Visiting Fellows Seminar Series at the Whitaker Institute on 17th August 2012.TRANSCRIPT
10/09/2012
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Employee Silence: A Critical Review and Prognosis
Niall Cullinane
Queen’s University Belfast
Research Area
• Employee voice
• ‘Employee silence’
– A motivation to withhold ideas, opinions and knowledge about work‐related improvements (Morrison and Miliken, 2000; Van Dyne et al. 2003)
– Why do employees engage in silence?
– What can employers do to resolve it?
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Employee silence: the causes
• Management literature identifies
– Senior management influence (Piderot and Ashford, 2003)
– Organisational culture influence (Huang et al. 2005)
– Employee peer influence (Bowen and Blackmon, 2003)
Employee silence: problems
• Assumption that silence can be addressed by enlightened management policy
• Assumption that employees want ‘engagement’
• Ignores silence as a product of the ‘wage‐effort bargain’ (c.f. Baldamus, 1961)
• Silence as benefit to employee for reasons like labour market power, autonomy and effort expenditure
10/09/2012
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Employee silence: the craft tradition
• Recognition by scientific management that craft tradition was barrier to valorisation of labour power
• Rule‐of‐thumb tradition enabled craft workers to withhold knowledge from management (Montgomery, 1978)
Employee silence: regulation of output
• Use of social norms to obfuscate production capabilities
• Common under piecework and payment by results type schemes (c.f. Roy, 1952; Lupton, 1963; Burawoy, 1978)