Employee Silence: A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

Employees often have ideas, information, and opinion for constructive ways to improve work and organizations. The extent to which employees communicate upward with suggestions, ideas, information about problems, or issues of concern can have tremendous implications for an organization’s performance and even its survival. Employee silence refers to the conscious withholding of potentially important information, suggestions, or concerns, from those who might be able to act on that information. The silence climate has an impact on the ability of the organisation to detect errors and organizational functioning. Here the investigator planned to go through the studies conducted in India as well as outside to have a deep understanding on the concept of employee silence, its dimensions, method of study, related concepts, implications etc. The investigators used meta-analysis as the method for approaching the problem. Twenty studies which met the inclusion criteria were selected for this study. Findings of the study shows that there are organisational, individual and socio-demographic factors that contributes to employee silence. It was also found that employee silence has an impact on both employees and on organisation. So, it was suggested to identify and minimise employee silence at the earliest.