CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,671Job Satisfaction and Organizational BehaviorLabor Movements and UnionsCommunication in Education and Healthcare

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 46 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues that Employees Don’t Communicate Upward and Why*

Milliken, Frances J., Morrison, Elizabeth W., Hewlin, Patricia F.·2003·Journal of Management Studies
DOI 10.1111/1467-6486.00387
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is evidence from a variety of sources that employees often do not feel comfortable speaking to their bosses about organizational problems or issues that concern them. The purpose of this study was to shed light on the types of issues that employees are reluctant to raise, and identify why employees sometimes decide to remain silent rather than voice their concerns. We interviewed 40 employees and found that most had been in situations where they were concerned about an issue but did not raise it to a supervisor. Silence spanned a range of organizational issues, with several of our respondents indicating that they did not feel comfortable speaking to those above them about any issues or concerns. The most frequently mentioned reason for remaining silent was the fear of being viewed or labeled negatively, and as a consequence, damaging valued relationships. From our data, we develop a model of how the perceived consequences of voice contribute to silence, and a model of how the social and relational implications of speaking up can take away employees’ ability to have influence within an organizational setting.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/1467-6486.00387

Cites

46 of 46 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 48 references

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. 10.5465/amr.2002.5922314 · DOI · Paper page
  2. Argyris C., 1977, ‘Double loop learning in organizations’., Harvard Business Review, 55, 115
  3. Ashforth B. E., 1995, Research in Organizational Behavior, 413
  4. Ewing D. W., 1977, Freedom Inside the Organization
  5. 10.2307/258338 · DOI
  6. Janis I. L., 1982, Groupthink
  7. Seligman M. E. P., 1975, Helplessness

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 501–600 of 1,000

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Milliken, F. J., Morrison, E. W., & Hewlin, P. F.
Affiliations
New York University (US)
Corresponding author
Milliken, Frances J.
Venue
Journal of Management Studies
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2003-08-04
Volume
40
Issue
6
Pages
1453-1476
ISSN
  • 0022-2380 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-6486
DOI
10.1111/1467-6486.00387
OpenAlex
W2013337369
Cited by
1,671
References
48
Citations by year
2026: 112 · 2025: 100 · 2024: 136 · 2023: 104 · 2022: 131 · 2021: 163 · 2020: 125 · 2019: 95 · 2018: 131 · 2017: 82 · 2016: 108 · 2015: 74 · 2014: 73 · 2013: 60 · 2012: 40
FWCI
17.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
Journal of Management Studies (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Labor Movements and Unions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Communication in Education and Healthcare
Keywords
employee silence, upward communication, speaking up, fear of negative evaluation, supervisor-employee relationship, organizational voice, employee influence, workplace communication

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review