scholarly journals Employee silence and the authoritarian personality

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R Timming ◽  
Stewart Johnstone

Purpose – This paper aims to, drawing from Adorno et al.’s (1950) The Authoritarian Personality, explain why some workers reject participation in decision-making on principle, preferring instead to defer to managerial authority and remain silent. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the literatures on employee voice and silence and then builds a conceptual framework that can be used to explain employee silence in relation to personality structures. Findings – It is argued that some employees have personality structures that make them more susceptible to anti-democratic thoughts. Potentially fascistic personalities, as measured by the F-scale, are expected to derive pleasure in submission to the will of management. Research limitations/implications – The paper has implications for political and social psychologists, especially those seeking to understand how best to promote employee voice in the workplace. Originality/value – This study makes an original contribution to the employee voice and silence literatures by being among the first of its kind to examine the political psychology of fascism in the micro-context of the workplace.

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Donovan ◽  
Michelle O'Sullivan ◽  
Elaine Doyle ◽  
John Garvey

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory study of employee voice and silence in international auditing firms. The authors examine two key questions: what is the propensity of employees in training to speak up on workplace problems and how would management react to employees in training speaking up on workplace problems? Design/methodology/approach – The authors compare and contrast the views of employees on training contracts with management including partners. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with eight managers/partners and 20 employees working in six large auditing firms in Ireland. Findings – The authors find that employees on training contracts have a high propensity to remain silent on workplace problems. Quiescent and acquiescent forms of silence were evident. Management expressed willingness to act on employee voice on workplace problems concerning business improvements and employee performance but were very resistant to voice in regard to a change in working conditions or a managers’ performance. Employees and management couched employee voice in terms of technical knowledge exchange rather than being associated with employee dissatisfaction or having a say in decision making. Originality/value – The authors highlight how new professional employees are socialised into understanding that employee voice is not a democratic right and the paper provides insight on the important role of partners as owner/managers in perpetuating employee silence. Previous research on owner/managers has tended to focus on small businesses while the auditing firms in this study have large numbers of employees.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley Breevaart ◽  
Sergio Lopez Bohle ◽  
Jan Luca Pletzer ◽  
Felipe Muñoz Medina

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the weekly effects of job insecurity on employee voice and silence. Specifically, the authors argue that because employment fulfils important needs, employees’ needs are less fulfilled when they feel that their job is at risk (i.e. high job insecurity). Consequently, the authors argue that employees engage in less voice and more silence because when employees’ needs are not fulfilled, they are less committed to the organization and/or protect their personal resources. Design/methodology/approach The authors tested their hypotheses in a five-week long diary study among 97 employees. Findings The authors found that employees reported lower need fulfilment in those weeks and the week after job insecurity was higher, which, in turn, decreased employee voice and increased employee silence in those weeks and the week after. Research limitations/implications The study shows that feelings about one’s job insecurity fluctuate from week to week and that the weekly negative effects associated with increased job insecurity can be explained from a needs fulfilment perspective. The study also highlights the importance of studying voice and silence simultaneously. Practical implications Managers could indirectly increase employees’ voice and decrease employees’ silence by reducing feelings of job insecurity to increase employees’ feelings of predictability of and control over their future. Originality/value The authors studied short-term effects of job insecurity on both employee voice and silence, and examined need fulfilment as an underlying mechanism to explain the effects of job insecurity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Fisher ◽  
Sue Kinsey

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the nature and power of the academic boys club. In many organisations, the political significance of the boys club goes largely unremarked and unacknowledged. Yet, the way that male colleagues intimately relate to each other, sometimes called homosocial desire, is crucial to their success at gaining and retaining power at work. Design/methodology/approach – Feminist, poststructuralist, ethnographic, qualitative, and longitudinal data were collected over a five-year period from male and female academics in a British university. Findings – The boys club is still a powerful feature of British universities. Their apparent invisibility shrouds the manner in which they can and do promote and maintain male interests in a myriad of ways, including selection and promotion. These findings have resonances for all organisations. Research limitations/implications – Researching the intimacies between male colleagues requires time-intensive field work and insider access to men interacting with each other. Practical implications – Meaningful gender equality will not be achieved unless and until the more sophisticated forms of female exclusion are revealed and deconstructed. Originality/value – This research makes an unusual and crucial contribution to the study of gender, men and masculinities by providing longitudinal, rich, detailed data, observing men at the closest of quarters and then analysed by a feminist and poststructuralist gaze.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings The study uses two case studies to explore the integration-responsiveness problem in multi-national enterprises and finds that locally sensitive employer branding and facilitating employee voice can help mitigate global-local tensions in religiously sensitive environments. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Tironi ◽  
Katherine Campos-Knothe ◽  
Valentina Acuña ◽  
Enzo Isola ◽  
Cristóbal Bonelli ◽  
...  

PurposeBased on the research, the authors identify how four key concepts in disaster studies—agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability—are interrupted, and how these interruptions offer new perspectives for doing disaster research from and for the South.Design/methodology/approachMeta-analysis of case studies and revision of past and current collaborations of authors with communities across Chile.FindingsThe findings suggest that agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability, as fundamental concepts for disaster risk reduction (DRR) theory and practice, need to allow for ambivalences, ironies, granularization and further materializations. The authors identify these characteristics as the conditions that emerge when doing disaster research from within the disaster itself, perhaps the critical condition of what is usually known as the South.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to a reflexive assessment of fundamental concepts for critical disaster studies. The authors offer research-based and empirically rich redefinitions of these concepts. The authors also offer a novel understanding of the political and epistemological conditions of the “South” as both a geography and a project.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 190-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brid Featherstone ◽  
Anna Gupta ◽  
Kate Morris

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to move away from a sole focus on assessing and dealing with individualised risk factors in order to more fully engage with and understand the social determinants of many of the harms that are manifest in families. Design/methodology/approach It draws from a number of research studies being conducted by the authors and a literature on psycho-social approaches to social suffering. Findings It highlights the evidence on the contribution of poverty and inequality to many of the problems encountered within families. It explores how hurt, shame and loss are experienced by those who are marginalised and struggling to live well and care safely for themselves and others. Practical implications It highlights the practice implications of adopting an approach that engages with both the social and the psychological and understands their inter-relationship. It offers some thoughts on how the social in psycho-social might receive the attention it deserves, a situation which does not pertain currently. Originality/value It offers an original contribution to thinking in the area of child protection where the focus is primarily on individualised risk factors. It highlights the importance of understanding the social determinants of many of the harms experienced in families and offers some pointers towards thinking and practising differently.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Sundbo

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the movement in the focus on customers within service management and marketing theories and service research that has taken place during the past three decades. The paper addresses the question: How did we, in service research, change from emphasizing quality to emphasizing experience? Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses developments in service and experience theories. Experience has come onto the theoretical agenda, both in its own right and as a concept within service marketing and management theory. Findings – Experience has increasingly been a concept that has replaced quality in service marketing theories. However, an independent experience economy paradigm has also emerged. Recently, the societal emphasis on productivity may lead back to functional quality re-emerges in theories; however, it will most likely be in a new version. Originality/value – This analysis is a profound theory-critical analysis of the actually very widely used concept experience in service theories. The analysis present an understanding of what experience means in these theories and how it relates to the quality concept. This is an original contribution to a deeper understanding of service marketing and service quality theories.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
David William Stoten

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to advocate the adoption of heutagogic principles within management education and to show how it could be implemented.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is the outcome of a review of the literature on learning theory and management education.FindingsThis paper demonstrates how heutagogic principles have been introduced in three areas: entrepreneurial education, executive coaching and e-learning.Originality/valueThis paper makes an original contribution to the discourse on heutagogy through the OEPA model that maps the heutagogic learning journey.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Lego Munoz ◽  
Terri Towner

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how exposure to a presidential candidate's high engagement Instagram images influences a citizen's candidate evaluations.Design/methodology/approachData were collected via Amazon MTurk. A 3 × 2 experimental design was employed to test the persuasive effect of exposure of the “most liked” and “most commented on” images of the top four 2016 US presidential primary candidates on a US citizen's candidate evaluation.FindingsResults reveal that highly engaging Instagram images of unfamiliar presidential candidates positively influenced candidate evaluations. However, the same was not true for more well-known presidential candidates.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was not conducted during a live campaign and only examined four of the top 2016 presidential primary candidates.Practical implicationsThe research includes implications for marketers seeking to increase engagement and reach in Instagram marketing campaigns. This study shows that even brief exposure to a highly engaged post involving an unfamiliar person/product on social media can significantly alter evaluations of that person or product.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, no experimental designs have addressed how Instagram posts influence users' political attitudes and behaviors within the political marketing and communications literature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 94-106
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Roth ◽  
Mari B. Pierce

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to make evidence-based recommendations for improving the responses of criminal justice agencies to juvenile burglary offenders. Design/methodology/approach The paper first analyzes what is known about factors relevant to young offenders’ initiation into burglary and subsequent persistence in that offense. It then evaluates research regarding juvenile justice interventions that can mitigate those factors in order to prevent youth from becoming involved in burglary or to encourage desistance in juvenile burglars. Findings Effective early intervention with juvenile burglars is vital, as burglars often begin committing this crime in their early teens and quickly develop expertise in the offense. Evidence supports the importance of positive mentoring, substance abuse programs, some forms of restorative justice and multi-modal interventions with education and employment components, while waiving these youth to adult court appears to offer little benefit over less punitive approaches. Originality/value This work delivers an original contribution by providing an analysis of existing burglary and juvenile justice research that may be useful to policymakers, law enforcement and other justice practitioners.


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