Voice and silence in organizations

Abstract

Unlike previous research on voice and silence, this article breaks the distance between the two and declines to treat them as opposites. Voice and silence are interrelated and intertwined strategic forms of communication that presuppose each other in such a way that the absence of one would minimize completely the other’s presence. Social actors are not voices or silences. Social actors can have voice or silence, they can do both because they operate at multiple levels and deal with multiple issues at different moments in time.