Employee silence and the authoritarian personality

Andrew R. Timming · Stewart Johnstone

42 citations0/0 files storedInternational journal of organizational analysis

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Labor Movements and Unions Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to, drawing from Adornoet 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.

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References

1970Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States.2001The Authoritarian Personality 1970Participation and Democratic Theory 2000Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World 2003Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs*2011Employee Voice Behavior: Integration and Directions for Future Research 2003An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues that Employees Don’t Communicate Upward and Why*1979The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

Cited by

2017Employee Silence and Silence Antecedents: A Theoretical Classification 2019Differential promotive voice–prohibitive voice relationships with employee performance: Power distance orientation as a moderator 2022Employee silence in an organizational context: A review and research agenda 2021Voice in context: An international comparative study of employee experience with voice in small and medium enterprises 2023Political spillovers of workplace democracy in Germany

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