Doing Silence: How Silence Is Produced in Meetings

Authoritarian management and dysfunctional practices and processes have long been seen as the underlying systemic causes of silence within organizations. Individual responses to these causes, rooted in fear and futility, have been the accompanying explanations. While both types of factors contribute to a climate of silence, their dominance in certain contexts—such as consultative meetings among high-performing independent professionals—should not be taken for granted. Our study looks into the context of higher education, and business schools more specifically, and unpacks the mechanisms of silence reproduction beyond the (perceived) fear and futility in voice articulation. More specifically, we present a multidimensional processual model of silence, where we unearth the forces driving and reinforcing silence as the mode of being. We point to how structural, cultural, and individual elements interact, and how social situations act as drivers of silence rather than as voice activators. We advance numerous recommendations for practice and discuss how unaddressed silence could contribute to the progressing deterioration of the professional ethos.