Prior research on citizenship behavior has mainly focused on its voluntary side—organizational citizenship behavior. Unfortunately, although compulsory behavior is a global organizational phenomenon, the involuntary side of CB—compulsory citizenship behavior, defined as employees’ involuntary engagement in extra-role work activities that are beneficial to the organization : 77–93, 2006)—has long been neglected and very little is known about its potential negative consequences. Particularly, research on CCB–counterproductive work behavior association is still in its nascent stage. Therefore, drawing on moral disengagement theory and (...) social exchange theory, we firstly attempt to systematically investigate how and when CCB leads to CWB. Specifically, we see employee silence as a critical form of passive CWB and propose a moderated mediation model. In the model, CCB predicts silence through MD—a set of cognitive mechanisms that deactivate moral self-regulatory processes, with the Chinese culture-specific concept of supervisor–subordinate guanxi, which captures the supervisor–subordinate non-work-related personal ties, acting as the contextual condition. Two-wave data collected from a sample of 293 employees in 17 manufacturing firms in China supported our hypotheses. The results revealed that the more employees experienced compulsory feelings caused by CCB, the more they morally disengaged and, in turn, resorted to avoidant or passive responses as a coping strategy. Further, s–s guanxi serves as a reverse moderator in that high s–s guanxi mitigates the destructive impact of CCB, makes employees less inclined to morally disengage, and thereby largely prevents them from practicing workplace silence behavior. Implications for theory and intervention strategies for practice are discussed. We also propose several promising avenues for future research. (shrink)

Traditionally, organ retrieval from cadavers has taken place only in cases where the declaration of death has occurred using “brain death” criteria. Under these criteria, specific tests are performed to demonstrate directly a lack of brain activity. Recently, as a result of efforts to increase organ procurement, attention has been directed at the use of so-called “non-heart-beating” donors : individuals who are declared dead not as a result of direct measurements of brain function, but rather as a result of the (...) cessation of heart and respiratory functions. Attempts to obtain organs from such individuals have recently resulted in substantial negative publicity. Claims were made that the deaths of patients were being accelerated in order to get organs, and that sometimes organs were being removed from patients who were not yet dead. (shrink)

The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities--whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide--is no fairy tale. In The Elephant in the Room, Eviatar Zerubavel sheds new light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial--the keeping of "open secrets." The author shows that conspiracies of silence exist at every level of (...) society, ranging from small groups to large corporations, from personal friendships to politics. Drawing on examples from newspapers and comedy shows to novels, children's stories, and film, the book travels back and forth across different levels of social life, and from everyday moments to large-scale historical events. At its core, The Elephant in the Room helps us understand why we ignore truths that are known to all of us. Zerubavel shows how such conspiracies evolve, illuminating the social pressures that cause people to deny what is right before their eyes. We see how each conspirator's denial is symbiotically complemented by the others', and we learn that silence is usually more intense when there are more people conspiring--and especially when there are significant power differences among them. He concludes by showing that the longer we ignore "elephants," the larger they loom in our minds, as each avoidance triggers an even greater spiral of denial. Social life in families, organizations, communities and even entire nations is full of situations where the emperor has no clothes. The Elephant in the Room illuminates the dynamics behind these situations, revealing why we ignore obvious and alarming realities. (shrink)

Previous research has shed light on the detrimental effects of abusive supervision. To extend this area of research, we draw upon conservation of resources theory to propose a causal relationship between abusive supervision and psychological distress, a mediating role of psychological distress on the relationship between abusive supervision and employee silence, and a moderating effect of the supervisor–subordinate relational context on the mediating effect of abusive supervision on silence. Through an experimental study, we found the causal path linking (...) abusive supervision and psychological distress. Results of both the experimental study and a field study provided evidence that psychological distress mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and silence. Lastly, we found support that this mediation effect was contingent upon the relational context in Study 2 but not in Study 1. We discuss implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

In this chapter I show that idealizing assumptions can obscure conversational dynamics because they neglect power differentials that are crucial enablers of the successful performance of some speech acts (see, Sbisà, 2020). I examine how silencing is promoted by conversational norms that would defeasibly entitle linguistic agents to presume that silence indicates acceptance. I focus on Goldberg’s (2020) discussion of these phenomena. Goldberg argues in support of a norm of no silent rejections claiming that silencing is partly the result (...) of the misapplication of this norm. He further defends the view that the norm itself is part of the solution to the problem of silencing. In the chapter I argue that Goldberg is mistaken on these points. Instead, drawing inspiration from Sbisà (2020), I argue that norms of no silent rejection are temporarily enacted by means of speech acts that function as exercitive assertions. (shrink)

While much ink has been spilt over the political importance of speech, much less has been dedicated to the political importance of silence. This article seeks to fill that gap. We propose the need for a robust, democratic right to silence in public life and argue that there are politically salient epistemic reasons for recognising that right. We begin by defining what silence is and what a robust right to silence entails. We then argue that the (...) right to silence offers two politically salient epistemic benefits. The first is that, if the right to silence is maintained, we can avoid the epistemic harm that may be caused when an individual is compelled to lie in public. The second is that the right to silence can protect marginalised individuals against the epistemic injustices that may arise when others are likely to misconstrue their speech. (shrink)

According to Stanley Kubrick, “[i]f it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed”. This is true for award-winning Irish short story writer Claire Keegan (1968) whose sparse and effective prose has hit the core of audiences struggling to process the lingering impact of national trauma. Keegan confronts it all head-on, highlighting social issues that loom large in evocative narratives where thoughts, situations and scenarios spill over into the space between the words. What is left unsaid says it all. (...) The silence that reigns in a space of ‘NON-sayability’ in Keegan’s stories is anything but opaque. In Small Things Like These she navigates treacherous territories in a dark Christmas tale about the widespread and notorious Magdalene Laundry apparatus that keeps weighing heavily on our collective conscience. How can we remain passive in the face of wrongdoings and how does Keegan unlock the past and urge us to scrutinise history? (shrink)

Although extant literature has covered the differences between unethical behaviors in relation to perpetrators and targets, most of this research has not considered the effects of observed unethical behaviors on employees. In this study, we focus on observed unethical behaviors of peers targeted at their organization and examine how witnessing a peer engage in an organizationally targeted unethical behavior would impact the observer. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we propose that organizational identification will inform emotions, which in turn will shape (...) employee silence, depending on how employees appraise the observed unethical behavior. We theorize that peer unethical behaviors would induce anger, anxiety, and vicarious shame, which will guide employees’ quiescent and prosocial silence behaviors. In addition, we suggest that the proposed relationships would vary with the level of organizational identification. With a sample of 329, results from a between-subject scenario study generally supported our hypotheses. There was a combined effect of peer unethical behaviors and organizational identification on anger, anxiety, and shame, which in turn led to employee silence in the cases of anxiety and shame. (shrink)

Assesses Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to ethics as calling for a poetic interplay between perception and imagination, and between silence and solidarity, that reveals our place in the world, and our obligations to ourselves and others. Before his death in 1961, Merleau-Ponty worried about what he saw as humanity’s increasingly self-enclosed and manipulative way of experiencing self, others, and the world—the consequences of which remain apparent in our destructive inability to connect with others within and across cultures. In Merleau-Ponty and the (...) Face of the World, Glen A. Mazis provides an overall consideration of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy that brings out what he sees as a corrective prescription for ethical reorientation that is fundamental to Merleau-Ponty’s thought. Mazis begins by analyzing the key role that silence plays for Merleau-Ponty as a positive, powerful presence rather than a lack or emptiness, and then builds on this to explore the ethical significance of the face-to-face encounter in his thought as one of solidarity rather than obligation. In the last part of the book, Mazis traces the development of what he calls “physiognomic imagination” in Merleau-Ponty’s work. This understanding of imagination is not fancy or make-believe, but rather brings out the depths of perceptual meaning and leads to an appreciation of poetic language as the key to revitalizing both ethics and ontology. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s published works, lecture notes, unpublished writings, and the work of many phenomenologists and Merleau-Ponty scholars, Mazis also offers incisive readings of Merleau-Ponty’s work as it relates to that of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Gaston Bachelard, and Emmanuel Levinas. (shrink)

While most educational practices today place an excessive amount of attention on discourse, this article attaches great importance to the reciprocity between speech and silence by drawing from the writings of Plato's Socrates, Augustine, and Paul Gauguin for whom this reciprocity is of the essence in learning. These three figures teach that we learn to speak, listen, and act in relation with the silence of our thoughts. This article claims that Socrates' dialectic is nothing but inward or silent (...) dialogue, which reappears in or is advanced by Augustine, and which is also shared by Paul Gauguin. Yet its manifestation differs one from the other: in Socrates, it manifests itself as silence of thought; in Augustine, as inner vision or contemplation; and in Gauguin, as creative thought or activity. By neglecting or separating speech from silence, today's educational methods do not prepare students to respond to life's questions; neither do they enable students to infuse their conversation with an appreciation of life's beauty. (shrink)

As a common organizational phenomenon, employee silence behavior has various negative implications for organizations, making it critical to understand what factors can reduce employee silence. Drawing upon self-verification theory, this study explores the inhibiting effect of moral identity on silence via felt obligation towards organization. Meanwhile, we also examine the moderating effect of corporate social responsibility perception. We collected three waves of data with a two-month interval from 402 Chinese employees. Results indicated that moral identity positively predicted (...) felt obligation towards organization, which in turn negatively predicted silence behavior. The negative indirect effect of moral identity on silence behavior via felt obligation towards organization was moderated by corporate social responsibility perception. Specifically, this indirect effect was stronger when employees perceived a higher level of corporate social responsibility. By integrating self-verification theory with silence behavior research, our findings provide important insights into the prevention of employee silence behavior in organizations. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Bertrand Russell’s views on mysticism show their intense interest in this subject and how they explored its nature and possibilities. Wittgenstein, who had abandoned his Catholic faith as a teenager, became a religious searcher, which began from his fears of the terrors of war. He had enlisted as a soldier to fight for Austro-Hungary during which his terror of war led him to pray to God for refuge. The fortuitous discovery of Leo Tolstoy’s book, The Gospel in (...) Brief, opened Wittgenstein’s mind to the importance of Jesus and led him to value Christianity once more. Russell’s interest in mysticism appears in a published article written in 1914 and seems to have been one of curiosity, rather than religious. From a young age, Russell became extremely interested in mathematics and he came to perceive that this subject might be called mathematical mysticism. In both cases, Wittgenstein and Russell shared a keen interest in mysticism, with Wittgenstein concluding in his Tractatus that the mystical was transcendent while Russell chose to examine how mysticism and empiricism might complement each other. (shrink)

This paper is an outcome of the business ethics course conducted during the third semester of the MBA course and aims to examine how a subordinate employee’s response, either by raising a concern or being quiet to repeated misbehavior of the leader, impacts an organization. Primary data was collected from the employees of mid-sized IT companies in India using a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. Structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the data. Mediation analysis has been conducted to verify (...) the mediating role of organizational culture. It is found that if an employee feels safe in an environment, they open up to suggestions or else suppress their thoughts to escape repercussion. The analysis shows that silence and voice in an organization have an impact on the organization’s culture. The implications of this study show that leaders violate the integrity of the organization by vandalizing the organization's objectives, outcomes, assets, and well-being of the co-employees. Previous studies have not focused on the mediating role of organizational culture on employee voice or silence. (shrink)

Résumé — En réaction contre la diversité frappante des interprétations du concept de volonté générale chez Rousseau, cet article – qui entend aussi contribuer à cette interprétation – défend une lecture procédurale de la volonté générale qui serait donc le produit d’un vote majoritaire de l’assemblée ; il montre comment certains des passages du livre IV du Contrat social qui semblent se prêter le moins à cette interprétation peuvent cependant y être entièrement intégrés ; contre l’idée que la volonté générale (...) pourrait d’une certaine manière se déduire d’une conception du « bien commun » des citoyens, l’article montre que Rousseau considère globalement que c’est le vote des citoyens qui donne son contenu à l’idée de bien commun. Une partie de la littérature récente consacrée à Rousseau attire l’attention sur les épisodes où les citoyens pourraient ne pas ressentir subjectivement la volonté générale comme l’expression de leur liberté. En réponse à cette difficulté, souvent présentée comme un problème de dissidence politique, l’article soutient qu’aucune solution à ce problème qui se situerait au niveau de la théorie abstraite n’est convaincante ; la pensée politique de Rousseau fournit cependant un certain nombre de ressources qui nous aident à comprendre les différentes options qui s’offrent au dissident dans une république bien ordonnée. La triade classique de Stephen Dedalus – « silence, exil et ruse » – est une manière de nommer trois de ces solutions. L’article se conclut par quelques brèves remarques consacrées aux perspectives que nous ouvre la pensée de Rousseau sur la question de la désobéissance civile.— In response to the striking multiplicity of interpretations of Rousseau’s general will , this paper defends a procedural reading of the general will as one that is constructed through majority voting in the assembly ; it shows how some of the least promising passages of Rousseau’s text in Book Four of The Social Contract are fully assimilable to this interpretation ; and in opposition to the view that the general will is somehow derivable from the citizens’ common good, it contends that Rousseau generally considers that voting is in fact what gives the idea of the common good its content. Some of the best recent critical literature on Rousseau has focused on the moment when citizens might not subjectively experience the general will as an expression of their freedom. In response to this, often framed as the problem of political dissent, the paper argues that there is no persuasive solution on the level of abstract theory ; nevertheless, that Rousseau’s political thought provides us with a number of resources that help us to think about the problems and possibilities of dissent in a well-ordered republic. Stephen Dedalus’ classic trio of « silence, exile, and cunning » helps to provide a label for three of these, and the paper concludes with some brief remarks on the prospects for Rousseauvian civil disobedience. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals who feel psychologically safe believe it is safe to take interpersonal risks such as voicing concerns, asking questions and giving feedback. Psychological safety is a complex phenomenon which is influenced by organizational, team and individual level factors. However, it has primarily been assessed as a team-level phenomenon. This study focused on understanding healthcare professionals' individual experiences of psychological safety. We aim to gain a fuller understanding of the influence team leaders, interpersonal relationships and individual characteristics have on individuals' (...) psychological safety and their decisions to engage in voice or silence behavior. Thirty-four interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals from across five teams working within an acute, suburban hospital. Hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis focused on identifying themes which captured the complexities of individuals' varied experiences of psychological safety. The themes identified were: “Personal Characteristics,” “Past Experiences,” “Individual Perceptions of Being Valued,” and “Judged Appropriateness of Issues/Concerns.” These themes are explored within the context of motivating and inhibiting factors associated with the influence of leadership, interpersonal relationships and individual characteristics on experiences of psychological safety and voice behavior. These results extend existing theoretical frameworks guiding our understanding of psychological safety by accounting for the variation in individuals' experiences and studying these significant influences on voice behavior. Important considerations for the development of interventions to enhance psychological safety are discussed. (shrink)

Blanchot’s Thomas the Obscure and Death Sentence are marked by the imperative to hear the call of night, of darkness, and death. In each work, the ear is enlisted to undermine the prominence accorded to the eye. If sight is essential to measure and confirm the space separating subjects from objects or subjects from other subjects, Blanchot introduces hearing as a way to collapse this protective distance. The border between inside and outside becomes porous, and the subject is no longer (...) protected by vision’s capacity to establish a neutral and demonstrable distance between itself and the object of sight. As vision becomes catastrophic, hearing assumes an ascendant role. Thomas and Anne each hear the call of death, as well as cries, laments and sudden sounds that burst through silence. The characters of Death Sentence also hear and respond to a variety of calls, including the call to yield to death and the open grave. In both works, Blanchot provides a literary space in which sounds... (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the density of road traffic in the Global North decreased considerably. For those enjoying the resulting tranquillity, it prompted the hope that this experience would raise public noise awareness and alter mobility culture. Now that Global North economies are returning to pre-pandemic levels, however, not much appears to have changed. This article aims to contribute to understanding the persistence of the status quo by historically tracing discourse coalitions around traffic noise in the twentieth and early twenty-first (...) century. Discourse coalitions are connections between groups of actors that have opposing interests but share a specific set of storylines concerning a public problem. As we will show by focusing on the issue of traffic noise in the Netherlands, the long-term results of these discourse coalitions -in terms of discourse structuration, institutionalization and destabilization- tend to shift attention away from structural interventions in traffic flows. (shrink)

The essay discusses the religious and ethical message of Shusaku Endo’s Silence. Briefly focusing first on the plot of the novel, the article proceeds to discuss the moral dilemma that is the core of the novel and asks whether the dilemma is symmetrical or incommensurable. Next, the essay analyzes the dilemma from the point of view of Max Scheler’s theory of the tragic. Finally, to highlight Rodrigues’s tragic situation, it discusses the notion of the hiddenness of God.

This companion volume to The Sacred Mirror is an anthology of teachings on how nondual spiritual realization and psychology work in the specialized relationship between therapist and client and in ordinary personal relationships"--Provided by publisher.

ABSTRACTOver the last decade, Europe’s immigration regulations have raised concerns regarding human rights and divided the public opinion on transnational movement, particularly with the ever-growi...

Descartes, one of the 17th century philosophers, likens philosophy to a tree in the context of the classification of sciences. According to him, philosophy is a tree: roots are metaphysics, body is physics and branches are medicine, mechanics and ethics. This classification is also called as the tree of philosophy and it symbolizes the scientific paradigm of the Cartesian tradition and therefore the modern philosophy in general. Descartes' famous tree was shaken with a heavy question asked three centuries later by (...) the German philosopher Heidegger. Heidegger asks the French philosopher: “What is the soil of the Philosophy tree?”. We want to go back in time before Descartes, keeping this challenging question of Heidegger and aiming to find the answer given by the famous Ottoman scholar Tashkubrizadah. In his three-volume work called as Miftâh al-Sa‘âdah, Tashkubrizadah sets out a very distinctive classification of ‘ulûm that have not seen before. What also attracts our attention here is that Tashkubrizadah also draws a tree symbol just like Descartes in his classification. We see this foundation in the section headings of his work. These headings also have a special importance in terms of showing the boundaries and depth of Ottoman ‘ilm tradition. (shrink)