Abstract
This article explores silence as a phenomenon and practice in the workplace through a Buddhist-enacted lens where silence is intentionally encouraged. It brings forward a reconsideration of the roles of silence in organizations by proposing emancipatory dimensions of silence—reflexivity, self-decentralization, and transformation. Based on 54 interviews with employees and managers in a Vietnamese telecommunications organization, we discuss the dynamic nature of silence, and the possible coexistence of the constructive and the oppressive aspects of silence in a workplace spirituality context. Instead of studying silence as one-dimensional, we call for an integrated view and argue that studying silence requires consideration of the multiplicity of its interconnected dimensions. By considering silence as a relational and emerging processes constructed around its vagueness and uncertainties, our study reveals the many possible ways silence is organized and organizes and sheds light on silence as a marker of the complexities and paradoxes of organizational life.
Highlights
Silence has often been neglected or merely considered as a unitary concept, mainly the absence of speech and fundamentally as an inaction (Pinder & Harlos, 2001; Van Dyne et al, 2003)
By drawing on the Buddhist-enacted organizational context where practices of silence are explicitly encouraged for both managers and employees, we extend the analytical lens of silence from employees to both employees and managers and explore how they collaboratively produce the three emancipatory dimensions
While silence is often conceptualized with negative connotations within management and organization studies in the mainstream literature, silence as a spiritual expression is characterized as being positive in relation to cultivating the fullness of experience (Poland & Pederson, 1998; Poulos, 2004)
Summary
Silence has often been neglected or merely considered as a unitary concept, mainly the absence of speech and fundamentally as an inaction (Pinder & Harlos, 2001; Van Dyne et al, 2003). By actively stimulating the addressee to explore knowledge and seek answers by themselves, Buddhist silence reflects a process of generating contextual understanding rather than passively receiving it Such interpretations of silence in Buddhism move away from the traditional conceptualization of silence as a passive form of behavior for intentionally withholding information (Pinder & Harlos, 2001; Van Dyne et al, 2003). This shift from receiving (e.g., absorbing surface levels of knowledge) to generating and sustaining such knowledge generation facilitates a process of self-transformation and continuous learning, and a process of wisdom articulation through the accumulation of reflexive experiences for incremental and progressive growth (Taylor, 2017). Our findings highlight the need to take into account the possibility of being exposed and conforming to the performative and intentional nature of silence
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