Abstract
<p>Real, or perceived, workplace bullying exhibited by a supervisor against a subordinate may condition a subordinate to withhold disagreement, or communication of contrarian information, from the supervisor. Existing research and literature demonstrate the mum effect and its influence on communicators given generally neutral associations with message recipients. The mum effect is the tendency for communicators to feel a sense of guilt and association with bad news delivered to a message recipient. Given an alternative, communicators prefer to remain mum than to deliver the bad news. However, research of the mum effect has minimally explored divergent conditions. Through an exploration of workplace bullying, whistleblowing, and existing literature regarding the mum effect, the author presents a divergent theme to the hierarchical mum effect which the author labels the tyrannical mum effect. The tyrannical mum effect is established under the framework of seven propositions which provide the foundation by which a supervisor exhibits workplace hostility to subordinates, subordinate interpretation of the hostility, and the willingness of the subordinate to communicate disagreement in a hostile work environment. The seven propositions of the tyrannical mum effect provide opportunity for future research.</p>
Highlights
Real, or perceived, workplace bullying exhibited by a supervisor against a subordinate may condition a subordinate to withhold disagreement, or communication of contrarian information, from the supervisor
Seven propositions establish the foundation for additional research into the tyrannical mum effect. These seven propositions are presented via an exploration of established research connecting the hierarchical mum effect to workplace bullying and organizational whistleblowing procedures
Tesser and Rosen (1972) identified the mum effect in their study examining the reluctance of a communicator to share bad news when the communicator and recipient shared similar and dissimilar fates resulting from the communication
Summary
Whereas the hierarchical mum effect addresses the propensity of subordinates’ option to remain mum to supervisors due to the constraints of the hierarchical structure and that structure’s emphasis on protecting the supervisor’s public self-image, the tyrannical mum effect is a divergent theme which directly explores workplace bullying when the supervisor is the perpetrator of hostility. While Yariv’s position may refute Weening et al.’s argument that associated relationships between communicator and message recipient may influence the mumming effects on the communicator, Yariv’s position does not address the compounding complications of the mum effect upon the communicator resulting from a hostile relationship with the message recipient. The author believes that when the workplace bully is the message recipient, and in particular is the supervisor, a communicator is further predisposed to respond differently to negative feedback coaching sessions than would a communicator with only an associated relationship to the message recipient. In support of Weening et al.’s position, the author proposes the level of developed association between communicator and message recipient is, an influential factor to the receptiveness to negative feedback coaching sessions, and thusly the willingness of a communicator to attempt application of lessons learned
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