Abstract
Previous research on organizational dissent has explored a number of issues, but that research has been overly focused on the dissenter while neglecting the active role of others in co-constructing dissent. That line of scholarship has also tended to examine dissent expressions in isolation rather than exploring how previous experiences shape present expectations. This essay redefines dissent to situate interaction centrally and to focus on dissent interactions over time as a process rather than a one-time event. The success or failure of dissent is conceptualized as part of that process. Such a perspective reveals nuances by including the stories and discourses that are told as part of and in addition to an initial dissent conversation. A case study demonstrates how this reconceptualization of dissent recognizes the primary importance of interaction in constituting organizations and advances process theory by explicating the value such a perspective adds to this context.
Organizational dissent is an important form of communication for a variety of reasons. For the employee, the ability to voice disagreement and/or dissatisfaction has been positively linked to outcomes such as perceptions of procedural justice (Avery & Quinones, 2002) and job satisfaction (Lutgen-Sandvik, Riforgiate, & Fletcher, 2011). For the organization, dissent leads to increased employee performance (Ng & Feldman, 2012), better problem solving (DeDreu & West, 2001; Janis, 1982; Mitchell, Nicholas, & Boyle, 2009; Schulz-Hardt, Brodbeck, Mojzisch, Kerschreiter, & Frey, 2006), and better decision making (Banks, 2008; Hegstrom, 1990; Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Redding, 1985; Stanley, 1981) because employee feedback represents an important source of information needed to make good decisions.
Despite this growing line of scholarship, dissent research has fallen short in two ways. First, dissent is an interactional phenomenon, yet much of this research has examined only the actions of an individual rather than the perspectives of multiple groups of people interacting with each other. Organizational members are not passive receivers (i.e., dissent audiences, Kassing, 1997) but participate in co-constructing dissent. By neglecting interactions, previous research has not captured how others help to define dissent and how others help to differentiate effective and ineffective dissent. The present essay describes potential roles of dissenters, supervisors, and coworkers in dissent. Practically speaking, this shift recognizes that just as organizational, relational, and individual factors function as constraints on dissenters’ agency (Kassing, 1997), the dissenter’s interactions with others also serve to potentially constrain or enable dissenters’ agency.
Second, much research has studied dissent as a discrete event. Conceptualizing dissent in this way enables certain types of efficient causality statements to be made but may not reflect what people actually experience. Instead, a new approach is necessary that conceptualizes dissent as a continuous process. Such an approach would enable researchers to better understand complex causal relationships between dissent events as past experiences and histories within that process interrelate over time. Additionally, potential dissenters are influenced by past dissent experiences (Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003), and a process approach more closely reflects this reality.
Based on these needs, the current essay conceptualizes organizational dissent as a co-constructed process constituted by three entities—the dissenter, manager(s), and coworker(s). The contributions of these three constituencies are bracketed into three “moments” following a life cycle process (Poole, Van de Ven, Dooley, & Holmes, 2000). The following paragraphs define organizational dissent. Subsequent sections explore dissent interactions as a continuous process, using a phase model to explain how dissent interactions may develop. This perspective also allows an extended description of how one might describe successful dissent. The essay concludes with a case study using this model and an explanation of the heuristic advantages provided by this reconceptualization.
Redefining Organizational Dissent
The first step in examining dissent as a co-constructed process is defining the term dissent. The word co-construct is used to describe how interactions comprise reality, following Putnam and Boys’ (2006) discussion of co-construction within the metaphor of organizational performance. Co-construction recognizes that, as two or more people interact, their social constructions of reality are also interacting, overlapping, and/or conflicting. The interaction constitutes or reconstitutes social reality. Thus, saying that dissenters, managers, and coworkers co-construct dissent situates the question of what is dissent within the interactions of these three groups of people as they define and enact dissent, sometimes in complementary ways while other times from contradictory positions.
Organizational dissent is usually conceptualized as a subset of employee voice, which Hirschman (1970) viewed as one response to dissatisfaction in organizations. Kassing (2002) defined dissent as “a particular form of employee voice that involves the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions about organizational practices and policies” (p. 189). Similarly, Sprague and Ruud (1988) examined “talk that expresses disagreement with authority” (p. 171). This separates dissent from more covert forms of resistance such as deviance or neglecting one’s duties. As these definitions indicate, issues that trigger dissent run distinctly counter to preferences of organizational management, which distinguishes dissent from the more inclusive label of complaining.
Missing from most definitions of dissent is a focus on interaction. That is, these definitions overemphasize dissent as solely based on the actions of the dissenter, which neglects the contributions of supervisors and coworkers to the dissent process. Kassing (1997, 2000a, 2000b; Kassing & Avtgis, 2001) has built a substantial research program examining supervisors, coworkers, and others as “audiences” of dissent. However, much of that research presented audiences as passive receivers of dissent rather than explicitly describing how those constituents might co-construct dissent through their interactions with a dissenter. Sprague and Ruud (1988), on the other hand, suggested the presence of interaction, both in their definition as well as in their study conducted with that definition, but they are still dissenter-centric and they dismiss much of the cognitive processes that underlie dissent.
Several studies move closer toward a focus on interactions by acknowledging dissenters as mindful of others. Kassing (2009a, 2009b) found that dissenters took previous conversations with supervisors into account when they circumvented their boss or repeated dissent that they had already expressed. However, these studies fall short methodologically because each measured only dissenters’ perceptions of supervisors. In a different direction, Kassing (2005) measured others’ perceptions of dissent strategies, which called attention to others in the dissent process but did not position coworkers and supervisors as more than receivers of dissent. All of these studies have addressed dissent as an action that dissenters did rather than an interaction in which several people participate. While this distinction may seem minor, focusing on dissent as an interaction (rather than as only the dissenter’s expression within the interaction) draws attention to roles that others play in defining dissent, the effectiveness of that dissent, and the broader process surrounding dissent.
The present essay breaks from earlier studies and defines organizational dissent as an interactive process that occurs as a result of one or more subordinates expressing disagreement with policies, practices, or imperatives. This definition includes the expression of dissent that occurs as part of an interaction between a dissenter(s) and one or more audiences as well as the cognitive processes that occur prior to and simultaneously with that interaction. Also included are future interactions in which others reflect back on the initial conversation, such as when coworkers share stories about a particular dissenter. Dissent from this perspective could include expressions from one person to another or from a group of people to another group of people. The initial expression of disagreement could take the form of a complaint, venting about a problem, a suggestion, and/or a threat so long as the issue provoking that expression is orthogonal to generally accepted managerial interests. Finally, I use subordinate rather than employee to include disagreement that comes from someone of lower status in a variety of organizational settings. Although most of the examples in the present essay represent dissent in workplaces, it is also possible to imagine dissent in a nonemployment setting such as a volunteer voicing dissent to a staff member of a nonprofit organization or to another volunteer (e.g., Garner & Garner, 2011).
A Process Perspective
Having defined dissent as an interactive phenomenon, it is also important to understand dissent from a process perspective rather than a variance perspective. A variance perspective focuses on the variables that affect a phenomenon. In the case of dissent, most research operationalizes dissent as a single event and examines the variables that influence that event such as workplace freedom of speech (Kassing, 2000a) or dissenters’ goals (Garner, 2009a). However, the dissenter experiences dissent as a continuous process rather than a discrete event, and research has largely ignored the depth of temporal dependences or that maps critical events over time. Moreover, studying dissent as an event does not adequately capture how past histories and experiences of dissent affect the present interaction. A process approach characterizes a phenomenon as a sequence of events that lead to particular outcomes rather than characterizing the phenomenon through a series of related variables (Poole et al., 2000).
If organizational dissent is conceptualized, not as a one-time event, but as a continuous stream of action that is punctuated by particular moments, the researcher may be able to detect patterns and causality in dissent and dissent effectiveness that a traditional approach would miss by reducing dissent to a dependent variable. Aristotle (trans. 1984) defined several types of causes, among which most social science research focuses on efficient causality, where one variable causes change in another variable. Process models also include formal and final causality. Formal causality describes how the pattern or form of a phenomenon influences the process. Within the dissent process, the ways in which others have expressed dissent may serve as a pattern to which future dissent would conform to some degree. Final causality describes how a desired end brings the phenomenon to that end. A dissenter’s goals may function in this sense. In both of those examples, variance studies might try to include past history or goals as variables that influence dissent through efficient causality. Poole et al. (2000) contrasted efficient causes with formal and final causes by saying that efficient causes “push” a phenomenon while formal and final causes “pull” a phenomenon to an end state. Focusing on formal and final causality could demonstrate how organizational culture and histories influence dissent—they serve as patterns and end states, pulling dissent to fit. Process theories also then describe how events link together which would recognize that dissent expressions constitute that culture and history. Kassing’s (2009b) study of repetitious dissent is a good first step in this direction. Kassing asked participants about times when they had repeated their dissent and studied how successive dissent expressions were shaped by previous expressions. However, Kassing’s study is focused on only one type of dissent (repeating oneself). A model is needed that extends this approach to other types of dissent.
Poole et al. (2000) identified five requirements of a process theory: to identify events in the process, to characterize event sequences and the properties of those sequences, to specify how events are sequenced together in time, to evaluate formal and final causality, and to recognize a compelling narrative in events and event sequences. Thus, the bulk of the paper is devoted to those tasks. Inherent in those requirements is that a process theory should detail how events lead to other events, and Poole and associates described four generative mechanisms to characterize possible explanations for event linkages. These generative mechanisms, or “motors,” operate singly or in combination with each other. A life cycle motor explains movement between events in terms of particular phases. A teleological motor emphasizes how goals of actors affect events. A dialectical motor characterizes events as pushing and pulling between opposing forces, and the tension between those forces links events together. Finally, an evolutionary motor captures events as sequences of variation-selection-retention. The present essay focuses on how a life cycle motor describes the process of organizational dissent and presents a case study that highlights that motor.
Moments of Organizational Dissent
Conceptualizing dissent as a process rather than a discrete event enables an examination of how dissent is co-constructed through interactions. Poole et al. (2000) described a life cycle motor as describing change in one entity (i.e., a small group or an organization). The entity in the present model is a dissent expression. As previously explained, multiple groups of people interact in that expression, and these interactions shape the nature of the process. The following sections, then, are organized around a life cycle motor with three moments: precipitation, initial conversation, and residual communication. These are not presented to be unitary stages of dissent as much as conceptual opportunities to understand how different constituencies interact and evolve over time. For the sake of clarity, “dissenter” is a label used to identify one who expresses dissent to someone else, “manager” is used to designate one who is at a higher position or status within the organization relative to the dissenter, and “coworker” signifies one who is at an equal position relative to the dissenter. Figure 1 illustrates these moments, and each of the following sections briefly defines that particular moment before describing how different interactions characterize what is dissent and what is effective dissent.
Moments of dissent with three constituencies.
Precipitation
Precipitation begins as a subordinate fails to identify with managerial interests and feels driven to speak out about the disconnect between management’s and his or her own goals (Kassing, 1997). According to Kassing, this is the earliest point at which the communicative act can be bracketed as dissent, although this moment is certainly influenced by previous interactions and experiences. Kassing developed a model where the dissenter experienced a trigger, or precipitating circumstance, and chose a strategy for voicing dissent. Triggers could be from a wide range of issues (Graham, 1986; Hegstrom, 1999; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002; Redding, 1985).
This previous work examined precipitation from a dissenter’s perspective and highlights the cognitive elements that contribute to someone expressing dissent. A focus on other constituencies then demonstrates how dissent in this moment is best conceptualized as an interaction-based process. Potential dissenters imagine their managers’ reactions before the conversation ever takes place (Cloven & Roloff, 1993; Kassing, 2009a; Sprague & Ruud, 1988), which is one way in which managers are indirectly involved in the precipitation moment. Managers and coworkers also interact with the would-be dissenter to shape the experience of any potential disconnect with managerial expectations, part of what defines an act as dissent. Sias (1996) discovered that coworkers’ conversations defined circumstances in organizations in that “by sharing opinions and attributions regarding the topic of discussion, they worked toward a consensual understanding of their environment” (p. 182). Coworkers also likely influence dissenters’ goals by helping to define what is possible to accomplish (i.e., does the dissenter believe it is possible to change a situation). Thus, managers and coworkers are important parts of dissent because they co-construct the dissent trigger and the environment in which a dissenter responds to that trigger.
This moment of precipitation is also influenced by the histories of dissent expressions, which constitute an aspect of the organization’s culture. Previous success in communicating dissent likely predicates bolder expressions of dissent. Similarly, if employees have been sanctioned for voicing disagreement in the past, they will be much more tentative in expressing dissent in the future. This inclusion of history in a model of dissent is an important advantage of a process approach because it demonstrates how previous events shape present interactions. Although the three moments are presented sequentially in this essay, the life cycle repeats itself as new dissent events emerge from past ones.
Initial Conversation
Whereas precipitation encompasses the process leading up to a dissent conversation, the initial conversation focuses more on what the dissenter says and immediate reactions to the dissent. Dissent is distinct from other types of resistance because dissent involves expressed disagreement as opposed to covert actions (Kassing, 2011). As such, the moment of the initial conversation is separated from precipitation by the first, actual statement of disagreement with policies, practices, or imperatives. As precipitation transitions into that initial conversation, the dissenter must decide to whom the dissent will be directed, something that Kassing (1997) labeled the “audience.” Kassing identified three audiences for dissent—supervisors, coworkers, and friends or family outside of the organization—and Kassing’s later work (2000a, 2000b; Kassing & Avtgis, 2001) explicated the conditions under which dissenters would choose different audiences. A second consideration as an employee responds to a dissent trigger is what to say, and several research programs have explored the message choices available to dissenters (Garner, 2009b; Gossett & Kilker, 2006; Kassing, 2002).
Although the transition between precipitation and the initial conversation may underscore the dissenter’s role more than others, the exclusivity of that attention is short-lived as managers’ and coworkers’ roles in co-constructing dissent are immediately brought to light. For example, the audience makes initial judgments about the dissenter that contribute substantially to co-constructing dissent. One of the most foundational of these judgments is how the conversation is labeled by interactants. That judgment is important as part of formal causality in which the form of a phenomenon shapes the outcome. In contrast to the definition of dissent in academic research, the word’s popular connotation is often negative. A manager or coworker who is negatively predisposed to the dissent may use labels such as “whining” and may object that the dissenter is “not a team player.” Alternatively, a manager or coworker who is positively predisposed to what a dissenter says may label the expression as “feedback” or “problem-solving.”
These labels and valences influence managers’ and coworkers’ initial reactions to the dissent because of formal causality, where the label becomes a form into which the audience expects the dissent to fit. In that sense, how the audience labels dissent exerts a force on the outcome of the dissent conversation. One could argue that the benefits of dissent cited at the beginning of this essay are only realized when dissent is perceived to be “effective” to some degree. The dissenter who feels ineffective in communicating dissent may not feel satisfied and may not perceive high levels of procedural justice in the organization. A challenging voice would at least have to be seriously considered to serve as a preventative for groupthink rather than being ignored or summarily dismissed. The process by which this communication behavior is co-constructed as effective or ineffective needs to be better understood, because the benefits of dissent may not be fully realized if dissent is perceived to be wholly ineffective.
One problem with conceptualizing dissent effectiveness is that successful dissent can mean different things to different people at different times. One way to think about whether dissent is effective is to determine whether the dissent trigger, the issue about which the dissenter expresses dissatisfaction, is resolved. Milliken et al. (2003) found that perceptions of futility were one reason why employees might remain silent about dissatisfaction, which suggests that change may count as effectiveness and lack of change may indicate ineffectiveness. In a separate but related direction, effectiveness might also be thought of as accomplishing one’s goals, since a variety of goals may motivate organizational dissent, including, but not limited to achieving change in the organization (Garner, 2009a). Others have discussed the importance of simply being able to express one’s voice as being effective (Avery & Quinones, 2002). This could indicate that just being able to express one’s voice could indicate the dissent was effective, particularly if one experiences an emotional catharsis because of that expression. These options represent a typology of effectiveness—any one of them could be perceived as indicative of successful dissent by dissenters, coworkers, or managers.
For most of those types of effectiveness, the audience’s response to the dissenter plays an important role in the dissenter’s perceptions of the conversation. What the dissenter says tends to influence how the audience responds (Garner, 2012; Kassing, 2005). However, the audience’s response is also largely dependent on his/her goals. As managers respond to dissent, they base their part of the interaction on a number of cognitive factors including the fit between the dissent and the manager’s goals (Shore & Strauss, 2008), the relationship between the manager and the dissenter (Kassing, 2000b), managers’ appraisals of employees’ performance (Duarte, Goodson, & Klich, 1993), and inertia or general resistance to change (Biyalogorsky, Boulding, & Staelin, 2006). Equally important, the manager may want to be revered as a “good” manager. Coworkers likely also react to dissenters based on factors such as their goals, relationship, appraisal of dissenter’s competence, and perception of change.
As managers and coworkers serve the role of audience, they also play an important part in confirming or contradicting the dissenter’s account of dissatisfaction. For example, coworkers’ participation in these interactions could take the form of sympathy to the dissenter’s case, whereby the dissenter becomes the undeserving victim in stories of management oppression or other circumstances. On the other hand, coworkers’ constructions of the dissent process could proceed in the opposite direction, where the dissenter is seen as a troublemaker. That possibility is the primary reason for remaining silent rather than voicing dissent (Milliken et al., 2003). These frames could be communicated to the dissenter in immediate interactions, or they could be part of stories told later. Such stories are one indication of the move from the initial conversation to residual communication.
Residual Communication
The term residual communication is used to note that dissent is ongoing even after the initial conversation that some might mark as the dissent event. Residual communication describes communication about the dissent following the conversation in which it was expressed. Admittedly, it is much more difficult to study residual dissent than it is to study initial expressions and the precipitation that leads to those expressions. However, including residual communication in a process theory of dissent recognizes one mechanism for how prior conversations affect future ones and thereby better reflects dissenters’ experiences. The end of the initial dissent conversation serves to bracket residual communication as distinct from earlier phases of dissent. During the shift to this moment, the interaction becomes less about the initial dissent expression and more focused on what happens next.
Inherent in that transition is reflecting on whether the dissent was effective or successful, and, certainly, different constituencies will approach that question differently. Several different conceptualizations of dissent effectiveness have been described as part of the previous moment, each of them valid for different reasons. Those conceptualizations of success continue to be co-constructed and reified as part of residual communication, but this moment captures longer term results as well. For example, what of dissent that does not accomplish change, does not accomplish one’s goals, is not expressed to a supervisor for fear of sanctions, but that forms the basis for future action? Scholars have discussed how humorous dissent could be used to unite workers (Lynch, 2009; Taylor & Bain, 2003). Murphy (1998) found that dissent among flight attendants led to collective action. It is not difficult to imagine that those flight attendants initially imagined their conversations with each other as ineffective in terms of instrumental change. Gossett and Kilker’s (2006) examination of the “Radio Shack Sucks” website similarly demonstrates how initial conversations may not be successful in accomplishing change but the residual communication of such dissent may lead to that change. Thus, effective dissent could describe dissent that appears unsuccessful at first but is part of a bigger picture of change. Long-term effectiveness, by definition, may not be evident in the initial conversation and may only become reality through the residual communication that follows early dissent interactions.
A major element of dissent effectiveness from a long-term perspective is the way that dissent is recounted to others, and such stories are also part of the residual communication moment. These stories are related to the labeling of dissent that was an important part of the initial conversation moment. As managers or coworkers respond to dissent and shape short-term dissent effectiveness, stories may develop within the organization regarding that response. Those stories will affect the ways in which all three constituencies construct organizational dissent as these narratives “generate pride, cynical derision, or indifference among different groups of people” (Gabriel, 2004, p. 72). These stories contribute to workplace identities (Holmes, 2005), are politically co-constructed (Taylor, 1995), and are imbued with a moral stance (Drew, 1998). If a coworker perceives the dissenter as bringing trouble to others, the coworker may tell the story with the dissenter as the villain, and the dissent would be portrayed as ineffective if the measure of effectiveness is a cohesive workplace. On the other hand, a coworker who is sympathetic to the dissenter but cynical about the success of the dissent itself may describe the dissenter as a valiant but doomed victim. The valence of the dissent may be positive, but the dissent expression would be portrayed as ineffective in accomplishing change. Alternatively, the coworker who sympathizes with the dissenter and believes the dissent may eventually help the organization (and/or him- or herself) may narrate the story of the dissenter as the courageous hero who will inevitably overcome opposition, thus portraying dissent as effective. These differences in stories are important because effective (as well as ineffective) dissent will shape the environment in which the next dissent conversation takes place. Stories that portray the dissent as effective lead to more dissent while stories that portray the dissent as futile lead to silence (Milliken et al., 2003). Thus, as coworkers co-construct the effectiveness of a particular dissent conversation, they are also shaping the parameters that will constrain and enable dissent in the future. The same things might also be said about stories that managers tell regarding dissent.
As I have discussed these constituencies, I have explained how they co-define dissent, the role each plays in how dissent is enacted, and how each group might approach dissent effectiveness. Placing effective dissent, however conceived, as an outcome at the end of the process is problematic because perceptions of short- and long-term dissent effectiveness then influence future dissent expressions. For example, effective dissent may change a number of the constraints on dissent, potentially loosening those constraints, while ineffective dissent may be perceived as confirming or even tightening those constraints (i.e., Jones barely complained at all and look where it got him/her). As mentioned earlier, this is the strength of a process approach—sequences of events shape future events. Thus, while the trigger and effectiveness may be ways to bracket the beginning and end of dissent, in reality, perceived dissent effectiveness is both a result of and a precondition to dissent.
Co-Construction of Dissent
Three moments describe the life cycle of the dissent process. Within those moments of precipitation, the initial conversation, and residual communication, three perspectives—dissenters, managers, and coworkers—are all active in co-constructing organizational dissent and dissent effectiveness. A case study helps to illustrate these ideas. This case is based on interviews and observational data at Cityview Services, which was collected as part of a larger project (the organization’s name and the names of all participants are pseudonyms). Cityview is a faith-based nonprofit organization with 30 full-time employees, dedicated to helping people in need through a variety of programs including job training, reentry services for ex-offenders, and a medical clinic. Over the course of a year, I observed management meetings (twice monthly), all-staff meetings (monthly), and volunteered regularly with one of Cityview’s services (approximately 30 hr of observation). I formally interviewed 10 employees from every level and every department of the organization. I also spoke informally with almost every employee. The first two interviewees spoke of an employee who expressed dissent to a supervisor regarding a particular service that Cityview offered, and I brought up this event in subsequent interviews. This case study uses stories from that experience as an example of the dissent process. Relevant sections of interview transcripts and field notes from observations were analyzed with a focus on how organizational members interacted within precipitation, initial conversation, and residual communication. The interviews represented primary data for recounting the case study, and all quotations are from those interviews unless otherwise noted. My observations helped me to contextualize participants’ responses.
One form of assistance that Cityview provides is a food bank for community residents. As I began my involvement with the organization, the food bank was part of the community relations department although the primary responsibility of this department was networking with other nonprofit organizations. Just before my arrival, the organization hired a chef (Andrew) and started an onsite café. Andrew began thinking about how the food bank could be improved. Under the system in place before Andrew arrived, “people would just drop by, and be like ‘Oh we need food.’” Volunteers would then assemble the food for these clients. Andrew felt it would be more efficient if those clients could choose their own food rather than having a volunteer assemble their shopping needs. He had seen similar arrangements work at other food banks and wanted to support the mission of the organization by taking on this responsibility. Andrew’s consideration of this issue and his reflections on experiences and observations in other nonprofit organizations were part of the precipitation moment.
Another part of precipitation was Andrew’s perception of the organization’s culture and specifically, his speculation that his supervisor would be open to new ideas. Every person that I interviewed that reported to the associate executive director (Chris) explained that he was open to new ideas. For example, when I asked one participant about how suggestions were considered, she said, “they’d think about it, pray about it, research it, and say, ‘if you think this is really going to work and if it doesn’t cost a lot of extra money’—the money thing is always an issue—‘then try it.’” During the meetings that I observed, I witnessed this as well when Chris asked for feedback on whether the organization’s practices were working or might work better. That culture of openness had been co-constructed through past dissent experiences.
During a meeting of the organization’s management team, Andrew explained his reasoning for wanting this change. This marked the transition from precipitation to initial conversation. Andrew suggested a system based on other food banks, “where, if you’re a family of five, ‘you can have 30 items.’ And then they shop for those 30 items.” Part of Andrew’s reasoning was that the current way of doing things involved volunteers’ time in assembling food for clients, and allowing those clients to shop for themselves would free up those volunteer hours for other needs. Andrew also argued that this would free the community relations director to focus more on partnering with other organizations, which was more related to his job description. Based on Kassing’s (2002) dissent strategies, Andrew presented a direct-factual appeal regarding how he thought the organization could improve. One participant who attended the meeting offered an observation, “there was quite a bit of hesitancy” among the rest of the management. That participant went on to say, “there are lots of different food banks that are run lots of different ways. It just depends on your personnel and the time constraints that you have.” However, the associate executive director was persuaded. As he explained to me, “it seemed like a good idea because it was taking one more thing off of [the community relations director’s] plate, and Andrew had the time to do that. And we thought he had the expertise to do that.”
The initial conversation moment ended when the management team ceased discussing this issue. Later conversations about changes with the food bank were part of residual communication. One person noted that
It was a rough start . . . people would go in and they’d all see this one, great thing. You know, macaroni and cheese that everybody wants. Well, that’s what they would take. And they’d leave the cans of asparagus. Which you know, you can’t blame them.
Interestingly, because a number of people in the organization labeled the dissenter as a villain, the residual communication included several nested examples of dissent. After the change, people began to notice problems with the new arrangement. One case worker explained to me that
We don’t have the staff in the pantry to handle [the clients picking out their own food] so . . . we [the paid staff] needed to stay with them. So it added time . . . it’s actually counterproductive, it’s causing more stress to everything.
She eventually voiced dissent to her supervisor, “it’s adding time, you can see that our time has gone up instead of down.” That case worker explained that “we all shook our heads” at the new arrangement and that “it seemed from her body language that she was going to let [upper management] know.” Her supervisor (Betty) did in fact relay that dissent to the associate executive director.
Just as Chris was open to Andrew’s dissent, he also heard the dissent regarding the new arrangement. Based on those ideas, he shifted the food pantry to a third department. As part of the residual communication from Andrew’s dissent, people at Cityview had expressed dissent regarding changes that were made based on Andrew’s ideas. After the food bank shifted away from Andrew, the residual communication from this nested dissent was blended with the residual communication from Andrew’s original dissent conversation. Betty explained to her staff “I fought for you all and the change is made.” An employee explained, “I think it’s going better now . . . now that Betty’s taking it over.” Part of the residual communication was Betty and Andrew collaborating on how to transition the food bank to its third department. But another part of that communication involved Andrew leaving the organization. Chris was the last person that I interviewed as part of this project. When I asked him about Andrew and this situation, he replied, “he’s no longer with us . . . he was a great cook, but that position requires a lot more . . . we needed someone different in that position.”
This case study demonstrates some of the value in this perspective over the less complicated position of studying dissent primarily from the dissenter’s point of view in at least two ways. First, a dissenter-centric perspective would explore Andrew’s identification with the organization, his relationship with his supervisor, or other variables associated with Andrew and his place in the organization. However, such a perspective would miss how the various events in this process connect together, and how the stories of Andrew’s dissent served to define the experience. Moreover, this process approach demonstrates how interactions fit together to influence the organization’s culture regarding dissent. Because Chris was open to both Andrew’s and Betty’s dissent, others may be more inclined to express dissent in the future. Second, a researcher could understand Andrew’s perceptions of the effectiveness of his conversation with Chris, but such a perspective neglects others’ perception of effectiveness and the longer term implications of dissent. A multiperspective conceptualization of dissent better captures the complexity of dissent and provides better opportunities to enhance dissent effectiveness by examining dissenters’, supervisors’, and coworkers’ points of view.
One important caveat here is that these three perspectives are not unitary in themselves—there could be any number of management perspectives (upper management vs. one’s immediate supervisor, e.g.,) and any number of coworker perspectives, bounded only by the number of people in the organization. Thus, although the earlier explication discussed “a manager’s” role in dissent and treated “coworkers” as a unified group for the sake of simplicity, the reality is that each person within those constituencies represents a different perspective. Additionally, the role of dissenter could easily change as demonstrated in the case. Betty’s roles included Andrew’s coworker, an employee’s manager, and a dissenter. The process approach better captures how these roles may shift throughout each moment.
Heuristic Directions
A process model of dissent that incorporates managers and coworkers as well as dissenters in the co-construction of dissent leads to important questions and avenues for future research. As stated in the introduction to this essay, such a model recognizes how others’ communication affects dissent expressions in addition to the individual, relational, and organizational factors that Kassing (1997) identified. This perspective also provides opportunities for research to better reflect the reality of dissent experiences. The following paragraphs discuss how research using this model can better understand dissent.
Defining Organizational Dissent
One issue that comes from this conceptualization regards how one defines dissent. As previously mentioned, dissent research has tended to focus primarily on dissenters with relatively few exceptions, and certainly dissenters play a pivotal role in the dissent process. Nevertheless, such scholarship may reveal a one-sided view because the nature of interactions is neglected from this perspective. A definition of dissent focused on interactions problematizes how a disconnect with managerial expectations is experienced and expressed because organizational policies and practices are known primarily through interactions with others. This definition further complicates dissent because a dissenter’s expression is only one part of the co-construction process. Such an approach emphasizes the responses of others to dissent, both initially and over time as important for understanding dissent.
Defining dissent as co-constructed represents an important contribution because it draws upon two of Putnam and Boys’ (2006) metaphors that are not often found together. The idea of co-construction originates from the performance metaphor while Putnam and Boys located dissent as part of the voice metaphor. Their chapter on organizational communication metaphors noted that voice has “chained” with discourse, symbol, and contradiction metaphors, but this essay taps a less explored area as it proposes voice as an interactive process based on the performance of various people within the organization. The performance metaphor brings a focus on interaction and sensemaking to the study of voice in organizations. The voice metaphor brings the concept of power imbalance and the idea that people interact in the presence of significant constraints. The combination allows a closer look at how interactions shape power contests and how power shapes interactions.
Future research along the lines of redefinition can explore how managerial interests are co-constructed such that employees dis-identify with those interests as well as how the anticipated reactions of managers further influence dissent expression. Other scholarship could examine dissent as constructed retrospectively as dissenters, managers, and coworkers think back on dissent conversations. In reflecting back on those conversations, each constituent labels dissent in terms of positive or negative valence such as problem solver or troublemaker. These ideas will challenge researchers in measuring and understanding dissent, but the insights that result from a more complex conceptualization will be richer and will provide more insight into the place of dissent within the processes of organizing.
Dissent Effectiveness
Defining dissent as co-constructed enables scholars to better reflect on how dissent effectiveness is conceptualized. Effectiveness has been operationalized based on instrumental change (Dutton, Ashford, O’Neill & Lawrence, 2001; Kassing, 2007, 2009b), voice opportunities (Avery & Quinones, 2002), and collective action (Gossett & Kilker, 2006; Murphy, 1998). However, none of those studies examined the range of effectiveness conditions. Taking diverse approaches to dissent effectiveness and bringing them together as a typology of success adds an alternative perspective. Beyond integrating previous scholarship in that way, this essay proposes conceptualizing effectiveness over time and provides a broader umbrella from which to examine multiple perspectives of what it means for dissent to be effective. One cannot simply measure the degree to which policies or practices were changed as a result of dissent. Instead, effective dissent should be understood at the intersection of multiple constituencies with multiple interests interacting over time. Dissent studies need to include data from dissenters, coworkers, and supervisors, and those data need to be longitudinal.
Just as the labels people use to describe organizational dissent are an important part of defining dissent, those labels and stories of dissent conversations are important parts of examining effectiveness. Organizational members’ talk about dissent shapes future experiences and villainizes, valorizes, or victimizes dissenters, supervisors, and/or coworkers. Research is needed to examine how those labels and stories are developed and how unhelpful labels may be overcome.
Dissent as a Process
Framing organizational dissent in terms of a process also opens new avenues of research. Little research has studied how dissent is temporally situated (though Kassing [2009b] has started in this direction), and that is particularly important as stories about dissenters and about managerial imperatives or reactions influence future dissent. Examining dissent through the lens of a process theory provides the ability to better conceptualize elements that are connected with employees’ expressions of dissent such as past histories of employee dissent within the organization. This lens could be used to better understand how organizational discourse reveals critical events and temporal dependencies among those events (Poole et al., 2000). For example, research along these lines could explore how particular stories among coworkers lead to more upward dissent versus lateral dissent as one event plays into the next. Conceptualizing dissent as a process enables researchers to explore nuances in previous research such as how goals for dissent change over time or how dissenters choose different audiences at different moments.
Part of examining the dissent process is testing the generative mechanisms that drive that process, what Poole et al. (2000) called “motors.” This essay has argued that a life cycle motor exists within organizational dissent interactions and presented a brief case study to demonstrate that motor. Research is needed to further test that motor beyond this one example. Additionally, Poole et al. argued that most organizational processes would include multiple motors. Future research could explore other generative mechanisms such as dialectic or teleological explanations to further understand how formal and final causality shape dissent.
Practical Applications
Finally, by defining dissent as co-constructed and by examining dissent effectiveness as multifaceted, researchers are better positioned to make practical recommendations on how dissenters can better challenge the status quo in at least two ways. First, managers who desire to be seen as “open” should take note that the ways in which they respond to dissent will shape employees’ future dissent expressions. Because the residual communication of one dissent act constitutes the environment in which the next dissent act is expressed, stories that villainize or victimize the dissenter are likely to lead others to remain silent rather than communicate dissent. That silence would be detrimental to organizations where a climate of openness or innovation is imperative or desirable. Second, this perspective gives employees who would be dissenters a vocabulary to better consider the context in which they communicate. By highlighting the role of others and the milieu of previous dissent, the ideas advanced in this essay encourage dissenters to think beyond the words that they use and the audience they choose for their dissent. Rather than relying on instinct or other premises, the perspective lays out a new way of thinking about decisions. The language of interaction and process may make dissenters more cognizant of their environment. They may seek to dissent in such ways that coworkers identify with their concerns and label them as heroes and avoid circumstances in which they would be perceived as villains or victims. Finally, seeing dissent as a process may give hope to dissenters who do not see immediate success from their dissent. Depending on how quickly Chris took action, Betty may not have perceived her initial conversation to be effective, but her dissent accomplished long-term change (the food bank has now been part of Betty’s department for over a year).
Conclusion
Organizational dissent is a process where three constituencies— dissenters, managers, and coworkers—co-construct dissent and dissent effectiveness. Explicitly defining dissent as based in interactions contributes to communication research by highlighting the role of multiple constituencies in the dissent process, which has been neglected in previous research. Dissent is also considered as a process where histories and past experiences shape present expectations. To reflect those areas of thought, dissent is defined as an interactive process that occurs as a result of one or more subordinates expressing disagreement with policies, practices, or imperatives in this essay. The present essay argues for a more complex but more complete understanding of dissent that better reflects the organizing context as a dynamic and discursive arena. The ideas developed here may help organizational members by illustrating the interconnectedness of organizing and demonstrating the importance stories and multiple perspectives in framing organizational dissent.
The co-construction conceptualization also contributes to research by recasting dissent effectiveness as a complex phenomenon that is co-constructed through interactions among multiple voices. What one defines as effective dissent may change as interactions change over time. Research is needed that examines the multiple meanings dissent effectiveness may have because of the importance of enhancing the relative success of dissent attempts. The perspective described in this essay provides a more accurate, even if more complicated, picture of effectiveness. This understanding is also important given the recursive nature of effectiveness, where the success or failure of dissent affects future interactions.
Dissent is not a single event that is driven by a single individual but an interaction based on multiple voices occurring in the context of a continuous flow of experiences. Conceptualizing dissent in this way enriches scholarly understandings of dissent and dissent effectiveness, which will lead to better research and better theories about alternative voices in the workplace. More importantly, such a perspective positions scholars to make more effective claims about how those alternate voices may be better heard.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Jeff Kassing, Kathy Miller, Linda Putnam, Gary Selby, Patty Sias, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.