Employees' willingness to raise problems and suggestions depends on their expectation of how it will be received, not on whether they have something to say.
The observation that matters practically is that the supply of information is not the constraint. People generally know what is wrong. What varies is their estimate of whether raising it will improve anything and what it will cost them, and both estimates are formed from what happened to the last person who tried.
In practice
- A survey asking why nobody flagged the problem is answered by what happened to the person who flagged the previous one.
- A suggestion scheme with no visible outcome receives fewer suggestions each year and concludes there are none.
- Standing
- The organisational-behaviour literature on speaking up; distinct from Hirschman's voice, which is the alternative to exit in a market relationship.
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- Why organisations learn, harden and decline