Hierarchical Mum Effect: A New Investigation of Organizational Ethics

Abstract

In this language production experiment, working adults (N ¼ 226) were asked to respond to unethical business requests. Our objective was to advance a communicative understanding of unethical organizational behaviors by analyzing the linguistic adjustments workers employ to deny unethical requests. Specifically, we measured responses to unethical requests on a continuous coding scheme, which captured degrees of denial directness. We hypothesized that command structures produce a hierarchical mum effect in which subordinates are more indirect in denying an unethical request than supervisors and coworkers. Results confirmed the presence of a hierarchical mum effect; data also indicated that females, younger workers, and those with the least work experience are most indirect in denying an unethical request.

Keeping mum in clinical supervision: private thoughts and public judgements

“…Hierarchical differences are also relevant. For example, Ploeger, Kelly and Bisel showed that subordinates were more likely to keep MUM to an employee senior to them . These relationship findings are highly relevant to medical education, particularly with the current emphasis on feedback as a relational act …”

“…Distorting an unpleasant message has also been observed in laboratory settings and distortion of the message has been reported in business settings as ‘sugarcoating’ . For example, Ploeger et al described the use of indirect phrasing to deliver a negative message in a business setting, such as declining an unethical request in a written simulation experiment with working adults . Modelling the effects of ‘sugarcoating’ in organisational learning suggests some small amount of distortion of the message may in fact promote communication but when present beyond a certain point, effective communication deteriorates .…”

“…Many factors may modify the expression of MUM behaviours and it is these that take the conversation beyond what has already been explored in the clinical assessment literature. Although there is some research around personality characteristics, age and gender, we focus here on factors that are modifiable and therefore most relevant to medical education.…”

Denying What Workers Believe Are Unethical Workplace Requests

“…Similarly, Ploeger et al (2011) found that subordinates used more indirect or equivocal language than coworkers or supervisors when denying unethical requests. They contend that subordinates' equivocal responses performed facework and softened the face-threatening nature of denying requests by obscuring or avoiding direct assessments of the request's unethical force.…”

Encouraging Upward Ethical Dissent in Organizations: The Role of Deference to Embodied Expertise

“…Research demonstrates consistently that employees’ talk about ethics in the workplace gets silenced (Morrison, 2011), disqualified (Lyon, 2007), and displaced (Kassing & Armstrong, 2002) or voiced in equivocal (Ploeger, Kelley, & Bisel, 2011), economic (Sonenshein, 2006), or euphemistic terms (Lucas & Fyke, 2014). The dynamic is the result of socialization processes across the lifespan with authority figures (Detert & Edmondson, 2011; Kramer, 2010) as well as socialization within specific workplace climates (Bisel & Arterburn, 2012; Morrison & Milliken, 2000).…”