Review Article: ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’

Abstract

My primary purpose in this review is to provide a detailed critique of the internal logic of Albert O. Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty} Before doing this, however, I should like to consider briefly the phenomenon of which it is an exemplar: the 'in' book. For this raises some general questions of interest. One important manifestation of the self-conscious professionalism of American academics is the way in which a corpus of ideas -often in severely strippeddown form -is at any given time common property. Indeed, the possession of the current stock of ideas, at least in rudimentary form, sufficient to enable references to be identified, might be said to be the badge that distinguishes the professionals and would-be professionals (advanced graduate students) from the dilettantes, the drop-outs and the inside-dopesters. 2 The way in which the corpus is built up would repay investigation by a sociologist of knowledge, but I shall hazard a few guesses. First, the idea itself must have the dual characteristic that its essence can be expressed very simply while at the same time its ramifications are great. Second, the process of dissemination is almost certainly by word of mouth rather than by formal channels such as book reviews or footnote citations. So long as the channels of communication across and within departments exist in any case, all that is then required is a fairly widespread desire (whether normatively or prudentially motivated) to 'keep up with the field'.

Exiting behavior under Tiebout conditions: Towards a predictive model

“…But Tiebout-consistent intra-jurisdictional movers were found to be an important subset of movers in the London study (John et al, 1995) and are just as important to the Tiebout market as consumers who remain loyal to a given product in ordinary markets. In this sense the analysis shows up the key weakness of tests of Hirschman -and perhaps of the EVL model itself-is that while exit and voice are clear behaviors, in the way Hirschman deploys it, loyalty is an ambiguous concept and not easily measurable (Barry, 1974).…”

“…4. As Barry (1974) first pointed out and Hirschman (1995) now acknowledges, exit and voice are not strictly alternatives and may be used in conjunction. This problem with the EVLN approach is not addressed in this paper.…”

Hirschman's loyalty construct

“…1). Note that there is not just one decision to make, i.e., a choice between exit and voice, but two (Barry, 1974;Birch, 1975;Graham, 1986;Kolarska & Aldrich, 1980;Laver, 1976;Spencer, 1986): one for exit and one for voice. Exit and voice are conceptually distinct, but that does not make them mutually exclusive forms of behavior.…”

“…What is controversial about loyalty is its effect on the propensity to use voice. One position is that loyalty activates voice (Barry, 1974;Boroff, 1989;Evan, 1975;Graham, 1986;LaPonce, 1974;Leck, 1989;Spencer, 1986). The other view is that loyalty suppresses voice (Birch, 1975;Farrell, 1983 …”

The voice of the loyal manager: Distinguishing attachment from commitment

“…For Hirschman, whether or not exit or voice will prevail, and hence whether or not decline had a change of being reversed, depends on an exogenous factor, loyalty. In Hirschman's framework, loyalty is a vague concept (see Barry, 1974;Withey & Cooper, 1989). In the absence of voice, "loyalty" as Hirschman uses it simply means that a person has chosen not to exit from the organization.…”