will more than likely help us to better understand employee silence, how it affects organizations, and how to reduce it. Future research should be devoted to the study of one's professional position in a company and whether this has any effect on the decision to remain silent. It would be interesting to discover if job titles play a part in employee silence or it's just a matter of analyzing each individual situation or event. Another area of potential future research should delve into the notion of silence as the absence of speech (a non-behavior, essentially). The absence of such a behavior is difficult to study than more overt and obvious behavior (Johannesen, 1974). This act has many implications for employee and organizational performance. Non-verbal behavior should be addressed as well in future studies of employee silence. It might be beneficial to research the effect of body language and the importance of gestures to interpret employees' motives. Perhaps these cues symbolize much more and possess meaning for studying silence in organizations. A more critical approach In an article published in Work, Employment and Society in March 2011, Jimmy Donaghey (University of Warwick), Niall Cullinane (Queen's University Belfast), Tony Dundon (NUI Galway) and Adrian Wilkinson (Griffith University) survey the existing literature on employee silence and argue that the approach taken to date neglects an analysis of the role of management in constructing silence. The thesis is put forward that to truly understand processes of employee silence, it is necessary to recognise that silence may work in favour of management, and thus management may have an interest in maintaining or creating employee silence. See also Passive–aggressive behavior Workplace deviance References Communication Human resource management Silence Workplace Employee relations