Voice and Silence in Relation to Identity
Voice and Silence in Relation to Identity

Summary/Abstract: Voice and silence are strategic communicative resources that employees utilize in constructing their identities. People react positively to voice not because they expect specific gains, but because an opportunity for voice signifies valorization, membership and, most importantly, a chance for self-authorship. The challenge for the identity construction process is for people to maintain a sense of self-continuity and coherence (Whorthington, 1996: 13 and McAdams, 1996: 306, in Clarke et al., 2009: 326), while multiple and diverse moments and contexts offer the possibility to tell many different identity stories many of which are paradoxically contradictory and fundamentally unstable (Gergen, 1992, in Clarke et al., 2009: 326). This latter view leads to a more postmodern definition of identity that will be analyzed here in relation to voice and silence and illustrated by the case of a management consulting team in a Romanian company.

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