A spiral of voice? When coworkers speak up on internal social media

Purpose: This paper explores the discursive tactics that coworkers use when they speak up on internal social media (ISM) to gain support for their cause, and how this can develop into a ‘spiral of voice” when organizational members interact with each other on internal social media.
Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on screenshots of four months of coworker communication on ISM in a Danish Bank, and semi-structured interviews with 24 coworkers.
Findings: Coworkers succeed in speaking up and gaining support on ISM by using eight different discursive tactics. These tactics helped move issues from an operational to a strategic level to make the issue relevant for management and to gain support from other coworkers. The visibility and persistence of communication on ISM forced managers to react.
Research limitations/implications: Further research has to investigate if similar tactics and reactions occur in organizations with a less open communication culture making it less safe for coworkers to speak up.
Practical implications: Organizations have to be aware of the dynamics of the ‘spiral of voice’ and the visibility and persistence of communication on ISM forcing managers to handle dissent publicly.
Originality/value: The study is the first to explore what happens when coworkers speak up on ISM and to propose the concept of a ‘spiral of voice’, extending the theory of “the spiral of silence” (Noelle-Neumann, 1974).