Quitting Before Leaving: The Mediating Effects of Psychological Attachment and Detachment on Voice

Burris et al · Voice & Silence, Team Learning · Journal of Applied Psychology · 2008 · Paywalled

Showed that employees psychologically detach from the organisation before they physically exit — and that this detachment suppresses voice. The mechanism runs through attachment: those who care about the organisation speak up; those who have already mentally left do not. Directly relevant to the calculus of voice: the decision to stay silent is not always fear of consequences but sometimes prior disengagement from the stakes. Connects the PS/voice literature to turnover and withdrawal research, and has implications for how silence should be interpreted — it is not always a signal that people feel unsafe, sometimes it signals they have already given up.

Burris, E.R., Detert, J.R. and Chiaburu, D.S. (2008) 'Quitting before leaving: The mediating effects of psychological attachment and detachment on voice', Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(4), pp. 912–922.

Neighbours (8)

• Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams (paper)
• Calculus of Voice
• Helping and Voice Extra-Role Behaviors: Evidence of Construct and Predictive Validity (paper)
• Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open? (paper)
• Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World (paper)
• Barriers to PS
• Open Secrets & Half-Baked Ideas
• Types of Silence