ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Why So Many “Open
Secrets” Go Unexposed
From glitches with key projects to
instances of harassment, serious
work-related issues often remain hidden
from management even when they’re
common knowledge among the rank
and file. That’s surprising in view of
research showing that employees are
more confident about bringing up prob-
lems when peers share their perspective,
conferring a certain safety in numbers.
New research offers an explanation:
When people know that others are aware
of an issue and could sound the alarm, a
version of the “bystander effect” kicks
in. The phenomenon, first described
after the infamous 1964 murder of Kitty
Genovese, holds that the more witnesses
there are to an emergency, the less likely
any one person is to intervene. Research-
ers theorized that it might apply to
corporate life—and a series of studies
support that idea.
In the first, 132 employees of a
Fortune 500 electronics company were
surveyed about how often they spoke
up about work-related problems. The
more that employees believed problems
were also known to teammates, the less
willing they were to go to managers.
Follow-up experiments confirmed the
finding. In one, university students who
thought they were the only ones aware
of an issue with campus transportation
were 2.5 times as likely as others to say
they would speak to the administration.
When multiple individuals know about
a problem, the researchers say, each
30 Harvard Business Review
May–June 2019
experiences a diffusion of responsibil- FINANCE
ity—the sense that he or she need not
take on any risks associated with bring-
ing it up. The effect is heightened when
The Industries in Which
other observers are seen as having a
strong relationship with management
Artificial Intelligence Start-
and thus being well positioned to break Ups Are Being Funded
the silence.
A global survey found that financial
Managers can counter this tendency, services and retail receive the largest
the researchers say. “Paradoxically, shares of total investment in AI start-ups,
while transportation/logistics and
positive organizational practices that consumer packaged goods trail the pack.
encourage wide sharing of information
and the formation of strong relational 0% 10 20 30
ties between managers and employees Financial
services
might inadvertently…make employees
experience diffusion of responsibility,” Retail
they write. “Managers can reduce
Media and
such diffusion…by making employees entertainment
feel that they each can make a unique High tech
and telecom
contribution to the group, irrespective
of whether their peers have similar Professional
services
informational access to work issues.”
Explicitly rewarding individual acts of Education
courage, they add, can also get people
Health care
off the sidelines.
Transportation
and logistics
ABOUT THE RESEARCH “The Voice
Bystander Effect: How Information Consumer
packaged goods
Redundancy Inhibits Employee Voice,”
by Insiya Hussain et al. (Academy of Source: “The Business of AI Startups,” by James E. Bessen et al.
(Boston University School of Law, Law and Economics Research
Management Journal, 2018) Paper No. 18-28, 2018)
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