Proceedings: Conference on Corporate Communication 2012 Page 1

Differences in Perceived Effectiveness of Upward Dissent Strategies
between Employees and Managers
Evidence from Singapore
Tan Yanyu, Seow Yen Nie & Chia Huijun, Kim Hyo Jung &
Suwichit (Sean) Chaidaroon
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
kyt.baabaa.jc@gmail.com, eva.life.seow@gmail.com & heureux@gmail.com
jkim@ntu.edu.sg & schaidaroon@ntu.edu.sg
Effectively communicating dissent in the workplace is important for successful internal
communication. Previous literature on organizational dissent has primarily identified different
upward dissent strategies and compared the perceived competencies of these strategies only
through employees’ self-reports. This study, however, compares the perceived effectiveness of
upward dissent strategies from both managers’ and employees’ point of view in a Singaporean
context. We conducted a survey among managers and employees to investigate whether these two
groups perceived the effectiveness of dissent strategies differently. Through a scenario-based
questionnaire, we asked participants to rate how each dissent strategy would bring about a
specific desired outcome in various scenarios. While managers and employees rated factual
appeal and presentation of solution as effective dissent strategies in different scenarios, both
groups consistently rated the threat of resignation as the weakest strategy. Overall, managers
rated all dissent strategies higher than employees did, which suggests that management seemed to
take employees’ dissent seriously. These findings provide evidence for organizations to facilitate
their employees’ dissent in internal communication.
Keywords: Dissent, Employee feedback, Internal communication
Paper type: Empirical research
Abstracts of <strong>Conference</strong> <strong>Proceedings</strong>: <strong>Conference</strong> on Corporate Communication 2012
Page 24