Safety listening in organizations: an integrated conceptual review

Pandolfo, Alyssa, Reader, Tom W. and Gillespie, Alex ORCID: 0000-0002-0162-1269 (2024) Safety listening in organizations: an integrated conceptual review. Organizational Psychology Review. ISSN 2041-3866

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Abstract

Failures of listening to individuals raising concerns are often implicated in safety incidents. To better understand this and theorize the communicative processes by which safety voice averts harm, we undertook a conceptual review of “safety listening” in organizations: responses to any voice that calls for action to prevent harm. Synthesizing research from disparate fields, we found 36 terms/definitions describing safety listening which typically framed it in terms of listeners’ motivations. These motivational accounts, we propose, are a by-product of the self-report methods used to study listening (e.g., surveys, interviews), which focus on listening perceptions rather than actual responses following speaking-up. In contrast, we define safety listening as a behavioral response to safety voice in organizational contexts to prevent harms. Influenced by cognitive, interactional, and environmental factors, safety listening may prevent incidents through enabling cooperative sensemaking processes for building shared awareness and understanding of risks and hazards.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	19 Mar 2024 16:54
Last Modified:	16 Jan 2025 09:00
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122426

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