Safety Listening in Organizations: An Integrated Conceptual Review

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. Numerous global accidents (e.g., Tenerife air disaster), disasters (e.g., Challenger space-shuttle crash), and scandals (e.g., Enron's accounting scandal) stem from a shared cause: listeners failing to act upon legitimate voiced concerns. While research mainly centers on understanding and encouraging individuals to raise concerns, fewer studies explore listeners' responses. In this review, we advocate developing the concept of 'safety listening' (listeners' responses to voice aiming to prevent major harms). Our conceptual review positions safety listening as the necessary counterpart to safety voice; differentiates safety listening from other listening types (e.g., active listening); examines its terms/definitions, explanations, and measurements; and explores its influencers (e.g., listener motives) and impacts (e.g., injuries). Scholars have used 36 unique terms/definitions to describe safety listening (e.g., whistleblower retaliation) and often link it to listeners' motivations (i.e., they listened because they wanted to). This motivational focus, we argue, is a by-product of using self-report methods (e.g., surveys, interviews) that elicit perceptions rather than observing the actual behavioral responses to voice. To advance the literature, we propose using a standard definition, observing safety listening in real-life data (e.g., 9-1-1 calls, airline transcripts), and exploring mechanisms for how voice and listening cause outcomes (e.g., accidents). In sum, this review creates the foundation for future research to develop a comprehensive and cumulative understanding of safety listening and will ultimately contribute to preventing future accidents and scandals.