Dreams of silence: Employee voice and innovation in a public sector community of practice

Employee silence plays a crucial role in the evolution of Public Services because it stops communication, opportunities to modify routines and knowledge sharing. The case study presented in this paper highlights employee silence as outcome of a bottom-up innovation introduced into the University of Padova. Using a questionnaire, we collected information about silence and voice to an ICT Community of Practice. The results are that silence due to fear of top management is less important than silence due to fear of sharing knowledge and information among colleagues. We conclude by suggesting innovation adoption difficulties in Public Services not only as a management deficit, but also as a governance problem.