Translating What Is and Isn’t Said: Voice, Gossip, and Feedback in a Global Workplace

Voice, gossip, and feedback are workplace communication interactions that unfold differently depending on employees’ national culture backgrounds and communication styles. Low/high context communication norms impact the process of voice, silence, gossip, and feedback behavior in different parts of the world. We explore how voice, gossip, and feedback behavior manifest in message, relationship, time, and space contexts. We then offer suggestions for managing voice, gossip, and feedback across communication contexts in a diverse workplace and discuss future research directions.