Voice and silence in small and medium enterprises: The employee experience

LSBU are proud to present this inaugural lecture by Professor Rea Prouska as part of our inaugural lectures programme for 2022-23.

Professor Prouska is Professor of Human Resource Management, Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise and Lead of the Intercultural Management Research Group in LSBU's Business School, among a number of other roles outlined in her bio. She's also passionate about understanding the employee experience and creating cultures that value employee voice - and what happens when it's not valued. Join us for her inaugural lecture to find out more and you can also read more about her lecture, accomplishments & impressive career below.

Inaugural lectures are an occasion of significance in our professors’ careers at the University. They provide an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our recently appointed professors who are undertaking research, innovation, engagement and teaching activities in their field of expertise.

Our lectures are open to all LSBU Group staff & students as well as to members of the public and are free of charge. They are taking place in person and will be recorded. They are not being live streamed at present.

You can check out the full programme of our inaugural lectures here.

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Voice and silence in small and medium enterprises: The employee experience

By Professor Rea Prouska, Professor of Human Resource Management, Associate Dean of Research and Enterprise and Lead of the Intercultural Management Research Group, LSBU Business School

Description: Giving employees a voice at work enables them to have a say regarding work activities and resolve issues that concern them. Voice enables self-expression, motivation, satisfaction, engagement, commitment, trust, and performance, and brings, as a result, multiple benefits to individuals and organisations. Although voice research has generated important insights about voice in large, often unionised, workplaces, less is known about the factors that facilitate or inhibit voice in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and how employees experience voice in such workplaces. The employment relationship is largely informally managed in SMEs, often due to lack of internal human resource management (HRM) expertise.

This means that SMEs often have limited structures in place for voice. Where voice structures exist, the extent to which employees perceive them as promoting or inhibiting their voice depends on a range of external and internal contextual factors. Where voice is inhibited, employees are more likely to remain silent about issues that concern them, resulting in significant negative consequences for organisational decision-making, employee trust and morale, engagement and commitment, and managerial access to critical information. This is a particular problem for SMEs because they rely on idea generation to drive innovation, change and growth. This lecture will identify the importance of voice and discuss current research insights that are relevant for understanding the employee experience with voice in SMEs and for creating an inclusive voice culture in such workplaces.

Biography: Prof Rea Prouska specialises on developing theoretical and practical approaches to improving work relationships and working life. Her work focuses on studying these topics in a variety of economic contexts, organisational settings and across different types of workers. She has widely published her work in academic journals such as in Human Resource Management Journal and British Journal of Management, and co-authored/co-edited books. Recent books include Managing People in Small and Medium Enterprises in Turbulent Contexts and Critical Issues in Human Resource Management. She is an Editorial Board Member of the journal Work, Employment and Society, an Editorial Advisory Board Member of the journal Employee Relations, and a Guest Editor of a Special Issue in Human Resource Management Journal on the nexus between macro-level turbulence and the worker experience in HRM.

Recent distinctions of her work include the ‘Benedictine University Award for Outstanding Paper on Ethical Issues in Consulting’ by the 80th Academy of Management Annual Meeting and the ‘2019 Best Paper of the Year Award’ by European Management Review journal.

She is a member of the British Academy of Management Peer Review College (PRC), an academic member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA), the British Academy of Management (BAM) and the Academy of Management (AoM), and an affiliate member of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

Prof Prouska holds a PhD and MSc degrees in Human Resource Management (HRM). She is currently Professor of Human Resource Management at LSBU Business School, London South Bank University (UK) where she is Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise and Lead of the Intercultural Management Research Group.

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Programme

5.45pm – Arrival & registration

6pm – Welcome & introduction

6.05pm – Voice and silence in small and medium enterprises: The employee experience -Professor Rea Prouska, Professor of Human Resource Management, Interim Director of Research and Enterprise and Lead Intercultural Management Research Group, LSBU Business School

7pm – Closing remarks

7.15pm – Networking & refreshments

8pm - Close

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We look forward to seeing you!