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Breaking the Chain of Command

Making Sense of Employee Circumvention

Arizona State University, jkassing{at}asu.edu

This study explores how employees accounted for their engagement in circumvention (i.e., dissenting by going around or above one's supervisor). Employees completed a survey instrument in which they provided a dissent account detailing a time when they chose to practice circumvention. Results indicated that employees accounted for circumvention through supervisor inaction, supervisor performance, and supervisor indiscretion. In addition, findings revealed how employees framed circumvention in ways that enhanced the severity and principled nature of the issues about which they chose to dissent.

Key Words: employee dissent • upward communication • sensemaking • circumvention • employee voice

This version was published on July 1, 2009

Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 46, No. 3, 311-334 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0021943609333521


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