A Norm-Based Perspective on the Relation Between Gossip and Gossipers’ Status

Abstract

While the management literature regards workplace gossip as a norm violating behavior, the broader literature on gossip regards gossip as functional in clarifying and communicating organizational norms. To reconcile these seemingly contradictory propositions, we develop an integrated model where we distinguish positive gossip from negative gossip, theorizing their independent and joint effects on gossipers’ workplace status via both norm violation and norm clarification perceptions – two concurrent but countervailing mechanisms. In particular, negative gossip clarifies norms but it per se violates norms, whereas positive gossip clarifies norms without violating norms. Interactively, positive gossip buffers the norm violation effect of, and synthesizes the norm clarification effect of, negative gossip. Our key predictions were supported in a round- robin field survey with data collected from 37 teams and 783 members.