Capturing Workplace Gossip as Dynamic Conversational Events: First Insights From Care Team Meetings.

Vanessa Begemann,Frank Steinicke,Svea Lübstorf,Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock,Annika Luisa Meinecke

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725720

Abstract

Even though gossip is a ubiquitous organizational behavior that fulfils important social functions (e.g., social bonding or emotion venting), little is known about how workplace gossip and its functions unfold in situ. To explore the dynamic nature and social embeddedness of workplace gossip, we develop a behavioral annotation system that captures the manifold characteristics of verbal gossip behavior, including its valence and underlying functions. We apply this system to eight elderly care team meetings audio- and videotaped in the field, yielding a sample of N = 4,804 annotated behaviors. On this empirical basis, we provide first insights into the different facets and functions of workplace gossip in real-life team interactions. By means of lag sequential analysis, we quantify gossip patterns that point to the temporal and structural embeddedness of different types of workplace gossip expressions. Though exploratory, these findings help establish workplace gossip as a dynamic conversational event. We discuss future interdisciplinary research collaborations that behavioral observation approaches offer.

Highlights

A co-worker leaves in the middle of the meeting
With two research questions, we analyzed (1) how the valence of workplace gossip unfolds in the flow of communication, and (2) how the social functions and valence of gossip statements interact in conversations
The results show that workplace gossip is a highly contextualized and dynamic conversational event that is embedded in the flow of communication

Summary

Introduction

A co-worker leaves in the middle of the meeting. The following conversation unfolds: “He arrived half an hour late, but leaves on time.” - “But he didn’t know.” - “Instead of half past six, he arrived at seven.” - “Yeah, true. . .“ - “You don’t just walk out of a meeting.”We are probably all familiar with these types of conversations at work. A co-worker leaves in the middle of the meeting. The following conversation unfolds: “He arrived half an hour late, but leaves on time.” - “But he didn’t know.” - “Instead of half past six, he arrived at seven.” - “Yeah, true. We can catch ourselves overhearing or engaging in evaluative comments about someone who is not present – in short, we gossip (Foster, 2004). Aside from the infamous watercooler, workplace gossip can happen almost anywhere: in the hallway, kitchen, elevator, and even in more formal settings such as meetings (Hallett et al, 2009). Studies suggest that gossip accounts for nearly 14% of our conversations (Robbins and Karan, 2020), and more than 90% of the workforce engages in gossip (Grosser et al, 2012)

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Conclusion