The Influence of Negative Workplace Gossip on Knowledge Sharing: Insight from the Cognitive Dissonance Perspective

Xiaolei Zou,Xiaoxi Chen,Chuxin Luo,Hongyan Liu,Fengling Chen

doi:10.3390/su12083282

Abstract

Increasing attention is drawn to the effect of workplace gossip on the organization. Negative workplace gossip is a negative evaluation of others behind their back in the workplace. Based on the cognitive dissonance theory, the study explored the relationship between negative workplace gossip and knowledge sharing, through the mediation of organizational trust and the moderation of self-efficacy. The regression results of a two-stage questionnaire survey on 173 Chinese employees suggested that negative workplace gossip negatively influenced employees’ knowledge sharing through organizational trust. Additionally, findings also showed that self-efficacy moderated the mediation of organizational trust in the relationship between negative workplace gossip and knowledge sharing. This research provided a new theoretical perspective on the impact of workplace gossip, which has management implications for informal communication and team-building.

Highlights

Workplace gossip is defined as informal conversation or evaluation about a member beyond the person’s hearing [1], typically involving unproven details
Fourth, based on the cognitive dissonance theory, we explored the internal process of knowledge sharing on the individual level by including workplace gossip and broadened the antecedents of knowledge sharing
We proposed that: H1: Negative workplace gossip decreases the organizational trust of gossipers

Summary

Introduction

Workplace gossip is defined as informal conversation or evaluation (i.e., positive or negative) about a member beyond the person’s hearing [1], typically involving unproven details. As a channel of informal communication, workplace gossip is a common phenomenon in the organization. 66% of social topics in employee conversations are about others, and 14% of workplace coffee-break chat is about gossip [2]. Some studies show that workplace gossip has positive consequences, including the improvement in performance, less free-riding behaviors, high willingness to obey organizational order, more contributions to make group decisions [9,10,11,12]. The competing results above suggest that it is necessary to further examine the influence of workplace gossip

Results

Discussion

Conclusion