Negative Workplace Gossip Research Articles

Negative workplace gossip: Its impact on customer service performance and moderating roles of trait mindfulness and forgiveness

This study investigates why and when perceived negative workplace gossip inhibits targets’ in-role performance in the context of service. Relying on affective events theory, we argue that perceived negative workplace gossip inhibits targets’ customer service performance by eliciting negative mood. Furthermore, we argue that this mediating process is moderated by targets’ trait mindfulness and forgiveness. Specifically, we suggest that target employees who are lower (versus higher) in trait mindfulness are more likely to experience negative mood. In turn, the negative mood only inhibits customer service performance among those who have lower (versus higher) tendency to forgive. Results from a multi-wave, multisource field study provide support for our hypotheses, even while controlling for targets’ emotional exhaustion as an alternative pathway. These findings support the affective events perspective to understand negative workplace gossip and provide a more nuanced view on its consequences.

Introverts maintain creativity: A resource depletion model of negative workplace gossip

The present study investigates the relationship between negative workplace gossip, as perceived by the targets, and creativity by shedding light on the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of extroversion. The survey results from 451 employee-supervisor dyads in China indicate that targets who perceive negative workplace gossip tend to suffer emotional exhaustion, which in turn weakens their creativity. Additionally, extroversion strengthens the main effect of negative workplace gossip on emotional exhaustion and the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion on the association between negative workplace gossip and creativity. Our results offer new directions for studies into mistreatment, burnout, creativity, and personality.

Coping with Negative Workplace Gossip: The Roles of Self-Monitoring and Impression Management

Although researchers have examined the effects of negative workplace gossip on target employeesi¯ work-related behavior, it remains unclear when and how personality traits play a role between negat...

Perish in Gossip? Nonlinear Effects of Perceived Negative Workplace Gossip on Job Performance

Although previous research suggested a negative linear relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and target employeei¯s work attitudes and behaviors, a more intriguing but understudi...

Who Favors Support More in Workplace Gossip: The Joint Roles of External Social Support and Gender

The purpose of this study was to examine the joint moderating roles of external social support and gender in the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and supervisor- rated task ...

Effect of Perceived Negative Workplace Gossip on Employees' Behaviors.

Negative workplace gossip generates social undermining and great side effects to employees. But, the damage of negative gossip is mainly aimed at the employee who perceived being targeted. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model in which perceived negative workplace gossip influences employees in-role behavior and organizational citizenship behavior differentially by changing employees’ self-concept (organizational-based self-esteem and perceived insider status). 336 employees from seven Chinese companies were investigated for empirical analysis on proposed hypotheses, and results show that: (1) Perceived negative workplace gossip adversely influences employees’ IRB and OCB. (2) Self-concept (OBSE and PIS) plays a mediating role in the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and employees’ behaviors (IRB and OCB). (3) Employees’ hostile attribution bias moderates the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and self-concept (OBSE and PIS); and also moderates the mediating effect of self-concept (OBSE and PIS) on the relationship between perceived negative workplace gossip and employees’ behaviors (IRB and OCB). Thus, our findings provide deeper insights into the potential harmful effects of gossip. In addition, we help to explain the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of these effects.

‘Negative work-family spillover: The relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative workplace gossip and supervisor family satisfaction: The role of workhome segmentation preferences’

This study considers experienced immediate employees' negative workplace gossip as a social stressor and examines its spillover effect on the supervisor's family satisfaction. Based on the integration of work-family interface model and boundary theory, our study investigates the influence of perceived subordinates’ negative workplace gossip on supervisor’s family satisfaction through the mediation of supervisor's Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and moderation of Work-Home Segmentation Preferences (WHSP). The result from three waves (N = 326) reveal that immediate employees negative workplace gossip is negatively related to supervisor family satisfaction, and this relationship is mediated by supervisor's WFC. Additionally, the WHSP mitigate the mediating effect of WFC between subordinates’ negative workplace gossip and supervisor family satisfaction. The data hold while controlling the family role conflict, family role ambiguous, and general job stress. The theoretical, and managerial implications of these findings and future research are discussed.

Perceptions of Negative Workplace Gossip: A Self-Consistency Theory Framework

We present and test a self-consistency theory framework for gossip: that perceived negative workplace gossip influences our self-perceptions and, in turn, this influences our behaviors. Using supervisor-subordinate dyadic time-lagged data (n = 403), we demonstrated that perceived negative workplace gossip adversely influenced target employees’ organization-based self-esteem, which, in turn, influenced their citizenship behavior directed at the organization and at its members. Moreover, by integrating victimization theory into our framework, we further demonstrated that negative affectivity, an individual’s dispositional tendency, not only moderated the self-consistency process but also predicted perceived negative workplace gossip. Our study therefore shifts attention to the target of negative workplace gossip and in doing so offers a promising new direction for future research. Implications to theory and practice are discussed.

The Effect of Workplace Negative Gossip on Employee Proactive Behavior in China: The Moderating Role of Traditionality

In this study, we examined the relationship between workplace negative gossip, as perceived by the targets, and proactive behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the target’s emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of the target’s traditionality. Our results from dyadic data on 234 supervisor–subordinate relationships in China revealed that (1) workplace negative gossip was negatively related to proactive behavior; (2) emotional exhaustion mediated this relationship; and (3) traditionality strengthened both the relationship between workplace negative gossip and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of workplace negative gossip on proactive behavior via emotional exhaustion. Our findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for the research on mistreatment and proactive behavior.

The Antecedents and Consequences of Workplace Negative Gossip: From the Target's Perspective

Workplace gossip is widespread in various organizations and becomes an influential non-official information channel. Workplace negative gossip consists of three parties: senders, receivers, and targets. Previous research on workplace gossip has focused on senders or receivers by using laboratory and small sample size data. Lack of attention has been paid to the gossip victims by using large sample data. The present study reviewed the literature of the antecedents and outcomes of workplace negative gossip according to the victim perspective and provided a framework for future studies.

Hearing it through the grapevine: Positive and negative workplace gossip

This article examines the complex issue of workplace gossip with the intention of providing managers with a deeper understanding of the various functions gossip serves within organizations.

Reducing Negative Workplace Gossip

Reducing Negative Workplace Gossip