The Causes And Consequences Of Workplace Gossi

The last decade has witnessed increasing research interest in workplace gossip.More than malicious talk,workplace gossip can be divided into positive and negative dimensions that significantly influence individuals,groups,and organisations.However,few studies have explored the organisational antecedents and outcomes of employee gossip from the gossiper’s perspective.That is,to explore the factors influencing employee gossip and the influence of gossip behaviour on gossipers themselves.In addition to establishing the gossiper’s perspective of the thesis,it considers the status of the gossip target(the person who is gossiped about by others)because the targets’ own behaviours and characteristics can greatly affect employees’ motivation to gossip,and the targets’ reactions to the gossip can in turn affect the gossipers themselves.This influence is more pronounced when the gossip targets are leaders than peers.Therefore,this thesis focuses on employee gossip about supervisor,exploring how leaders’ behaviour affects employee gossip,and the consequences for gossipers when their supervisor perceives the gossip.Three main research questions are proposed:(1)how leadership styles affect employees’ gossip behaviour from emotional and relational perspectives,(2)when the proposed relationships are strengthened or weakened,and(3)the consequences of employee gossip on gossipers themselves.Three empirical studies have been conducted to explore the above research questions.Drawing on affective events theory and social exchange theory,Study 1 examined the mediating role of employees’ positive and negative affect and leader-member exchange(LMX)in linking different leadership styles(i.e.,servant leadership and abusive supervisor)to positive and negative gossip about leaders.Part of the mediating paths was supported by data collected from 262 working employees in China from various industries.Specifically,I found that both leadership forms predict emotions and LMX in expected directions.For example,servant leadership was positively related to positive affect,LMX,and negatively associated with negative affect,whereas the results for abusive supervision were entirely the opposite but significant.Besides,positive affect was found only to predict positive gossip,showing no sign of decreasing negative gossip.Similarly,negative affect was found only to predict negative gossip.These findings suggest that employees with positive emotions may share more positive gossip about the supervisor.However,it does not mean that they would share less negative gossip about the supervisor.Similarly,employees with negative emotions toward supervisors are prone to increase negative gossip.However,they may not represent a possible decrease in their positive gossip about the supervisor.These findings support the emotion validation perspective of gossip.Study 2 replicated Study 1 and tested the boundary conditions using a time-lagged design.Survey data from 210 full-time employees largely supported the findings from Study 1.Besides,the results suggested that employees’ psychological entitlement enhanced the negative effect of abusive supervision on followers’ negative emotions and subsequent negative gossip.The gossip climate of an organisation also exacerbated negative gossip when employees perceived destructive leadership behaviour.However,the moderating effects were not found to be significant in the relationships between positive leadership styles and positive gossip.Although most of the moderating effects were not supported,this study provided preliminary evidence that both individual factors and contextual factors can,to some extent,influence employees’ evaluations of their supervisor’s behaviours.Study 3 explores the outcomes of gossip for gossipers themselves.Specifically,I investigate the impacts of employee gossip on supervisors’ perceptions of different types of gossip and subsequent evaluations on the gossipers.Hypotheses were tested using 166 dyadic survey data collected from three organisations in Henan Province,China.The questionnaire was collected at two time points and filled by employees and their direct supervisors respectively.It aims to answer whether sharing different types of gossip about leaders could be accurately perceived by the supervisor and thus affect gossipers themselves.The results showed that employee-rated positive/negative gossip about supervisor was associated with supervisor-perceived subordinate gossip.Supervisors’ perceptions of subordinate gossip could further affect their evaluations on the gossipers,including job performance,reward recommendation,and supervisor liking of the subordinate.Specifically,subordinates’ positive gossip could lead to positive supervisor-rated outcomes,while negative gossip was negatively related to those supervisor evaluations.However,the negative impact does not always occur.For example,reward recommendation was not found to be influenced by perceived negative gossip.These findings indicate that positive gossip is always beneficial to the gossipers,and negative gossip may not always have a negative effect,which explains why gossip is ubiquitous in the workplace.Besides,the findings provide evidence for gossip research,suggesting that the gossip target is likely to accurately perceive the gossip even though it is privately shared.To sum up,the three studies of the thesis are well supported by the data,indicating that the causes and consequences of different types of workplace gossip are unique and contradictory.And different types of leadership behaviours can also lead to positive or negative spiral effects.In other words,servant leadership behaviour may lead subordinates to spread more positive gossip,and positive gossip may lead employees to receive higher performance evaluations,more opportunities for rewards and recommendations,and quality relationships with supervisors.In contrast,abusive supervision may lead subordinates to spread more negative gossip,resulting in lower performance ratings and less supervisor liking.This thesis contributes to the gossip literature in three aspects.First,it distinguishes the positive and negative dimensions of gossip,exploring the antecedents and consequences of both positive and negative gossip,which enriches the connotation of workplace gossip.Second,this thesis adopts a gossiper’s perspective,which enhances the understanding of the consequences of employees’ workplace gossip behaviour on themselves.Third,this thesis focuses on specific gossip targets(leaders)to explore how the antecedents and consequences of employee gossip are determined by the leaders.