Why does subordinates’ negative workplace gossip lead to supervisor undermining? A moderated mediation model

Objectives

Previous studies on negative workplace gossip have neglected the role of gossip targets of supervisors. The purpose of this paper is to deepen our understanding of how subordinates’ negative workplace gossip affects supervisors’ work-related behaviors. Drawing upon conservation of resource theory, the authors propose that subordinates’ negative gossip leads to supervisor emotional exhaustion. In turn, such emotional exhaustion provokes supervisors to exhibit undermining toward their subordinates. Additionally, the authors propose that a trait factor, namely, supervisor mindfulness, mitigates the relationship between such negative workplace gossip and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion.

Method

Data were collected from employees (e.g., subordinates) and their immediate supervisors in 35 organizations located in Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces in China. The data were obtained at three time points, each time interval was 2 weeks, and finally, 362 valid data points were obtained.

Results

The following findings were obtained: (1) perceived subordinates’ negative gossip has a significant positive effect on supervisor undermining; (2) supervisor emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining; and (3) supervisor mindfulness moderates the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor emotional exhaustion and moderates the mediating effect of supervisor emotional exhaustion on the relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative gossip and supervisor undermining.

Conclusion

Using multisource data and a moderated mediation model, we found that subordinates’ negative workplace gossip predicts supervisor undermining through supervisor emotional exhaustion. We also discovered that supervisor mindfulness can buffer the positive relationship between perceived subordinates’ negative workplace gossip and supervisor undermining. These findings have important implications for the literature on negative gossip in the workforce, especially the impact of subordinates’ negative workplace gossip on supervisors’ responses.

Diary-interview studies: longitudinal, flexible qualitative research design

Diary-interview studies are a longitudinal qualitative approach that allows both participants and researchers to explore participants’ experiences and sense-making in relation to life situations. The purpose of this Methods Brief is to introduce readers to the diary-interview method and highlight methodological decisions researchers need to make when using this type of qualitative approach to generating data. We will introduce each of these decisions in turn, then detail the methodological options. To further exemplify, we describe our 2020–2021 diary-interview study of Canadian primary care clinicians navigating the first year of the pandemic.

"Well, I Signed Up to Be a Soldier; I Have Been Trained and Equipped Well": Exploring Healthcare Workers' Experiences during COVID-19 Organizational Changes in Singapore, from the First Wave to the Path towards Endemicity

(1) Background: As COVID-19 transmission continues despite vaccination programs, healthcare workers (HCWs) face an ongoing pandemic response. We explore the effects of this on (1) Heartware, by which we refer to morale and commitment of HCWs; and identify how to improve (2) Hardware, or ways of enabling operational safety and functioning. (2) Methods: Qualitative e-diary entries were shared by HCWs during the early phases of the outbreak in Singapore from June to August 2020. Data were collected via an online survey of n = 3616 HCWs of all cadres. Nine institutions—restructured hospitals (n = 5), affiliated primary partners (n = 2) and hospices (n = 2)—participated. Applied thematic analysis was undertaken and organized according to Heartware and Hardware. Major themes are in italics (3) Results: n = 663 (18%) HCWs submitted a qualitative entry. Dominant themes undermining (1) Heartware consisted of burnout from being overworked and emotional exhaustion and at times feeling a lack of appreciation or support at work. The most common themes overriding morale breakers were a stoic acceptance to fight, adjust and hold the line, coupled with motivation from engaging leadership and supportive colleagues. The biggest barrier in (2) Hardware analysis related to sub-optimal segregation strategies within wards and designing better protocols for case detection, triage, and admissions criteria. Overall, the most cited enabler was the timely and well-planned provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for front-liners, though scope for scale-up was called for by those not considered frontline. Analysis maps internal organizational functioning to wider external public and policy-related narratives. (4) Conclusions: COVID-19 surges are becoming endemic rather than exceptional events. System elasticity needs to build on known pillars coupling improving safety and care delivery with improving HCW morale. Accordingly, a model capturing such facets of Adaptive Pandemic Response derived from our data analyses is described. HCW burnout must be urgently addressed, and health systems moved away from reactive “wartime” response configurations.

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

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.

Confidential Gossip and Organization Studies

This essay sets out the case for regarding confidential gossip as a significant concept in the study of organizations. It develops the more general concept of gossip by combining it with concepts of organizational secrecy in order to propose confidential gossip as a distinctive communicative practice. As a communicative practice, it is to be understood as playing a particular role within the communicative constitution of organizations. That particularity arises from the special nature of any communication regarded as secret, which includes the fact that such communication is liable to be regarded as containing the ‘real truth’ or ‘insider knowledge’. Thus it may be regarded as more than ‘just gossip’ and also as more significant than formal communication. This role is explored, as well as the methodological and ethical challenges of studying confidential gossip empirically.

Better Than Its Reputation? Gossip and the Reasons Why We and Individuals With "Dark" Personalities Talk About Others

Gossip is an ubiquitous phenomenon. Hearing information about others serves important social functions such as learning without direct interaction and observation. Despite important social functions gossip has a rather negative reputation. Therefore, the present online study focuses on the reasons why people gossip and how these reasons are related to personality (i.e., dark triad) and situational settings. Six distinct motives were identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence. The most important motive was validating information about the gossip target followed by the motive to acquire new information about the gossip target. The least important motive was harming the gossip target. The motivational pattern was highly similar between private and work context. Interestingly, the importance of motives mainly depends on the gossiper's narcissism both in work and in private settings. The findings suggest that the negative reputation of gossip is not justified. In fact, even "dark" personalities appear to use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves and not to harm others.

Development and Validation of the Interpersonal Affect Improvement Strategies Questionnaire

Abstract. This research outlines the development and validation of a new self-report measure to assess the tendency to use different interpersonal affect improvement strategies within the normal adult population (Interpersonal Affect Improvement Strategies Questionnaire, IAISQ). The scale is based on the interpersonal affect classification (IAC; Niven, Totterdell, & Holman, 2009 ) and accurately distinguishes between the two primary means suggested in that model: positive engagement and acceptance. Through four studies we tested the factor structure, reliability, content, criterion, and predictive validity of the scale.

Supervisor workplace gossip and its impact on employees

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of supervisor gossip in the workplace. This paper proposes a hypothetical model in which supervisor gossip has an effect on leader-member exchange (LMX), in turn resulting in perceived supervisor ostracism among subordinates.

Design/methodology/approach

A dyadic research design was applied to collect data from Taiwanese employees. Supervisors participated in a survey containing measures of supervisor gossip and control variables, whereas subordinates responded to a questionnaire on LMX, perceived supervisor ostracism, and control variables.

Findings

The results indicated that positive supervisor gossip significantly affected LMX. Furthermore, healthy LMX reduced subordinates’ perceptions of supervisor ostracism.

Research limitations/implications

All participants were recruited in Taiwan, which is a limitation for generalising the research findings. Future studies should investigate multiple societies of various cultural profiles.

Practical implications

To improve the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship, supervisors should adopt a positive informal communication style, and organisations should provide supervisors with information regarding the implications of workplace gossip, illustrating the substantial benefits of positive gossip and the potential drawbacks of negative gossip.

Originality/value

The present study highlighted the role of supervisor workplace gossip in the field of leadership and empirically investigated the impact of supervisor gossip on subordinates’ reactions.

Do Gossip Functions Effect on Organizational Revenge and Job Stress Among Health Personnel?

This study aims to determine the relationship between gossip functions, organizational revenge and job stress among working personnel in hospitals. The research is conducted on working personnel in a university hospital and the data from 310 people was analyzed. Data were collected by convenience sampling. Simple correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed to evaluate the relationships among the variables in the study. As a result of the analyses carried out, correlations between gossip functions and job stress are low. Correlations between gossip functions and organizational revenge and correlation between job stress and organizational revenge are average and significant. While the gossip functions explain 31.1 per cent of total variance on organizational revenge, organizational revenge explains 11.3 per cent of the variance on job stress. Limited number of works examining the gossip functions in the health sector and the relation among organizational revenge and job stress are the most important value of this study.

Gossip: a channel for the development of personal reputation

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the extent to which gossip plays a role in individual reputation development in the context of contemporary organizations. This study answers the continuous calls to integrate theory across fields by exploring the theoretical links between these two constructs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study provides a conceptual analysis and general review of the literature on gossip and reputation. The relationship between these two constructs is investigated through a two-study package (lab and field) yielding convergent results.

Findings

The findings of this study are that gossip contributes to organizational identity in that it reinforces the social norms of groups and that gossip serves as an important enabler of reputational development. This study provides empirical evidence that gossip serves a more significant role in the development of personal reputation than more formal methods of communication.

Practical implications

As organizations and individuals attempt to develop and capitalize on the effects of individuals’ reputations, this study provides practical insights into the knowledge that needs to be built regarding the method by which this development can occur. This study points to the practical value of gossip in the creation of personal reputation.

Originality/value

The theoretical framework in this study highlights the centrality of gossip as a primary enabler of reputation development in contemporary organizations. Reputation theory is advanced by studying a segment of the construct that has, until now, been excluded from consideration in this field.

Rethinking gossip and scandal in healthcare organizations

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue that gossip is a neglected aspect of organizational communication and knowledge, and an under-used management resource.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper challenges mainstream managerial assumptions that gossip is trivial or tainted talk which should be discouraged in the workplace. Instead, gossip is re-framed at an organizational level of analysis, which provides the opportunity for relational knowledge about systemic failure and poor practice in healthcare to surface.

Findings

Rather than simply viewing gossip as an individual behaviour and interpersonal process, it is claimed that organizational gossip is also a valuable early warning indicator of risk and failure in healthcare systems. There is potentially significant value in re-framing gossip as an aspect of organizational communication and knowledge. If attended to (rather than neglected or silenced) gossip can provide fresh insights into professional practice, decision making and relational leadership.

Originality/value

This paper offers a provocative challenge to mainstream health organization and management thinking about gossip in the workplace. It offers new ways of thinking to promote patient safety, and prevent the scandals that have plagued healthcare organizations in recent years.

Methodological considerations in the use of audio diaries in work psychology: Adding to the qualitative toolkit

The use of longitudinal methodology as a means of capturing the intricacies in complex organizational phenomena is well documented, and many different research strategies for longitudinal designs have been put forward from both a qualitative and quantitative stance. This study explores a specific emergent qualitative methodology, audio diaries, and assesses their utility for work psychology research drawing on the findings from a four‐stage study addressing transient working patterns and stress in UK temporary workers. Specifically, we explore some important methodological, analytical and technical issues for practitioners and researchers who seek to use these methods and explain how this type of methodology has much to offer when studying stress and affective experiences at work. We provide support for the need to implement pluralistic and complementary methodological approaches in unearthing the depth in sense‐making and assert their capacity to further illuminate the process orientation of stress.

Practitioner points

This study illustrates the importance of verbalization in documenting stress and affective experience as a mechanism for accessing cognitive processes in making sense of such experience.

This study compares audio diaries with more traditional qualitative methods to assess applicability to different research contexts.

This study provides practical guidance and a methodological framework for the design of audio diary research and design, taking into account challenges and solutions for researchers and practitioners.

THE NURSES' FORM OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF GOSSIP?

Abstract Background: Gossip is important for managers to control it and to use it to create positive effects that help organizations to attain their goals. Objectives/Aim: The study utilised a descriptive model to determine how nurses use gossip as an informal communication channel in organizational communication. Method: Nurses working in 4 hospitals within a city in the eastern part of Turkey form the population of the study whereas nurses who agreed to participate in the study form the sample. Among these hospitals, two of them serve under the Ministry of Health while two serve under a university; diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services in any field are provided in each of these hospitals. The researchers developed a questionnaire for data collection after examining the literature. The approval of the ethical committees and written official permissions were obtained for the study. Data were acquired from 264 out of 420 nurses in total. Data were collected between June and September 2011. The response rate to the data collection tool was 62.8%. Subsequently, data were analyzed by frequency and percentage distribution tests with SPSS for Windows 17.0. Results: This study determined that nurses uses gossip most frequently about working conditions to share information face-to-face when they feel angry. Conclusion: The study concluded that nurses use gossip as an informal communication style in their institutions.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Workplace Gossip: Why and How Gossip Can Serve Groups

Gossip in the workplace has generally been ignored by researchers and often criticized by practitioners. The authors apply a transdisciplinary evolutionary approach to argue that gossip is a natural part of social organizations and that certain conditions can encourage socially-redeeming gossip. They draw on case studies involving cattle ranchers, members of a competitive rowing team, and airline company employees to juxtapose the nature and functions of gossip across a wide set of communities. They find that workplace gossip can serve positive functions when organizational rewards—measured in context-specific currencies—are fairly allocated at the level of small-scale groups rather than the level of individuals within groups. Given the diversity of their case studies, the authors are able to identify financial and nonfinancial rewards that facilitate group-serving gossip in different environments. Their findings make sense in light of an evolutionary perspective that recognizes similarities between the range of environments in which humans have primarily evolved and the workplace conditions that invite socially-redeeming gossip.

Gossip in Organizations: Contexts, Consequences, and Controversies

This article examines the key themes surrounding gossip including its contexts, the various outcomes (positive and negative) of gossip, as well as a selection of challenges and controversies. The challenges that are highlighted revolve around definitional issues, methodological approaches, and ethical considerations. The authors’ analysis suggests that the characteristics and features of gossip lend itself to a process-oriented approach whereby the beginning and, particularly, end points of gossip are not always easily identified. Gossip about a subject or person can temporarily disappear only for it to resurface at some later stage. In addition, questions pertaining to the effects of gossip and ethical-based arguments depend on the nature of the relationships within the gossip triad (gossiper, listener/respondent, and target).

The impact of senior medical students' personal difficulties on their communication patterns in breaking bad news

PURPOSE

To evaluate the possible influence of personal difficulties and barriers that are within the news bearer and his or her self-awareness (SA) of them, on the patterns of communication during encounters involving breaking bad news (BBN).

METHOD

Following an intensive BBN course in 2004, 103 senior medical students at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, were evaluated for BBN competencies by the analysis of their written descriptions of how they visualized their manner of delivering bad news to a patient described in a challenging vignette. The students were further asked to reflect on their own difficulties and barriers that surfaced in response to reading the narrative presented in the vignette and in delivering the bad news. Using an immersion crystallization narrative analysis method, the authors analyzed the relationship between the students' BBN strategies and their self-perceived barriers and difficulties.

RESULTS

Four types of communicators were identified and related to 45 different personal and professional barriers that the students, through self-reflection, found in themselves. These perceived barriers as well as the ability to self-reflect on them influenced their patterns of communication in their envisioned and written-down encounters, including the level of emotional connectedness, information provided, and the chosen focus-of-care paradigm (physician-centered, patient-centered, or relationship-centered).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings empirically demonstrate that intrapersonal difficulties within the communicator and his or her level of SA about them influenced the manner and content of the communication during the encounter. This finding suggests that enhancing SA and addressing personal and professional difficulties could help physicians' capability to cope with challenging communication tasks. The authors propose a working tool (the Preparatory SPIKES) to facilitate the integration of self-reflection (by identifying personal difficulties) into day-by-day planning and delivery of bad news.

Ambulatory Assessment in Industrial/Organizational Psychology

In this review, we demonstrate the contribution of ambulatory assessment (AA) research to I/O psychology by reference to four dynamic phenomena, the investigation of which we judge to benefit most from the application of AA techniques: (a) work strain and coping with work stressors, (b) the work/nonwork interface, (c) social interactions at the workplace, and (d) job attitudes and work-related emotions. As we see it, the greatest potential of these studies lies in the analysis of how interindividual differences modulate intraindividual processes. After demonstrating the value of the method, we outline and discuss ways of tackling a number of methodological issues raised in the studies reviewed: selective participation and attrition, altered reporting behavior and reactivity, noncompliance with study instructions, low acceptance, and development of reduced scales or single-item measures. Future studies can pave the way for the broad acceptance and utilization of AA methods by contributing to the resolution of these issues.

Gossip and nurses: malady or remedy?

Gossip is a natural part of every social setting and has a profound influence on organizational behaviors. As the primary care givers in the hospital setting, nurses are the front line in generating and controlling gossip. It is essential that management recognize this dynamic in the nursing workforce so they can be proactive in developing strategies to effectively control gossip. This article highlights the positive and negative aspects of gossip and provides strategies to help nursing professionals effectively manage this workplace issue. Unmanaged gossip can have a negative effect on the workplace by damaging relationships and reputations. Gossip that is managed effectively can have a positive effect on the workplace by building social bonds within the nursing unit.

Gossip and emotion in nursing and health‐care organizations

PURPOSE

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gossip and emotion in health-care organizations. It draws on findings from empirical research exploring the characteristics and function of gossip which, to date, has been a relatively under-researched organizational phenomenon.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A multidisciplinary approach was adopted, drawing on an eclectic range of discipline-based theories, skills, ideas and data. Methods included repertory grid technique, in-depth interviews and structured diary records of work-related gossip. The sample comprised 96 qualified nurses working in a range of practice areas and organizational settings in the UK.

FINDINGS

Template analysis was used to integrate findings across three phases of data collection. The findings revealed that gossip is used to express a range of emotions including care and concern about others, anger, annoyance and anxiety, with emotional outcomes that include feeling reassured and supported. It is the individual who gossips, while the organization provides the content, emotional context, triggers and opportunities.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

Nurses were chosen as an information-rich source of data, but the findings may simply reflect the professional culture and practice of nursing. Future research should take into account a wider range of health-care organizational roles and perspectives in order to capture the dynamics and detail of the emotions and relationships that initiate and sustain gossip.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Because gossip makes people feel better it may serve to reinforce the "stress mask of professionalism", hiding issues of conflict, vulnerability and intense emotion. Managers need to consider what the emotions expressed through gossip might represent in terms of underlying issues relating to organizational health, communication and change.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This paper makes a valuable contribution to the under-researched phenomenon of gossip in organizations and adds to the growing field of research into the role of emotion in health-care organizations and emotion work in nursing.