Effect of Perceived Negative Workplace Gossip on Employees’ Behaviors

Frontiers in Psychology

Ming Kong¹ 

关键词: perceived negative workplace gossip;    in-role behavior;    organizational citizenship behavior;    organization-based self-esteem;    perceived insider status;    hostile attribution bias;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01112

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY