Gossiping about outsiders: How time-related work stress among collectivistic employees hinders job performance

Abstract

This study investigates the connection between employees' experience of time-related work stress and their job performance, with a particular focus on the mediating role of their propensity to engage in negative gossip and the moderating role of their collectivistic orientation.Results based on multisource, three-wave data from employees, their peers, and supervisors in Pakistani organizations show that an important reason that time-related work stress might diminish job performance is that employees expend significant energy discussing their negative evaluations of other organizational members with peers, possibly as a way to protect their selfesteem resources. This mediating role of gossip also is invigorated by employees' collectivistic orientation. For organizations, this study identifies a key mechanism-informal conversations with peers about the flaws of others in the organization-by which time-related stress prevents employees from allocating sufficient energy to completing their job tasks, and it reveals that this process is more likely among collectivistic employees.

Reputation and socio-ecology in humans

“…Researchers have argued that in contexts characterized by higher collectivistic values, people often engage in gossip towards ingroup members to blame deviant behaviour, as people care about their reputation primarily in interaction with ingroup members [67]. In line with this, previous research involving employees across 10 organizations in Pakistan (n = 198), reported that a collectivistic orientation moderated the effect of negative gossip on job performance (a proxy of cooperation in the workplace, [68]). On the other hand, societies characterized by a higher prevalence of individualistic values are associated with greater independence from strangers and autonomy, loose connections to ingroups and prioritize personal needs and goals.…”

Mitigating the Impact of Work Overload on Cybersecurity Behavior: The Moderating Influence of Corporate Ethics—A Mediated Moderation Analysis

“…The Effort-Reward Imbalance model [42] offers another perspective. Here, an imbalance between effort (manifested as work overload) and reward can precipitate a diminished commitment toward one's job role, which inevitably includes adherence to cybersecurity policies.…”

“…The Effort-Reward Imbalance model [42] provides another valuable perspective. It posits that employees feel stressed when their effort (i.e., workload) is not met with corresponding rewards (e.g., pay, esteem, or career opportunities including job security).…”

Perceived organizational politics and workplace gossip: the moderating role of compassion

“…Previous research asserts that in collectivistic cultures like India, a high contact rate within families or groups promotes word-of-mouth communication (Xie et al , 2022). Research also contends that collectivistic orientation simulates gossip mainly for translation of employees’ stress into enjoyment (De Clercq et al , 2019). Further, it has been argued that collectivism increases group-members’ propensity to protect the interest of their immediate peers by comparing the accomplishments of their in-group with those of the out-group members (Lam et al , 2016).…”