Supervisor workplace gossip and its impact on employees

Kuo, Chun‐Yan; Wu, Chih-Ying; Lin, Chia-Wu

doi:10.1108/jmp-04-2017-0159

Cited by 50 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…There are numerous calls to expand literature on workplace gossip (Kuo et al, 2015;Kuo et al, 2018). This study suggests that managerial workplace gossip and employee outcomes in public sector entities is one of such responses.…”

Section: Implications Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Supervisor workplace gossip occurs when supervisors informally discuss subordinates in their absence. In most cases, the superiors either positively, or negatively discuss workplace conduct of their subordinates with respect to knowledge and abilities (Kuo, Wu, & Lin, 2018), workplace behaviors and attitudes (Kuo et al, 2015), and job performance Evaluations (Traylor, 2008). Supervisor gossip, just like any other form of workplace gossip must meet some threshold of workplace gossip.…”

Section: Literature Review Supervisor Workplace Gossipmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Supervisor Workplace Gossip and Employee Job Performance

Dlamani

Zhou

Kwamboka

2018

IJRBS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examined the role of supervisor gossip on subordinate job performance. The paper hypothesized that supervisor’s negative and positive gossip influence employee job engagement which in subsequently affects employee job performance. Dyadic research design was used to collect data from a sample of 228 employees and supervisors from Kwa Zulu Natal Government Municipality, South Africa. The employees completed the questionnaire items on supervisor gossip and job engagement, while their supervisors completed the questionnaire items on employee job performance. Data collection was done in three waves. The study established that positive superior gossip positively and significantly influenced employee job engagement, which positively improved employee job performance; while negative superior gossip had a positive, but insignificant effect on employee job engagement. The study was limited by the multicultural nature of the municipality as well as the causality issues and common method biases associated with research design. Having managed to utilize Social Exchange Theory (SET) in disentangling the supervisor-subordinate reciprocal communication web, the study proposes that supervisors should inculcate effective strategies of utilizing both positive and negative gossip in the workplace so as to increase positive employee outcomes. Negative gossip will cause tension, stress and mistrust among employees, while positive gossip will lead to creation of workplace antagonism and competition. This study attempted to assess the implication of supervisor gossip on employee job engagement and performance in the public service sector, whose employees are characterized with high job security as compared to their peers in the private sector.

show abstract

Section: Implications Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Literature Review Supervisor Workplace Gossipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supervisor Workplace Gossip and Employee Job Performance

Dlamani

Zhou

Kwamboka

2018

IJRBS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Positive gossip refers to positively evaluating a gossip subject, such as praising his/her appropriate and norm-strengthening behaviors, offering social/political support, and defending the subject in his/her absence (Ellwardt et al, 2012a). In contrast, negative gossip refers to negatively evaluating a gossip subject, such as communicating disapproval about his/her poor job performance and underlying inappropriate, norm-violating behaviors (Ellwardt et al, 2012a; Kuo et al, 2018; McDonald et al, 2007). As mentioned earlier, the valence of gossip from people with high social status is usually negative, as they mainly use negative gossip to sanction norm violations and reinforce organizational norms (Ellwardt et al, 2012a).…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Supervisor negative gossip occurs during the daily interactions between a supervisor gossiper and an employee receiver. Supervisors vary the frequency with which they informally and privately convey negative evaluations of the inappropriate work behaviors and unsatisfactory job performance of absent employees to employee receivers (Kuo et al, 2018). We contend that the frequency with which a supervisor negatively gossips with an employee facilitates the employee receiver’s reflective learning at work.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from supervisor negative gossip: The reflective learning process and performance outcome of employee receivers

Bai

Wang

Chen³

et al. 2019

Human Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Workplace gossip is generally viewed as a deviant behavior that negatively affects the work outcomes of employees. However, we argue that this negative view is incomplete. Drawing on the cultural learning perspective of gossip and social learning theory, we examine how the job performance of employee receivers benefits from supervisor negative gossip through reflective learning. On the basis of multi-source, cross-sectional designs, Studies 1 and 2 consistently find that supervisor negative gossip facilitates employee receiver reflective learning and subsequent job performance when controlling for two sets of theory-relevant variables. Study 3, which has a multi-source, cross-lagged panel design, provides further evidence of the directional relationship from supervisor negative gossip to employee receiver job performance through reflective learning. The findings of the three separate field studies support the positive effect of supervisor negative gossip on employee receivers from a learning perspective. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings in terms of how employee receiver job performance can benefit from workplace negative gossip.

show abstract

“…Secondly, this study mainly considers the negative gossip perceived or experienced by employees at work from their colleagues. According to existing literature, gossip may also come from those in power (Gkorezis et al, 2014;Kuo et al, 2018). Employees may suffer from negative gossip from their supervisors, which may have a greater impact on individual employees and their families.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-to-Family Spillover Effects of Workplace Negative Gossip: A Mediated Moderation Model

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Existing research has found that workplace negative gossip exerts a negative impact on employees and organizations. However, there is a lack of study on the spillover effect of workplace negative gossip on employees' families. This paper aimed to address this gap in prior literature. Based on resource conservation theory, we chose married employees who perceived or suffered from workplace negative gossip as the subjects and analyzed the effect of workplace negative gossip on their work-family conflict. We adopted a self-reported questionnaire to assess employees' perception or experience of workplace negative gossip, psychological distress, level of neuroticism, and work-family conflicts. A total of 245 valid employee questionnaires were obtained from two-wave data collection in China. The results of the empirical analysis indicated that workplace negative gossip perceived or suffered by employees has a positive impact on their workfamily conflicts, and psychological distress plays a mediating role in the relationship between perceived or suffered workplace negative gossip and employees' work-family conflict. Furthermore, we found that employees' level of neuroticism moderates the positive effect of workplace negative gossip and work-family conflict, and it also moderates the mediating effect of workplace negative gossip on employees' workfamily conflict by psychological distress. The conclusion of this paper supported our previous hypotheses. Finally, according to the earlier findings, we discussed the theoretical contributions, practical significance, and limitations of the study and provided some practical suggestions for managers.

show abstract

Supervisor workplace gossip and its impact on employees

Cited by 50 publications

References 54 publications

Supervisor Workplace Gossip and Employee Job Performance

Supervisor Workplace Gossip and Employee Job Performance

Learning from supervisor negative gossip: The reflective learning process and performance outcome of employee receivers

Work-to-Family Spillover Effects of Workplace Negative Gossip: A Mediated Moderation Model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About