How Workplace Gossip Shapes Interpersonal Relationships: A Qualitative Study from the Gossip Recipient’s Perspective
Date
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Abstract
Although preliminary research implies a tantalizing association between workplace gossip and interpersonal relationships, little is known about how gossip shapes relationships at work. Given that relationships are integral to employee wellbeing and to the development of social capital, it appears vital to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the psychological processes linking gossip and workplace relationships. To this end, we induce theory from qualitative evidence regarding the processes whereby workplace gossip shapes relationships in the workplace. Taking the under-researched perspective of the gossip recipient, our study draws on multi-source data to explore how recipients’ experiences of gossip incidents affect their dyadic relationships with gossipers and gossip targets. We find that recipients’ interpretations of gossipers’ intentions—prosocial, self-serving, or genuine—initiate three distinct processes that engender a range of relational outcomes, from decreased trust to the development of close interpersonal connections. In describing these nuanced processes and their associated relational outcomes, we provide insights that extend and enrich theory and challenge conventional assumptions about workplace gossip.Description
Keywords
35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 3507 Strategy, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1503 Business and Management, 1701 Psychology, Business & Management, 3505 Human resources and industrial relations, 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
Source
Group and Organization Management, ISSN: 1059-6011 (Print); 1552-3993 (Online), SAGE Publications, 50(3), 799-839. doi: 10.1177/10596011231184685
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© The Author(s) 2023. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).