Workplace gossip and employee cynicism : the moderating role of dispositional envy

This study investigated the relationship between workplace gossip (positive gossip andnegative gossip) and employee cynicism and explored the moderating role of dispositionalenvy through the social information processing approach. Data were collected via a threestage survey in 24 companies with 307 employees across a range of industries in Taiwan andanalyzed through hierarchical liner modeling regression analysis. The results showed thatnegative workplace gossip engendered employee cynicism, whereas the effect of positiveworkplace gossip was not significant, and that these relationships were moderated bydispositional envy. This demonstrates that individual differences are an important factoraffecting employee cynicism within organizations