Gossip in the workplace and the implications for HR management : a study of gossip and its relationship to employee cynicism

Gossip is a common phenomenon in the workplace and yet relatively little is understood about itsinfluence to employees. This study adopts social information theory and social cognitive theory to interpretthe diverse literature on gossip, and to develop and test hypotheses concerning some of the antecedents ofgossip, with an aim of developing knowledge of the relationship between gossip and employee behaviour inthe workplace. The study analysed survey data in a two stage process, from 362 employees across a rangeof industries in Taiwan. The findings revealed that job-related gossip predicted employee cynicism andmediated the relationship between psychological contract violation and cynicism, and that non-job-relatedgossip showed a similar but weaker effect to employee cynicism. The contribution made by this paper is ofvalue to both the academic subject domain and managers in Human Resources. Firstly, we have identifiedtwo constructs of gossip, job related and non-job related gossip not previously reported and a validated scalehas been created. Secondly, we have confirmed that these different constructs of gossip impact differently onemployee behaviour and therefore HR managers should be cautious about gossip in the workplace, as it cancause cynical behaviour amongst employees