Experiencing Gossip: The Foundations for a Theory of Embedded Organizational Gossip

Abstract

This article presents findings on the nature and operation of gossip that emerged from an empirical study of organizational communication during a chief executive officer (CEO) succession process. By studying gossip within the context of a broader study of change-related communication, new insights were gained that extend, and in some respects challenge, commonly accepted views of the nature of gossip. The findings suggest gossip is experienced as coupled to or embedded in the other forms of change communication employees encountered across the CEO succession process. Gossip appears to be experienced as an integral part of sensemaking and social exchange and not as a phenomenon that can be fully understood in isolation to the formal and other types of informal communication that contribute to these processes. These findings provide the foundations for a theory of embedded organizational gossip that is offered here as a framework for further empirical study.

Love at the Office? Understanding Workplace Romance Disclosures and Reactions from the Coworker Perspective

“…This suggests that reactions to WRs need to be explored and understood by looking not only at individual factors, like coworker reactions, but also at the larger social and organizational contexts. This implication for WR theory building is similar to recent findings on gossip (Mills, 2010). Mills found that organizational gossip should be studied in context and can only be understood ''within the temporal frame, issue climate, and operational and geosocial contexts that prevail during the period of data collection' ' (2010, p. 233).…”

Talking behind their backs: Negative gossip and burnout in Hospitals

“…Finally, negative gossip can be considered as bullying (Kiefer, 2013), especially when it involves lies (Vessey, DeMarco, Gaffney, & Budin, 2009). Mills (2010) proposes that gossip appears to be a phenomenon that is integrated in the organizational context and should not be studied in isolation. Gossip might occur in the individual level, but it has organizational antecedents and outcomes.…”

Perceptions of Negative Workplace Gossip: A Self-Consistency Theory Framework

“…Despite considerable progress, scholarly work on gossip in organizations remains incomplete, particularly the effects of perceived negative workplace gossip on the target's work related behaviors (Mills, 2010;van Iterson & Clegg, 2008). Scholars have urged greater attention to the effects of negative gossip (Baumeister et al, 2004;Dunbar, 2004), but to our knowledge, few studies have examined negative workplace gossip from the target's perspective (with the exception of target characteristics, see Ellwardt, Labianca, & Wittek [2012a] and Ellwardt, Wittek, & Wielers [2012b]).…”