Division or Solidarity: The Double-Edged Sword of Workplace Gossip

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of gossip, current scholarly perspectives of gossip conceptualize gossip as a largely uniform behavior, which simplifies its inherent complexity, ambiguity, and broader consequences in organizations. In this dissertation, I seek to contribute to theory on gossip in organizations by addressing two key questions. First, how do group members interpret and respond to gossiping? Second, what are the consequences of gossip on the perceived social structure of the group? In Chapter 1, I theorize how recipients of gossip interpret and react to gossip in order to develop a typology of gossip and an attributional process model that integrates the divergent outcomes of gossiping. In Chapter 2, I integrate faultline theory to examine the relational implications of gossip in the broader group context. I suggest that gossip affects groups by activating both dormant and socially constructed faultlines that result in the perception of subgroups. In Chapter 3, I conduct a two-wave field study and two experimental studies to empirically examine the theory presented in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, I offer a summary and concluding remarks for future research on gossip.