Workplace gossip and employee commitment: building affective commitment through social bonding and the moderating role of
extraversion.
Master Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 11, 2017
HENK JAN KOOISTRA Student number: 2246767
Kleine beer 19 9742 RJ Groningen tel.: +31 6 2114 3255
e-mail: h.j.kooistra.1@student.rug.nl
Supervisor: E Martinescu
2 ABSTRACT
This paper examines the relationship between negative and positive workplace gossip and affective commitment of employees. We expect that social bonding with colleagues will have a mediating role in this relationship, as gossip will increase social bonding with colleagues and social bonding will increase affective commitment. We look at the different outcomes in these relations of negative compared to positive gossip. Furthermore, the moderating role of extraversion in the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding will be studied. A survey with 148 Dutch respondents is taken to test the hypotheses. Findings show that workplace gossip does not influence social bonding or affective commitment. No moderating effect was found of extraversion between workplace gossip and social bonding. We did find a positive effect of social bonding on affective commitment, but this did only take place in the negative gossip condition. In the last section we discuss implications and provide some future research suggestions.
Keywords: Negative/positive workplace gossip, affective commitment, social bonding, extraversion.
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INTRODUCTION
Employee commitment to the organization has long been topic of research in the field of economic psychology. Organizational commitment has been found to be related to several subjects which are beneficial for organizations. More specifically, research has shown that commitment to the organization will decrease turnover intentions of employees (Herda &
Lavelle, 2012; Iverson & Buttigieg, 1999; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer & Allen, 1991;
Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Therefore, organizational commitment is an important factor for the organization management in trying to maintain employees within their organization and contributing to the success of the organization. Furthermore, organizational commitment has been shown to cause less absenteeism amongst employees (Blau, 1986), increase the willingness amongst employees to accept change within the organization (Iverson, 1996), and commitment to the organization will decrease the amount of burn-outs among employees (Cannon & Herda, 2016; Herda & Lavelle, 2012). In addition, organizational commitment has been found to relate positively to job satisfaction (Hsu & Liao, 2015). Thus, organizational commitment plays an important role for multiple HR-implications as the reduction of turnover intentions and absenteeism, and the increase of employee well- being and job satisfaction. Therefore, it is of great importance to study how organizational commitment can be improved.
Social interactions have shown to influence the organizational commitment of employees. Sheldon (1971) investigated the influence of social involvements on commitment to the company. She defined this social involvement as “the interaction with and identification with other members of the organization” (Sheldon, 1971: 144). Social involvement is found to positively influence commitment towards the organization and can help maintaining skilled professionals (Heffner & Rentsch, 2001; Sheldon, 1971; Tschan, Semmer, & Inversin, 2004).
Although negative social interactions can abate employee well-being and cause stress (Lincoln,
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2000), the outcomes of positive social interactions are promising. Positive social interactions between employees build group cohesion and help new employees to learn and understand the organization as they build up relationships with their co-workers, these interaction processes will result in organizational commitment (Heffner & Rentsch, 2001). Furthermore, interaction has found to weaken the negative impact of job stressors (work overload and interpersonal conflict) on organizational commitment (Pooja, De Clercq, & Belausteguigoitia, 2016). Thus, positive social interactions are important for the well-being of employees and increase organizational commitment.
Where many studies have focused on social interactions as one object, we will investigate the influence of one type of interaction, namely workplace gossip. Previous research has failed to explain the relation between this specific type of social interaction and organizational commitment. Tschan et al. (2004) did make a distinction between the influence of ‘work related’ and ‘private’ social interactions on organizational commitment. But, where gossip can consist of work related and private content as well, it is unique in its nature. Gossip is defined as the talk or exchange of information about a third party who is not present in the conversation (Foster, 2004). Gossip contains the gossip ‘triad’, where the gossiper exchanges information with the gossip receiver about a third party, the target of gossip. Because of its unique nature this paper aims to investigate the missing link between workplace gossip and organizational commitment.
The three-component framework of Meyer and Allen (1991) splits organizational commitment up in affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization.
Affective commitment herein refers to the decision of employees to stay in the organization because they want to do so, continuance commitment make employees stay within the organization because they need to do so, and normative commitment makes employees decide to stay because he or she feels obliged to do so (Meyer & Allen, 1991). The three categories
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together build an employees’ psychological state that characterizes the employees’ relation with an organization and as a result it influences the employees’ decision whether he wants to stay in the organization or not (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Iverson and Buttigieg (1999) showed that affective commitment is the strongest determinant of multiple employee outcomes, like lower turnover intention and decreased absenteeism, therefore we will take this component of commitment into account in establishing the link between workplace gossip and commitment to the organization.
Gossip plays a large role in human social behavior. Two-third of all social interactions is said to be gossip related (Dunbar, 2004). With this figure in mind, one can hardly imagine a workplace containing social interaction between employees without gossiping taking place.
Because of this large role that gossip plays in human social behavior, it is important to investigate the outcomes of workplace gossip on employees. Hogan and Shelton (1998) argue that the urge of people to socially interact derives from a deep motivation to get along, and that this urge also takes place in the work environment. Furthermore, research in neuroscience has found that social stimuli have the same rewarding effects as money, food and even drugs (Krach, Paulus, Bodden, & Kircher, 2010). Another reason to engage in social behaviors is to reduce feelings of stress by disclosing one’s negative feelings (Lee, Park, & Kim, 2013). We argue that the same can be said for workplace gossip. Gossip can be used to build relationships, because it is rewarding in its social nature. Furthermore, gossip can reduce stress when someone can get released of their negative feelings. Thus, gossip plays an important role in employees’
social behavior and well-being.
The relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment has not been given much attention yet. But given the relation of social interactions and commitment, and the portion gossip has in social interaction, the expectation rises that gossip in the workplace will have an effect on affective commitment as well. Previous research about gossip indicates that
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gossip can have negative and positive outcomes. Especially for the target of the gossip, gossip can be perceived as insulting, therefore gossip can be harmful when the target learns about being the target of gossip. Reputations can be crushed by malicious talks and hostile environments can be created by negative gossip (Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell, Labianca, &
Ellwardt, 2012). Wu, Kwan, Wu, and Ma (2015) found that employees become emotionally fatigued as they had to deal with negative gossip and therefore behaved less proactive in their organization. Furthermore, gossip is found to increase cynicism amongst employees, and result in disparaging behavior against co-workers (Kuo, Chang, Quinton, Lu, & Lee, 2015).
Therefore, a certain amount of caution should be in place when gossip in the workplace occurs.
Nevertheless, we argue that workplace gossip can be beneficial for employees as well.
In line with the findings about social interactions in general, workplace gossip may serve as an emotional outlet (Grosser et al., 2012), or it can help colleagues to bond with each other (Baumeister, Zhang, & Vohs, 2004; Dunbar, 2004; Grosser et al., 2012). Whereas stress has been found to have a negative influence on organizational commitment (Masihabadi, Rajaei, Koloukhi, & Parsian, 2015) and social bonding has been found to have a positive influence effect on organizational commitment (Wang, 2014), gossip may have a positive effect on organizational commitment.
In this paper we focus on the benefits of gossip for the gossiper. The gossiper can feel rewarded by the social interaction and the established relationship. In addition, the gossiper can use gossip to express his or her feelings and to release feelings of stress (Grosser et al., 2012).
Therefore, we argue in this paper that people who will engage in gossip more often, will feel more committed towards their company.
Humans tend to use gossip as a tool to bond with others (Baumeister et al., 2004;
Dunbar, 2004; Ellwardt, Wittek &Wielers, 2012; Grosser et al., 2012), and a positive relation have been found between social bonding and affective commitment (Wang, 2014). Therefore,
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we argue that the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment will be mediated by social bonding.
Furthermore, we will study the moderating role of personality. Previous research have already taken into account the influences of personality on organizational commitment (Choi, Oh, & Colbert, 2015; Erdheim, Wang, & Zickar, 2006). Therefore, we expect that personality will influence the mediation effect of social bonding on the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment. More precisely, we expect that personality moderates the direct relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. This research will focus on the influence of extraversion on the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. Extraverts are social individuals, who tend to initiate and establish relationships, and due to their warm personality, are more inviting towards others (Bozionelos, 2017). Therefore we expect extraversion to positively influence the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Gossip and affective commitment
Gossip has long been topic of research in the psychological field. As part of human social activity, gossip plays an inevitable role in our social endeavors. The amount of social interactions that has been labelled as gossip sums up to around two thirds of our total conversations (Dunbar, 2004). However, the view on gossip has long been predominantly negative, and gossip was thought of as a destructive, malicious, and a reprehensible activity.
Furthermore, gossip was seen as an idle talk, or a way to speak ill of others and to undermine others’ actions (Dunbar, 2004). Other research argue that gossip is a way of gaining influence by manipulating and ruining the reputations of others (Demerath & Korotayev, 2015; Grosser et al., 2012; Kniffin & Wilson, 2010). Therefore, workplace gossip, and gossip in general, is seen as a harmful behavior, and can decrease performance and well-being of employees.
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In more recent reviews on gossip, this negative view has more shifted and the positive sides of gossip were also addressed. Although gossip can still have negative outcomes, multiple studies focused on the positive and beneficial functions of gossip (Brady, Brown, & Liang, 2017; Ellwardt et al., 2012; Grosser et al., 2012). In an evolutionary view, gossip can help people to adapt in large social groups, and by gossiping people learn to understand group values and norms (Dunbar, 2004; Grosser et al., 2012; Noon & Delbridge, 1993). In a more economic view, employees can use gossip to gather information and gain influence. Furthermore, gossip can help to express emotions and to enhance social intimacy with colleagues (Grosser et al., 2012). Hence, gossip can be beneficial for employees as it helps them to function according to group norms and build up relations.
We argue that workplace gossip can increase affective commitment to the company, as it offers multiple benefits for the employees. Meyer and Allen (1991) stated that affective commitment derives from employees feeling comfortable within their organization, and it is defined as emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization (Iverson & Buttigieg, 1999). By learning and understanding the organizations culture and the values and norms that come along with that culture, gossip can help employees to understand and identify with the organization. Fitting in, understanding, and learning the organizational culture is found to be highly related with affective commitment (Lau, McLean, Hsu, & Lien, 2015). Furthermore, gossip can serve to find comfort and build relations with colleagues, which makes them feel more comfortable and more emotionally attached to the company. By sharing emotions and feelings and by building relations with co-workers, a gossiper can increase his or her feelings of affection to the company. Therefore, with gossip as a social behavior that helps to establish and maintain close relationships between the gossiper and the receiver (Baumeister et al., 2004; Kurland & Pelled, 2000), we suggest that sharing gossip will increase affective commitment. This suggestion is hypothesized as:
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Hypothesis 1. Sharing workplace gossip will increase feelings of affective commitment to the organization.
Gossip increases affective commitment through social bonding
Workplace gossip and social bonding. As mentioned by Grosser et al. (2012), gossip can
influence the social bond between the members engaging in the gossip. Social bonds are defined as “the interpersonal relationships amongst interacting people, and are personal ties or linkages forged during interpersonal interaction” (Wang, 2014: 302). Gossip can increase social bonding, mainly because gossip helps to build up an intimate and trusting relationship. Gossip can influence the intimacy level of friendship between two persons, as gossip is seen as a manifestation of trust that the gossiper shows to the receiver, which establishes the basis of friendship (Foster, 2004). Interpersonal trust is found to be a basis for gossip exchange between the gossiper and the receiver. Especially with negative workplace gossip, interpersonal trust is a prerequisite before the gossip takes place (Ellwardt et al., 2012).
However, trust can also be the outcome of workplace gossip. This works in two ways, first, the gossiper trusts the receiver by providing him/her with delicate information. Second, by providing the receiver this information, the gossiper shows that he trusts the receiver and therefore the receiver will feel appreciated and is willing to repay this trust. Gossip will hereby establish, maintain and strengthen the relationship between the gossiper and the receiver (Grosser et al., 2012; Noon & Delbridge, 1993). Therefore, we expect that gossip will positively influence the bonding process of the gossiper and the receiver of gossip:
Hypothesis 2a. Sharing more frequent workplace gossip will positively influence the social bonding with co-workers.
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Positive versus negative gossip and social bonding. Sharing the same attitude towards a person
can bring people closer, as they establish a psychological “balance” and this, in return, promotes friendship (Heider, 1946). Therefore, we build on the premise that gossip sharing will promote friendship as well, as the message of the gossip is agreed upon by the gossiper and the receiver.
Bosson, Johnson, Niederhoffer, and Swann (2006) however, added to this balance, that a shared negative attitude will make social bonding stronger than does a shared positive attitude.
Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell, and Labianca (2010) argue that gossip can differ in its valence.
Gossip can be constructive or destructive in its nature, or it can be used to praise or to blame the target of the gossip message. Therefore, Grosser et al. (2010) differentiate gossip as consisting of either a negative, a positive and sometimes a neutral type of message. However, Foster (2004) argued that gossip consists of an evaluative message, and that neutral messages is more a dissemination of human news. Therefore, we will contrast negative with positive gossip in this research.
Because the agreement on negative attitudes towards someone or something else will have a greater impact on social bonding than a shared positive attitude does, we expect that negative gossip will influence social bonding stronger than does positive gossip. Therefore the next hypothesis is added to the previous one:
Hypothesis 2b. Social bonding as a result of sharing negative gossip will be stronger than the social bonding as a result of sharing positive gossip.
Social bonding and affective commitment. Dunbar (2004) argues that the most important role of gossip in the social environment of human beings may be the role of social bonding with others. Wang (2014) states that social bonding is related to positive interpersonal relationships
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during interpersonal interaction and social exchange. Furthermore, he found that employees who communicate well, maintain good relationships, and maintain cohesion with colleagues, would score higher on affective commitment.
Affective commitment refers to emotional attachment to and identification with the organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990), and interpersonal interaction can give employees emotional support which leads to an emotional attachment to the organization (Wang, 2013).
Furthermore, affective commitment is determent by the comfort employees find in the organization. Peer cohesion was found to positively influence affective commitment, this might be explained by enjoyment and identification employees find in interacting with co-workers (Allen & Meyer, 1990). Social bonding can increase the sharing of same company goals and values which will result in attachment to the organization (Ladebo, 2006). Therefore, we expect that social bonding will increase affective commitment among employees. Which is hypothesized as:
Hypothesis 3. An increase in social bonding will lead to increase
affective commitment to the organization.
With the combination of hypotheses 1 and 3, we propose a mediation effect of social bonding in the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment. Hypothesized as follows:
Hypothesis 4. The relation between workplace gossip and
affective commitment is mediated by social bonding.
12 The moderating role of extraversion
Personality traits have been examined extensively in their relation with many job related outcomes. An important personality trait model, used often in behavioral and psychological studies, is the Big-Five personality model containing extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness to experience as different personality types (McCrae
& John, 1992).
This paper will focus on the influence of extraversion in the relationship between gossip and organizational commitment. People who score high on extraversion tend to be sociable, talkative and outgoing (McCrae & John, 1992) and tend to seek and maintain high-quality social networks (Choi et al., 2015). Therefore, the expectation rises that extraverts will engage in gossip more frequently. Besides, extraverts are known for having a warm personality and are therefore inviting for other people to seek closeness towards them (McCrae & John, 1992).
Because a high level of extraversion will enable employees to build interpersonal relations, we expect that people scoring high on this personality trait will bond with others easier.
Extraverts tend to evoke more positive reactions compared to introverts, mostly because extraverts have more social skills. But extraverts are also more likely to be experienced pleasantly by others, therefore they will be well liked (Tov, Nai, & Lee, 2016). Positive affectivity is positively related to the trustworthiness of a person, therefore Tov et al. (2016) argue that the positive affectivity of extraverts results in more feelings in trust towards an extravert. Thus, as workplace gossip - especially negative gossip - is an activity which requires trust between the gossiper and the receiver, and extraverts evoke more feelings of trust, we argue that extraverts will have stronger social bonds with co-workers due to workplace gossip.
Furthermore, research has shown that extraverts find more joy in participating in social interactions (Argyle & Lu, 1990), and that extraverts show stronger feelings of social
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H1 + H2 a +, b
H5 +
H3 + H4 +
connectedness compared to introverts (Lee, Dean, & Jung, 2008). Meaning that extraverts find joy in engaging in social interaction with others, and in return feel more connected to the people they interact with. Therefore, extraversion will make the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding stronger.
Thus, we expect that extraversion will have a moderating effect on the relationship between workplace gossip and social bonding. This results in the fifth hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5. The positive relation between workplace gossip and social bonding will be stronger with people scoring high on extraversion rather than low.
Conceptual model
To visualize the given hypotheses, figure 1 shows the conceptual model concerning the relationship between workplace gossip and affective learning, with social bonding as a mediator and extraversion as a moderator.
Figure 1: Conceptual model Negative
vs positive workplace
gossip
Social bonding
Affective Commitment Extraversion
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METHOD SECTION Participants and procedure
For this research a sample of 148 Dutch respondents filled in an online survey. The sample consisted of 76 men and 72 woman, average age was 36.6 years. All respondents were required to be employed within a company for at least 2 months, employment tenure averaged 9 years and 10 months. The online survey was spread via online media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and e-mail.
First, respondents were asked to rate the frequency with which they engaged in gossip.
About half of the respondents were asked to rate the frequency of which they told positive gossip towards a co-worker about a third party, and the other half were asked to rate the frequency of which they told negative gossip towards a co-worker about a third person.
Respondents were randomly assigned to either one of the conditions.
Measures
The workplace gossip frequency scale was measured using a 7-point Likert-scale.
Respondents were asked to answer questions about how often they engaged in a gossip behavior in the last month on a scale from “1” = never to “7” = more than once a day. All the other variables were measured using a 7-point Likert-scale on a scale ranging from “1” = totally disagree to “7” = totally agree.
Workplace positive and negative gossip frequency was measured using the workplace gossip scale developed by Brady et al. (2017). Examples of questions about negative gossip were: “In the last month, how often have you asked a work colleague if they have a negative impression of something that another co-worker has done?” and “In the last month, how often have you told an unflattering story about a co-worker while talking to another work colleague?”
Internal reliability for the 5 items on this scale was high (N = 5, α = .90).
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Frequency of positive gossip was measured using the other half of the workplace gossip scale of Brady et al. (2017) and consisted of questions like: “In the last month, how often have you complimented a co-worker’s actions while talking to another work colleague?” and “In the last month, how often have you told a work colleague that you respect another co-worker?”.
The items of positive workplace gossip had high internal reliability as well (N = 5, α = .85).
The workplace gossip condition was hereafter coded in one dichotomous variable, with “-1”
being negative workplace gossip and “1” being positive workplace gossip. Thus, we had an dichotomous variable indicating the valence of the gossip participants recalled, and continuous scales for frequency of positive and negative gossip.
Social bonding with co-workers was measured using the unidimensional relational closeness scale developed by Dibble, Levine, and Park, (2011). This questionnaire includes statements like: “My relation with my co-worker is close.”, and “My co-worker and I have a strong connection.”. High internal reliability was found for the items of this questionnaire (N = 11, α = .91).
For the measurement of affective commitment the affective commitment scale developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) was used. This questionnaire includes statements like:
“I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization.”, and “The organization has a great deal of personal meaning for me.”. The four items on this scale had a sufficient internal reliability (N = 4, α = .74)
Next, extraversion was measured using the revised measurement scale of personality developed by John and Srivastava (1999), whereby only the questions about extraversion were asked. Statements for extroversion are for example: “I see myself as someone who is talkative.”, and “I see myself as someone who is full of energy.”. Items of this scale had a high internal reliability (N = 8, α = .87).
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Lastly, respondents were asked to fill in their age and gender. In the next section the statistical results of the hypotheses are shown.
Results
Descriptive statistics and correlations. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of all variables
and the correlations between the variables. As predicted, a strong, positive relation between social bonding and affective commitment was found (r = .41, p < .001), meaning that an increase in social bonding with one’s co-workers will lead to an increase in his or her feelings of affective commitment towards the organization, and vice-versa. Second, a significant, positive relation has been found between extraversion and frequency of positive gossip (r = .39, p < .05), meaning that the higher one scores on extraversion the more he or she will engage in
TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics
Correlations
N Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Gossip valence1 148 1
2 Negative Gossip2 76 2.68 1.18 - 1
3 Positive Gossip2 72 3.44 1.03 - - 1
4 Social Bonding 148 3.85 1.03 -.03 .01 .10 1
5 Aff. Commitment 148 4.42 1.16 -.11 .00 -.08 .41*** 1
6 Extraversion 148 5.01 0.94 .00 .07 .39* .09 .05 1
7 Age 148 36.62 12.54 .13 -.17 .02 .05 -.07 -.04 1
8 Gender3 148 .08 -.07 .18 -.00 -.09 -.04 -.10 1
9 Tenure 148 9.93 9.63 .10 -.08 -.03 .09 .01 -.06 .73* -.12 1
Note: Standardized measures used. *p < .05 (2-tailed) ***p < .001 (2-tailed),
1 Gossip condition = -1 = negative gossip; 1 = positive gossip. 2 Frequency of gossip behavior being measured. 3 Coded 1 = male; 2
= female.
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positive gossip. However, no correlation with affective commitment was found in the gossip valence condition to affective commitment (r = -.11, p = .21). Furthermore, no correlation was found between affective commitment and gossip with either negative valence (r = .00, p = 1.00), nor positive valence (r = -.08, p = .49).
Mediation analysis. To test our hypotheses we used the regression analysis developed by A. F.
Hayes (2013). For testing the moderated, mediation effect of our conceptual model, we used model 7 of PROCESS in SPSS with a bootstrap of 5000 samples.
Table 2 shows the results of the regression analysis of the model in which gossip condition was entered as an independent variable, social bonding as the mediator, affective commitment as the dependent variable and extraversion as first stage moderator. Hypothesis 1 stated that workplace gossiping would increase affective commitment. As we already found in the correlation analysis, no relation was found between gossip valence and affective commitment. The regression analysis confirmed this finding, as table 2 shows, there was no direct effect of workplace gossip on affective commitment (β = -.09, ns). Thus, no evidence was found that engaging in negative compared to positive gossip will increase one’s affective commitment towards his or her company.
No support was found for hypothesis 2a, stating that workplace gossip valence would increase social bonding (β = -.03, ns). Thus, workplace gossip valence did not increase social bonding. This means that hypothesis 2b was also not supported, meaning that sharing negative gossip will not lead to significantly more social bonding than does sharing of positive gossip.
The third hypothesis, stating that social bonding would increase affective commitment, was confirmed (β = .46, p , .001). So in support of hypothesis 3, we confirmed the positive relation between social bonding and affective commitment, meaning that an increase in social bonding will lead to an increase in affective commitment.
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However, social bonding did not function as a mediator on the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment. This means that hypothesis 4, stating that social bonding would have a mediating effect on the relation between workplace gossip valence and affective commitment, was rejected.
We stated in our fifth hypothesis that extraversion would moderate the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. That is, this relation would be stronger if extraversion was high rather than low. Regarding our fifth hypothesis no interaction effect was found of
TABLE 2
Moderated mediation effect analysis Dependent variable Social bonding
Variables β t CI[..]
Gossip -.03 -.41 [-.20; .13]
Extraversion .11 1.27 [-.06; .27]
Interaction Gossip x Extraversion .08 .95 [-.09; .25]
Control Variables
Age -.00 -.44 [-.02; .02]
Gender .03 .20 [-.30; .37]
Tenure .02 1.25 [-.01; .04]
R2 .03
Dependent variable Affective commitment
Variables Β t CI[..]
Social bonding .46*** 5.3 [.29; .64]
Gossip -.09 -.99 [-.26; .09]
Control variables
Age -.01 -1.21 [-.03; .01]
Gender -.21 -1.18 [-.56; .14]
Tenure .01 .56 [-.02; .03]
R2 .19
Conditional indirect effect
Effect moderation low -1.01 [-.15; .04]
Effect moderation moderate -.00 [-.10; .06]
Effect moderation high .99 [-.10; .15]
N = 148, ***p < .001
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extraversion and workplace gossip on social bonding (β = .08, ns). Meaning that extraversion did not moderate the relation between workplace gossip social bonding. As can be seen in table 2, the conditional indirect effect with low extraversion was not significant (β = -,05, CI = [-.15;
.05]), conditional indirect effect with high extraversion was not significant either (β = .02, CI = [-.11; -15]).
Control variables. Since the correlation table didn’t show any correlation of the three control
(age, gender and tenure) variables with our conceptual variables, we can conclude they did not have an effect on our moderated mediation model. Table 2 confirms these conclusion as no effects were found in the regression analysis of age, gender and tenure on social bonding or on affective commitment.
TABLE 3
Moderated mediation effect with negative gossip Dependent variable Social bonding
Variables β t CI[..]
Negative gossip frequency .01 .11 [-.24; .27]
Extraversion .02 .18 [-.22; .26]
Interaction -.01 -.05 [-.26; .24]
R2 .05
Dependent variable Affective commitment
Variables β t CI[..]
Social bonding .68*** 5.9 [.45; .91]
Negative gossip frequency -.02 -.16 [-.26; .22]
R2 .35
Conditional indirect effect
Effect moderation low .01 [-.22; .26]
Effect moderation moderate .01 [-.22; .20]
Effect moderation high .01 [-.35; .36]
N = 76, ***p < .001
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Negative workplace gossip. Hypothesis 2b stated that social bonding between co-workers
would be stronger in the negative gossip condition than in the positive gossip condition, as mentioned no support was found for this hypothesis. Table 3 and 4 show the regression analysis of the moderated, mediation effect of workplace gossip on affective commitment in the negative vs. positive condition separately. For these analyses we used the negative and positive gossip frequency as independent variables. In the negative gossip condition, negative gossip did not increase social bonding (β = .01, ns). The relation between social bonding and affective commitment was significant (β = .68, p < .001), meaning that social bonding positively influenced affective commitment in the negative gossip condition. Regarding our moderator, we did not find an interaction effect of negative gossip and extraversion on social bonding (β = -.01, ns). The conditional indirect effect for people scoring high on extraversion (β = .01, CI [- .35; .36]) was not stronger than for people scoring low on extraversion (β = .01, CI [-.22; .26]).
TABLE 4
Moderated mediation effect with positive gossip Dependent variable Social bonding
Variables β t CI[..]
Positive gossip frequency .05 .36 [-.21; .31]
Extraversion .13 .92 [-.15; .41]
Interaction -.09 -.69 [-.36; .18]
R2 .04
Dependent variable Affective commitment
Variables β t CI[..]
Social bonding .20 1.5 [-.07; .47]
Positive gossip frequency -.08 -.58 [-.34; .18]
R2 -.09
Conditional indirect effect
Effect moderation low .03 [-.03; .21]
Effect moderation moderate .01 [-.05; .10]
Effect moderation high -.01 [-.15; .07]
N = 72
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Positive workplace gossip. In the positive gossip condition, positive gossip did not increase
social bonding (β = .05, ns). Surprisingly, social bonding did not increased affective commitment in the positive gossip condition (β = .01, ns). Furthermore, we did not find an interaction effect of positive gossip and extraversion on social bonding (β = .01, ns). The conditional indirect effect for people scoring high on extraversion (β = -.01, CI [-.15; .07]) was not stronger than for people scoring low on extraversion (β = .01, CI [-.03; .21]).
DISCUSSION
The aim of this paper was to investigate in the relation between workplace gossip behavior and affective commitment to the company. However, this study did not find a significant relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment. The expectation was that sharing gossip with negative as well as with positive valence would increase one’s affective commitment, and that this relation would be mediated through social bonding with one’s co- workers. Thus, the more one gossips, the more he or she would feel social connected with colleagues, and as a result would have more affective commitment to the organization. This mediation effect of social bonding on the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment was not supported. We did, however, find a strong positive effect of social bonding on affective commitment in the negative workplace condition. Meaning that, in line with our expectations, the more one feels connected to his or hers colleagues, the stronger his or hers affective commitment to the company is. Furthermore, we hypothesized that social bonding would be stronger in the negative gossip condition than in the positive gossip condition, but no significant result was found to support this hypothesis.
In addition, we hypothesized that people with a more extravert personality would be more active gossipers, and therefore the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding would be stronger on people scoring high on extraversion rather than low. Thus, extraversion
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would moderate the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. We did not find any support for this moderation effect of extraversion on the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. This study did show, however, extraversion correlated with workplace gossip, but this correlation was only found in the positive gossip condition. Meaning that people scoring high on extraversion would share more positive gossip compared to people scoring low on extraversion.
Theoretical implications
In early views on workplace gossip, gossip was seen as a destructive behavior and a tool to harmfully ruin other’s reputations (Kniffin & Wilson, 2010). In this paper we focused on a positive side of workplace gossip. Building on the theory of Dunbar (2004), we suggested engaging in workplace gossip would help employees to socially bond with their colleagues, and therefore feel more comfortable in their organization, and thus feel more affective commitment to the company.
The last part of this hypothesis was confirmed, meaning that social bonding increased the feelings of affective commitment to the company. However, this relation was only found in the negative workplace gossip condition. Therefore, we argue that an increase of affective commitment by social bonding may be caused only by recalling the sharing of negative information about a third party and not a positive message. It may be that the urge of sharing a negative opinion about a third party is caused by the feelings of stress and discomfort about this third party or his or her actions. One might only share these negative feelings with a person already close to him or her. Especially when the content of the message is delicate and the person with whom the information is shared needs to be trustworthy. The research of Bosson et al. (2006) showed that sharing negative feelings with someone would lead to bonding with this person. It could be that in this study the opposite was true, when trying to recall a time when the gossiper shared a negative feeling, he automatically thought of a time when he or she
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shared this negative feeling with someone already close to him. And negative gossip might not be shared with many co-workers, but only with the co-workers already close to the gossiper.
Therefore negative workplace gossip did not influence social bonding, but these social bonds already existed. Thus, the social closeness was in this case not caused by workplace gossip, but rather recalled in this particularly case of sharing a negative feeling. This feeling of social closeness with colleagues could in return remind the employees of the feelings of comfort within the organization, and the opportunity to share negative feelings, and therefore explain the increase in affective commitment.
The missing relation between workplace gossip and social bonding might be due to other functions workplace gossip has. Whereas social bonding might be caused by negative and positive gossip in an off-work setting (Bosson et al., 2006), this may be different in the workplace. Although Grosser et al. (2012) argue that workplace gossip can be used to build and maintain relationships, our findings did not confirm this relation. In their article about organizational gossip, however, they also listed other functions of gossip. Gossip function as a way to gather information and gain influence, also it helps to protect group values and norms and works as a stress-reducing remedy. Therefore, in the workplace, gossip may serve other goals than outside the workplace.
Where social bonding for the gossiper was an antecedent of affective commitment, the other parties of the gossip triad were not taken into account in this research. For the receiver of gossip, workplace gossip might also have a bonding effect, as he feels trusted by the gossiper.
Furthermore, comparison of the self with the actions of others by receiving gossip can help to improve one’s performance or one may feel better about themselves by receiving negative information about others (Martinescu, Janssen, & Nijstad, 2014). Therefore, receiving gossip may increase job performance and self-esteem. Both job performance and self-esteem are found to relate with affective commitment (Lee & Peccei, 2007; Schoemmel & Jønsson, 2014),
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therefore workplace gossip may influence the affective commitment of gossip receivers in a different way.
However, relations between employees may also be damaged as a result of workplace gossip. Especially for the target of gossip, gossip can be harmful. The target may feel like an outsider when he or she hears about being the target of gossip (Michelson, van Iterson, &
Waddington, 2010). This may decrease employee morale, job performance and as a result the targets’ affective commitment to the company.
Practical implications
In a social environment such as the work floor, gossiping should not be overlooked.
Where there are people, there will be gossip. This study showed that extravert people would engage more often in positive gossip. So, we argue that engaging in this kind of gossip is a way of social interaction that extraverts enjoy. Huang et al. (2016) found that extravert employees were more likely to remain in their company and that they would be more satisfied with their jobs if their jobs are rich in social interaction. Therefore, extraverts might be looking for jobs in which they can speak up their minds, and to socially interact with their colleagues. And they might have the intention to leave their company sooner if they have no opportunity to interact with their colleagues. Thus, extraverts might be unsatisfied with their jobs if social interaction is being opposed by company culture for instance. Therefore, we recommend managers to keep opportunities open for employees to socially interact, and, in line with our findings, not to withhold them from engaging in positive gossip.
With the relation between social bonding and affective commitment in the negative gossip condition, we argue that employees might lay more importance on the social connection with their colleagues as they counter negative feelings. As these feelings of closeness with co- workers lead to an increase in feelings of affective commitment to the company, we recommend
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that companies create an company culture in which employees can bond with each other through other ways than gossip. Making employees join up in teams (Henttonen, Johanson, &
Janhonen, 2014) and strive for the same goals (Wolf, Launay, & Dunbar, 2016) might increase social bonding among employees.
In this study we tried to get more insight in the functions of workplace gossip. Because of the large role gossip plays in human social behavior, it might be important for organizations to understand the functions of gossip. Although workplace gossip may serve many other goals, we did not find a relation between workplace gossip and social bonding or affective commitment, this may help managers to understand the functions workplace gossip better.
Limitations
This research came with certain limitations. First of all, gossip may be a sensitive topic, therefore driving respondents to answer in a somewhat desirable way. However we did not directly question about the frequency of gossip, but rather the frequency of certain social interactions, it could still be the case that respondents weren’t completely honest about their actual behavior. One may not be completely honest in answering about how often he or she criticizes his or her colleague. And one may even rate frequency of positive gossip higher than it actually is, as this may seem the desirable thing to do.
Another limitation is that we only used Dutch respondents to measure our hypotheses.
It might be that employees in other countries, and especially other cultures, experience workplace gossip differently and the outcomes will therefore be different.
In this research, we measured frequency of gossip. As mentioned earlier, frequency of gossip may not influence social bonding and affective commitment, but it may be that a shared opinion about the content of the gossip message will have different outcomes. Therefore, measuring the frequency of gossip may not be the right approach in order to establish its relation
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with social bonding and affective commitment, but sharing an opinion will be more accurate in predicting these outcomes. So, it might be that in order for social bonding to take place, the content of the gossip should be agreed upon by the receiver of the gossip.
Furthermore, this research focused on the gossiper and the way he or she bonded with colleagues. However, the gossip-triad consists of three parties, and as we argued before, workplace gossip may have different outcomes for the gossip receiver and the target of gossip.
This study did not look at the outcomes for these other parties of gossip.
Future research suggestions
To overcome the problem of inaccuracy of measurement of the frequency of workplace gossip, future research should try to measure workplace gossip in a more observational or implicit way in order to prevent dishonesty. Furthermore, future research should investigate in the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment, and workplace gossip and social bonding for the receiver and the target of gossip.
Because we did not find a relation between workplace gossip and social bonding. We argue that social bonding is not caused by gossip, but rather it derives from a shared opinion about the content of gossip (Bosson et al., 2006). Future research should study if the agreement about the content of gossip between the gossiper and the receiver of the gossip increases social bonding.
Furthermore, future research should study the outcomes of workplace gossip in different cultures. The Netherlands can be seen as an individualistic culture (Yaman, Mesman, Van Ijsendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Linting, 2010), therefore gossip might be used for personal gain. In more collective cultures the opposite might be true, because more importance is given to the outcomes for all the group members or the group as a whole.
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Lastly, this research focused on the moderating effect of the personality trait extraversion. Other personality traits could be considered as well. The relation between personality and commitment has given great attention in previous research (Erdheim et al., 2006; Spagnoli & Caetano, 2012), but one can imagine that different personalities might have different views on workplace gossip, social bonding and affective commitment. For instance, a person scoring high on agreeableness can be seen as trustworthy, warm and sympathetic (John
& Srivastava, 1999), therefore have another interpretation when sharing or hearing gossip. On the other hand, people scoring high on openness are being characterized fantasy and open to ideas (John & Srivastava, 1999), and might use workplace gossip to gather other points of views on and information about certain behaviors and action. Future research should investigate in the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding as influenced by different personalities.
Conclusion
In this research we studied the relation between workplace gossip and affective commitment, the mediation effect of social bonding and the moderation effect of extraversion.
Only a strong relation was found between social bonding and affective commitment in the negative workplace condition. We suggest that future research should investigate more deeply in the relation between workplace gossip and social bonding to get a clearer picture of the impact of workplace gossip.
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