Have You Heard That—“GOSSIP”? Gossip Spreads Rapidly and Influences Broadly

Rezwan Ullah, Muhammad Zada, Imran Saeed, Jawad Khan, Muhammad Shahbaz, Alejandro Vega-Muñoz and Guido Salazar-Sepúlveda
Additional contact information
Rezwan Ullah: School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Muhammad Zada: Postdoc Business School, Henan University, Kaifeng 475000, China
Imran Saeed: Institute of Business and Management Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar 25130, Pakistan
Jawad Khan: Department of Business Administration, Iqra National University, Peshawar 25100, Pakistan
Muhammad Shahbaz: School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Alejandro Vega-Muñoz: Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago 7500912, Chile
Guido Salazar-Sepúlveda: Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción 4090541, Chile

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: This study examines the impact of negative workplace gossip (NWG) on employee political acts (PA) and the role of ego depletion (ED) as a mediator. We also examined the indirect impact of NWG on PA through ED controlled by emotional intelligence (EI). A three-wave time-lagged study (paper-pencil based) was performed with 277 employees from various private organisations in Islamabad, Pakistan. The current data were gathered in three phases to reduce common method bias. Study results indicate that NWG positively affects employees’ PA. The authors also found ED as a potential mediator in the association between NWG and PA. In addition, the results also indicate the indirect effect of NWG on targets’ PA via ED is reduced by targets’ EI, with the result that this connection is weak when targets’ EI is high. Because this research is limited to a single region of Pakistan, particularly Islamabad, its findings cannot be comprehensive. Future studies should use a larger sample size to accomplish the same study. Future studies may include more organisations (that is, Public) to conduct a comparative analysis of the public and private sectors. This article, based on the affective events theory (AET), argues that EI should be utilised to mitigate the effects of NWG. Along with our significant and relevant theoretical contributions, we provide novel insights into the body of knowledge on how managers may prevent or minimise such PA. The current study results support all direct and indirect hypothesised connections, with important implications for theory and practice. A review of the existing literature indicates that EI may be associated with a reduction in employees’ ED; however, EI has not been used as a moderator in mitigating the influence of NWG, ED, and PA in the past.

Keywords: negative workplace gossip; ego depletion; political acts; emotional intelligence; AET (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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