Workplace gossip and frontline employees’ proactive service performance

Qi-tao Tian, Yang Song, Ho Kwong Kwan and Xue Li

The Service Industries Journal, 2019, vol. 39, issue 1, 25-42

Abstract: Managers are interested in promoting frontline employees’ proactive behavior because proactivity is crucial for organizational success. This study examined the link between perceived workplace gossip and employees’ (targets’) proactive service performance by focusing on the mediating role of employees’ harmonious passion and the moderating role of perceived job social support. Using time-lagged survey data from 218 supervisor-subordinate dyads in a commercial bank in China, we found that perceived workplace gossip negatively influences employees’ proactive service performance, and that this relationship is mediated by reduced harmonious passion. In addition, perceived job social support attenuates the negative relationship between perceived workplace gossip and harmonious passion, with harmonious passion having a mediating effect on the relationship between perceived workplace gossip and proactive service performance. These results provide new directions for understanding workplace gossip, harmonious passion, proactive service performance, and job social support. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2018.1435642

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The Service Industries Journal is currently edited by Eileen Bridges, Professor Domingo Ribeiro, Ronald Goldsmith, Barry Howcroft and Youjae Yi

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