| The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between workplace gossip and occupation stress. Gossip has been recognized as a ubiquitous and influential, yet seriously under researched phenomenon in the workplace. It has been acknowledged that research on workplace gossip is of great value because it constitutes a big part of organizational communication, it serves important functions, and it has serious consequences for members and organization itself. The small number of studies may be in part explained by the lack of agreement among researchers on the definition of gossip.;Thus, the first part of this project deals with defining workplace gossip using survey of scientific opinions. Gossip researchers were asked to indicate agreement or disagreement with 20 statements representing defining features of workplace gossip. There was consensus that gossip is an informal, evaluative talk about third absent parties that are part of the organization. Researchers also agreed that motives behind gossip, presence of the context of congeniality and the sign of the evaluation should not be a part of the definition.;The second goal of the study was to investigate the relationship between workplace gossip and occupational stress, by adopting Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) Transactional Process Model of Stress. An online survey of a sample of working individuals was used in this investigation. It was found that need for affiliation and need for dominance, as well as two types of workplace stressors: interpersonal conflict and organizational constraints were predictive of gossiping behaviors.;The second set of hypotheses focused on several mechanisms related to gossip's functions that could explain gossip's moderating influence on the stressor-strain relationship. However, gossip was only a significant predictor of informal influence. Further, the relations between variables ran counter to the hypotheses, suggesting that, if anything, experiences of strains are actually stronger among workers who gossip more. |
