The Impact Of Negative Workplace Gossip On Newcomer Organizational Socialization

Newcomers are the new force and important resources for sustainable development of the company.However,when newcomers first enter the organization,they will face problems such as unfamiliarity with the organization and working situation,insufficient information,huge uncertainty,and the establishment of new interpersonal relationships.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to investigate how newcomers can avoid adverse environments,integrate into the organization,and smoothly socialize.Negative workplace gossip often plays an informal but important role in newcomer organizational socialization,influencing newcomers’ cognitions and behaviors.The current study attempts to investigate how and when newcomers perceived negative gossip from the workplace affects organizational socialization.We establish and test the model by considering perceived insider status as the mediator and core self-evaluation as the moderator.We tested our hypotheses using data gathered from 165 usable newcomers in a large drugstore chain located in Northern China using a time-lagged research design.We demonstrated that perceived negative workplace gossip was negatively correlated with newcomer organizational socialization,and we found that perceived insider status mediated the negative relationship between newcomer perceived negative workplace gossip and organizational socialization.In addition,the negative relationship between newcomer perceived negative workplace gossip and perceived insider status was stronger when core self-evaluation was lower.We also explore theoretical and practical implications for workplace gossip and organizational socialization.