A Social Network Analysis of Positive and Negative Gossip in Organizational Life

Abstract

The authors use social network analysis to understand how employees’ propensity to engage in positive and negative gossip is driven by their underlying relationship ties. They find that expressive friendship ties between employees are positively related to engaging in both positive and negative gossip, whereas instrumental workflow ties, which are less trusting than friendship ties, are related solely with positive gossip. The authors also find that structural embeddedness in the friendship network further increases the chance that the pair will engage in negative gossip. Finally, an employee’s total gossiping activity (both positive and negative) is negatively related to supervisors’ evaluations of the employee’s performance, whereas total gossip activity is positively related to peers’ evaluations of the employee’s informal influence.

Keywords: Gossip, social networks, structural embeddedness, organizational behavior