Department of Psychology.
J Appl Psychol. 2017 Jan;102(1):1-25. doi: 10.1037/apl0000164. Epub 2016 Oct 10.
Despite decades of research from other academic fields arguing that gossip is an important and potentially functional behavior, organizational research has largely assumed that gossip is malicious talk. This has resulted in the proliferation of gossip items in deviance scales, effectively subsuming workplace gossip research into deviance research. In this paper, the authors argue that organizational research has traditionally considered only a very narrow subset of workplace gossip, focusing almost exclusively on extreme negative cases which are not reflective of typical workplace gossip behavior. Instead of being primarily malicious, typical workplace gossip can be either positive or negative in nature and may serve important functions. It is therefore recommended that workplace gossip be studied on its own, independent of deviance. To facilitate this, the authors reconceptualize the workplace gossip construct and then develop a series of general-purpose English- and Chinese-language workplace gossip scales. Using 8 samples (including qualitative, multisource, multiwave, and multicultural data), the authors demonstrate the construct validity, reliability, cross-cultural measurement invariance, and acceptable psychometric properties of the workplace gossip scales. Relationships are demonstrated between workplace gossip and a variety of other organizational variables and processes, including uncertainty, emotion validation, self-esteem, norm enforcement, networking, influence, organizational justice, performance, deviance, and turnover. Future directions in workplace gossip research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
尽管其他学术领域的研究人员已经研究了几十年，认为八卦是一种重要且潜在具有功能的行为，但组织研究却在很大程度上假设八卦是恶意言论。这导致八卦项目在偏差量表中大量出现，从而有效地将工作场所八卦研究归入偏差研究中。在本文中，作者认为，组织研究传统上只考虑了工作场所八卦的一个非常狭窄的子集，几乎完全专注于极端负面的案例，而这些案例并不能反映典型的工作场所八卦行为。典型的工作场所八卦并不是主要恶意的，其性质可以是积极的也可以是消极的，并且可能具有重要的功能。因此，建议将工作场所八卦单独进行研究，而不是将其与偏差联系起来。为此，作者重新概念化了工作场所八卦的结构，然后开发了一系列通用的英语和中文工作场所八卦量表。作者使用 8 个样本（包括定性、多来源、多波次和多文化数据），展示了工作场所八卦量表的结构有效性、可靠性、跨文化测量不变性和可接受的心理测量特性。证明了工作场所八卦与其他各种组织变量和过程之间存在关系，包括不确定性、情感验证、自尊、规范执行、社交网络、影响力、组织公正、绩效、偏差和离职。讨论了工作场所八卦研究的未来方向。
