Zhang Fangliang, Zhu Chunling
School of Business, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
Renmin Business School, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Aug 19;16:1516309. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1516309. eCollection 2025.
While research on supervisor gossip has sought to provide a balanced examination of its potential benefits and drawbacks for employees, there remains a significant disparity in the attention given to positive versus negative gossip. By integrating social comparison theory and goal orientation theory, we propose that the impact of supervisor positive gossip on employee receivers' self-efficacy and job performance is contingent upon the level of employees' performance goal orientation (PGO). We argue that high-PGO employees are expected to experience lower levels of self-efficacy upon receiving supervisor positive gossip, whereas low-PGO employees are anticipated to experience higher self-efficacy. Additionally, we suggest that employees' self-efficacy mediates the relationship between supervisor positive gossip and job performance. Dyadic data collected from 161 supervisors and 556 employees in a Chinese company support our hypotheses. Our findings contribute to a more nuanced discourse on the role of supervisor positive gossip in organizational dynamics and its implications for employee well-being and productivity.
虽然关于上司闲聊的研究试图对其给员工带来的潜在利弊进行全面审视，但在对积极闲聊和消极闲聊的关注上仍存在显著差异。通过整合社会比较理论和目标导向理论，我们提出上司积极闲聊对员工接收者自我效能感和工作绩效的影响取决于员工的绩效目标导向（PGO）水平。我们认为，高PGO员工在听到上司积极闲聊时，自我效能感预计会降低，而低PGO员工的自我效能感预计会升高。此外，我们认为员工的自我效能感在上级积极闲聊与工作绩效之间起中介作用。从一家中国公司的161名上司和556名员工那里收集的二元数据支持了我们的假设。我们的研究结果有助于更细致地探讨上司积极闲聊在组织动态中的作用及其对员工福祉和生产力的影响。
