Spilling tea at the water cooler: A meta-analysis of the literature on workplace gossip

Abstract

This paper presents a meta-analysis on workplace gossip as a predictor of individual, relational, and organizational outcomes. Our systematic review yielded 52 independent studies (n = 14,143). Results suggested that negative workplace gossip has a more deleterious association with workplace outcomes than positive gossip. Furthermore, findings indicated that negative gossip has a disproportionately negative association with attitudinal/affective outcomes and coworker relationships for targets of gossip. Unexpectedly, results also suggested that senders and recipients of negative gossip may also experience highly deleterious outcomes; in fact, the relations between negative gossip and well-being, engagement/performance, supervisor relationships, and organizational outcomes were more negative for gossip participants than targets, although the direction of causality for these relations has yet to be conclusively determined. Overall, our results suggest that organizations and managers should take seriously the threat of negative gossip to the health of the organization at large, while simultaneously leveraging the potential benefits of positive gossip. Plain Language Summary This paper presents a meta-analysis on the topic of workplace gossip as a predictor of work-relevant outcomes. Results—which were based on 52 independent studies that, in total, employed 14,143 independent research participants—suggested that negative workplace gossip has a worse impact on individual, relational, and organizational outcomes than positive gossip does. Furthermore, our findings indicated that targets of negative gossip experience the worst outcomes in terms of attitudes/affect and coworker relationships, when compared with the outcomes of individuals who exchanged the gossip. Unexpectedly, patterns of results also suggested that individuals who exchange negative gossip at work may also experience highly deleterious outcomes, although the direction of causality for these relations has yet to be conclusively determined. Overall, our results suggest that organizations and managers should take seriously the threat of negative gossip to the health of the organization at large, and may also be able to leverage the potentially beneficial effects of positive gossip. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results.