Author(s)

Ziyan Cui

Corresponding Author

Ziyan Cui

ABSTRACT

Negative workplace gossip is a common workplace violence in Chinese organizational situations, but scholars have not paid enough attention to the relationship between negative workplace gossip and the employees’ attitude and behavior from the target’s perspective. Applying social exchange theory, this study examined the relationship between negative workplace gossip and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by focusing on the mediating role of target’s affective commitment and the moderating role of target’s independent self-construal. 257 employees from 8 Chinese companies were investigated for empirical analysis, and results showed that: (1) Negative workplace gossip was negatively related to OCB; (2) Affective commitment mediated this relationship; (3) Independent self-construal moderated both the relationship between negative workplace gossip and affective commitment and the indirect effect of negative workplace gossip on OCB via affective commitment. These findings explain the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the effect of negative gossip on the target, and provide useful practical implications for managers.

KEYWORDS

Negative workplace gossip, Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), Affective commitment, Independent self-construal