Afi Roshezry Abu Bakar

Relationship Between Quality and Gossiping Behavior at Workplace

Gossiping is a common phenomenon at workplace. Employees will find themselves producing, hearing, and even participating in evaluative comments devoted to the third persons who are not participating in the conversation. Through gossip, people influence behavior of others by performing social norms, punish those who violate, and spread information about these improper behavior. Gossips have become an instrument for maintaining relationships and group coherence. People had to conform to social norms among others, fail to do so; they might be expelled from the informal social networks. However, the right to gossip is not automatic and one has to properly belong to a group to be able to engage in and allow to gossip. Thus, survey method has been chosen to investigate whether the factors that contribute to the group cohesion will also predict gossip behavior. This study concludes that there is a tendency to spread negative management-related information upon low level of trust perceived by the employees. Employees with frequent contacts with the manager are said to adapt much better than those who have less contact, thus less likely to engage in negative gossip behavior.