Gossip In The Workplace: Article Analysis

Gossip is a phenomenon that takes place in almost every organization. For this assignment, I have reviewed the article Drivers for Workplace Gossip: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior written by Alfred Luna and Shih Yung Chou, 2013, Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, Volume 17, Number 1, pages 115-129. The focus of this specific article was to try and pinpoint an individual’s intention to gossip in the workplace to hopefully “help managers and organizations manage gossip more effectively.” The article begins by explaining how informal communication is a basic social interaction, therefore making its involvement in the organizational world, inevitable. Gossip is one of the most common forms on these informal communications. The article defines gossip as “informal and evaluative talk in an organization, usually among no more than a few individuals, about another member of that organization who is not present.” There are two types of gossip, positive and negative. While positive gossip is something that does take place in some organizations (reinforcing the good that an employee is doing while they are not present), negative gossip is the most common. This gossip can cause low morale and mistrust amongst employees and …show more content…
I believe that the article was right when it mentioned changing a person’s attitude about gossip to better handle it. For example, letting employees know that gossip is not tolerated in the workplace and that disciplinary actions will take place if they partake in it, notifies employees that if they gossip, there can and will be consequences for doing so. Before taking those measures, when interviewing the manager from the courthouse, she said that she would sit someone down one-on-one and not directly notify the person that they are aware they are gossiping. She would just encourage positivity the person to be cohesive with their