A Social Network Analysis of Positive and Negative Gossip in Organizational Life
用社会网络分析研究员工八卦行为，发现友谊关系促进积极和消极八卦，工作流程关系只促进积极八卦，且八卦活动对主管和同事评价有不同影响。
The authors use social network analysis to understand how employees’ propensity to engage in positive and negative gossip is driven by their underlying relationship ties.They find that expressive friendship ties between employees are positively related to engaging in both positive and negative gossip, whereas instrumental workflow ties, which are less trusting than friendship ties, are related solely with positive gossip. The authors also find that structural embeddedness in the friendship network further increases the chance that the pair will engage in negative gossip. Finally, an employee’s total gossiping activity (both positive and negative) is negatively related to supervisors’ evaluations of the employee’s performance, whereas total gossip activity is positively related to peers’ evaluations of the employee’s informal influence.