The work–family spillover and crossover effects of negative workplace gossip

ABSTRACTBuilding on ego depletion theory and crossover theory, we investigated how negative workplace gossip damages the target and has implications for the target's spouse. We examined whether this occurs through the linking mechanisms of personal resources, specifically the target's ego depletion. Using time-lagged data with a sample of 230 matched frontline employees and their spouses from a service company in China, we found that the resource drain of negative workplace gossip had a spillover effect through ego depletion at work to increase the employee's work–family conflict. Furthermore, it crossed over to the spouse due to the employee undermining the family. We found that perceived organizational support plays a crucial role in buffering the adverse effects of negative workplace gossip in both work and family domains. Finally, we discussed the implications for research and practice.摘要基于自我损耗理论和交叉理论,本研究探讨了职场负面八卦对目标员工及其配偶的影响效果。对来自中国服务业企业的230名一线员工与其配偶的配对数据的分析表明:职场负面八卦会诱发目标员工的自我损耗而产生溢出效应,增加目标员工的工作 – 家庭冲突,并会使得配偶有更多的家庭贬损体验。此外,组织支持感能够缓冲职场负面八卦对目标员工的溢出效应和对员工配偶的交叉效应。这些研究发现将职场负面八卦的消极影响后果拓展到家庭领域,丰富了该领域的相关研究。KEYWORDS: Negative workplace gossipego depletionwork–family conflictfamily underminingperceived organizational support关键词: 职场负面八卦自我损耗工作—家庭冲突家庭贬损组织支持感 Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72102214].