Organization Behaviour
Assignment 3
Hanna Darwish
Rumour and gossip in the workplace
Introduction
People understand gossip and rumour whether experiencing it first hand or being the provider of information to create the gossip or rumour. The large proportion of gossip is devoted to a person who is not present in the discussion (Wielers, 1998 & sitzman, 2006). Rumour’s general definition refers to misinformation of stories being communicated on a public scope. Gossip and rumour is one of the oldest forms of communicating, people use this process to share facts and personal opinions, however Gossip and rumour has a reputation for not being accurate with modifications of initial subject matter.
Gossip and Rumour in the workplace is on the whole characterized as positive or negative communication within organizations. Some view rumour and gossip as a positive effect, giving individuals the ability to form social bonds within the larger organization. However, some researchers would disagree, that gossip and rumour causes negative effect “misbehaviour” (Richards, 2008) on organizations productivity, moral and impacts the bottom line (Smith, 2011 & Tebbut,1997).
In pursuit of accomplishing an understanding of the nature of gossip and rumour in the workplace, I set out to look at existing literature. I will assume rumour as a counterpart of gossip as they are commonly linked, referred to as informal communication or as a “weapon in organizational politics” (Mills, 2010). I will be focusing on literature related to an organization behaviour perspective. We will look at the literature in an attempt to understand the reasons why individuals gossip and spread rumour’s in the workplace, secondly I will to focus on the characteristics and the personality’s of the gossiper and the recipients, to gain an understanding of behaviour within the organizations. Thirdly we will look at how the information is presented by the gossiper. I
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