Experiencing Gossip: The Foundations for a Theory of Embedded Organizational Gossip

TLDR

Abstract

This article presents findings on the nature and operation of gossip that emerged from an empirical study of organizational communication during a chief executive officer (CEO) succession process. By studying gossip within the context of a broader study of change-related communication, new insights were gained that extend, and in some respects challenge, commonly accepted views of the nature of gossip. The findings suggest gossip is experienced as coupled to or embedded in the other forms of change communication employees encountered across the CEO succession process. Gossip appears to be experienced as an integral part of sensemaking and social exchange and not as a phenomenon that can be fully understood in isolation to the formal and other types of informal communication that contribute to these processes. These findings provide the foundations for a theory of embedded organizational gossip that is offered here as a framework for further empirical study.