Coping with Negative Workplace Gossip: The Roles of Self-Monitoring and Impression Management

Although researchers have examined the effects of negative workplace gossip on target employees¡¯ work-related behavior, it remains unclear when and how personality traits play a role between negative workplace gossip and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Drawing upon Cognitive-Affective Personality System theory, we posit a mediated moderation model of the effects of self- monitoring and impression management tactics on the relationship between negative workplace gossip and target employees¡¯ OCB. By collecting supervisor-subordinate dyadic time-lagged data (n = 275) from China, we demonstrated that the relationship between negative workplace gossip and OCB was weaker when employees were high self-monitors. In addition, we found that the use of impression management tactics mitigated the adverse impact of negative workplace gossip on OCB. Finally, we found that the moderating effects of self- monitoring were mediated by the use of impression management tactics. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.