Does Negative Workplace Gossip Take A Toll on Family Satisfaction: Evidence From Hotel Employees in China

Abstract

Despite increasing research on the detrimental effect of negative workplace gossip on employee outcomes in the domain of work, few studies have linked it to employee experience outside of work. Drawing on spillover theory, we hypothesize that negative workplace gossip will undermine family satisfaction via work-family conflict and the deleterious process is buffered by emotional intelligence. We tested this moderated mediation model using three-wave randomized data from 245 married employees in the hotel industry in China. The results supported all the hypotheses: negative workplace gossip diminishes family satisfaction, and this process is mediated by work-family conflict; emotional intelligence moderates the negative effect of gossip on employees' family satisfaction such that the higher the emotional intelligence, the weaker the undermining effect. Finally, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of our research.