A bibliometric-systematic literature review of workplace gossip research

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have shown immense interest in investigating the dynamics of workplace gossip. As a complex and rapidly growing phenomenon, workplace gossip has generated a wide range of findings. This rapid growth has led to confusion and fragmentation in the literature, highlighting the need for a comprehensive literature synthesis. To address this, we employed a bibliometric-systematic literature review (B-SLR) approach to integrate the diverse literature on workplace gossip. We systematically searched, selected, and critically reviewed a sample of 258 research articles from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Our bibliometric analysis provides a thorough overview of 258 articles, followed by a critical literature synthesis of 183 articles, that organized prior studies into two main themes: antecedents and outcomes of workplace gossip. These are further categorized into three sub-themes: gossip sender, gossip receiver, and gossip target. Additionally, we developed a conceptual framework to illustrate the interactions within the gossip triad and proposed a gossip typology based on organizational hierarchical levels, along with practical future research guidelines. This study brings clarity and coherence to the complex and rapidly expanding field of workplace gossip, establishing a robust knowledge base to guide future research and inform policy development.