From Organizational Gossip to a Corporate Crisis: A Network Analysis of Anonymous Online Communication on the Blind Application

This study examined an anonymous online community, Blind, while focusing on the role of social networks in information flow, to explain how internal organizational gossip is diffused to employees of other companies and even to the public through its distinctive network structures. We analyzed three cases of gossip networks that differed in terms of the organizations involved and issue severity. The findings suggest that online gossip networks with a large size, low connectedness, and high centralization can easily diffuse information to community members and the outside public. Logistic regression Quadratic Assignment Procedures (QAPs) were used to examine the endogenous and exogenous effects in each network. The results showed that the receiver effect of company size negatively predicted tie formation in NAVER and Samsung’s gossip networks, indicating that gossip diffusion was more likely facilitated by members of smaller companies actively commenting on gossip. The homophily effect of working for the same company predicted tie formation in Samsung’s gossip network, indicating the difficulty of gossip diffusion to external members. Finally, the results of the structural hole analysis suggest that journalists play an important role in issue delivery and gossip diffusion in NAVER’s case. The findings reveal that internal workplace gossip can spill over an organizational boundary online and develop into a corporate crisis.