How employees’ perceptions of CSR attenuates workplace gossip: a mediated-moderation approach

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility and workplace gossip by focusing on the mediating role of pride and the moderating role of traditionality. Drawing from appraisal theory of emotions, we hypothesized that employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility positively relate to pride, which in turn, negatively relates to workplace gossip. In addition, traditionality weakens the relationship between pride and workplace gossip and the indirect effect of corporate social responsibility on workplace gossip via pride. The time-lagged design was employed to collect data. Based on the field survey results from 342 frontline employees from the hotel industry in China, we provided evidence that the greater corporate social responsibility, as perceived by employees is associated with a lower likelihood of workplace gossip through the mediating effect of pride. Also, traditionality moderates the relationship between pride and workplace gossip, such that the relationship is stronger among high traditionalists than among low traditionalists.