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The Effect of Workplace Negative Gossip on Employee Proactive Behavior in China: The Moderating Role of Traditionality

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Abstract

In this study, we examined the relationship between workplace negative gossip, as perceived by the targets, and proactive behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the target’s emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of the target’s traditionality. Our results from dyadic data on 234 supervisor–subordinate relationships in China revealed that (1) workplace negative gossip was negatively related to proactive behavior; (2) emotional exhaustion mediated this relationship; and (3) traditionality strengthened both the relationship between workplace negative gossip and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of workplace negative gossip on proactive behavior via emotional exhaustion. Our findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for the research on mistreatment and proactive behavior.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Grant (2014110766), National Natural Science Foundation of China (project code: 71202001, 71472116), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-13-0892), Shanghai Pujiang Program (13PJC053), and the “Chen Guang” project (12CG44) supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Administration, Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China

    Xiangfan Wu

  2. School of International Business Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of China

    Ho Kwong Kwan

  3. School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, People’s Republic of China

    Long-Zeng Wu

  4. MBA School, Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Ma

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  1. Xiangfan Wu
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Wu, X., Kwan, H.K., Wu, LZ. et al. The Effect of Workplace Negative Gossip on Employee Proactive Behavior in China: The Moderating Role of Traditionality. J Bus Ethics 148, 801–815 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-3006-5

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