Gossip and Organizations

Kathryn Waddington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136279812
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

Gossip is a complex and ubiquitous phenomenon, widely found and variously practiced. Gossip and Organizations provides the reader with an analysis of gossip and informal knowledge across different national, organizational and cultural contexts, drawing upon empirical findings and the author's experiences of researching gossip in nursing and healthcare organizations and higher educational institutions. Kathryn Waddington aims to dispel once and for all the myth that women gossip and men have conversations, shattering the illusion that gossip at work is trivial talk.

This book challenges the assumption that gossip is a problem that should be discouraged. While there is undoubtedly a dark side to gossip, Kathryn Waddington argues that paying closer attention to gossip as organizational communication and knowledge enables exploration of other ways of seeing, interpreting and understanding organizations. Gossip is not merely an impediment of organizing, it is a form of organizing which shapes perceptions and actions, and can forewarn managers of future failure in organizational systems.

The complexity of gossip is such that a of range inter-disciplinary explanations is necessary in order to account for this form of communication and knowledge across multiple levels and spaces in and around organizations. Waddington provides a new evidence-based framework incorporating ethics, emotion, identity, sensemaking and power as a guide future research, theorizing and critical reflective and reflexive practice in the field of organizational gossip.

1 Introduction

Our globe discovers its hidden virtues, not only in heroes and archangels, but in gossips and nurses.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men, 1860

This book is about gossip and organizations, organizing and gossip, and the hidden virtues of gossip. The central tenet is that gossip is a valuable but under-studied phenomenon worthy of further inquiry and scholarship. This is a contentious assertion perhaps, given that gossip has a lessthan-positive history and reputation. However, its ubiquitous nature and pervasiveness suggest that gossip, as a form of communication, is also constitutive of organization. Many organizing processes occur, at least in part, through gossip. Therefore, this introductory chapter seeks from the outset to develop the argument that gossip is not inconsequential, nor without purpose, and that it plays a significant role in contemporary organizations and workplaces. The chapter raises questions about why it is important to have a better understanding of who gossips to whom about what, and about how and where gossip happens. These questions, and some answers, are more fully developed in later chapters. In addition to illustrating the significance of gossip, this chapter also begins to outline some of the potential problems, and pragmatic solutions, for researchers. This includes definitions, and ethical and methodological issues.

Gossip is at the very core of society and the human social relationships and networks it sustains. Gossip featured in the ancient Greek Agora, an open political and commercial space, and in middle-class English Regency society as described in Jane Austen’s (1775–1817) novels. Today it is found in global internet celebrity and media gossip and in everyday talk at work. Gossip can be seen as a political strategy, a source of power and pleasure, and for writers of fiction, a plot device. When people talk about the details of daily lives it is gossip, yet when novelists such as Austen write about such detail, it is literature. Ironically perhaps, when writing about gossip is based upon empirical material and claims that ‘communication is constitutive of organizing’ (Putnam, Nicotera, & McPhee, 2009, p. 2), as this book is, it is academic scholarship. The book is written with academic and practitioner audiences in mind, and I am mindful from the outset that this is a challenge. The book’s primary audience are scholars interested in the inter-disciplinary field of organizational gossip, which as we will see touches many extant area of inquiry such as sensemaking, identity, power, and emotion. The second audience are senior leaders, managers, and others, looking for evidence-based approaches to help them understand and use to better effect the everyday phenomenon of gossip. I hope that both audiences find fresh ways of thinking about gossip and organizations which challenge traditional views and assumptions.

The title of the book could have been Gossip in Organizations because it draws, in part, upon empirical material and insights from my own doctoral research into gossip in nursing and healthcare organizations, but it isn’t. Taking a narrow focus on gossip in organizations would be to ignore its role in the constitution of organizations and overlook its relevance as an organizing process. Gossip is much more than a simply a communicative variable to be measured and manipulated within an organizational container. I move beyond this and adopt a wider perspective, and claim that organizational gossip is a relational, reflexive communicative process through which individuals engage in sensemaking and knowing. In making this claim, Gossip and Organizations contributes to what has recently been called the CCO perspective (communicative constitution of organization). The CCO approach aims to address how ‘complex communication processes constitute both organizing and organization and how these processes and outcomes reflexively shape communication’ (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010, p. 159).

Writing and Thinking about Gossip

The nature of the topic, in other words gossip, has influenced the way I have written the book. Writing found in work and organizational psychology, management and organization studies often uses dull, obscure, and pretentious language, and is seen to have little practitioner relevance (Gelade, 2006; Grey & Sinclair, 2006). Gratuitously complex language can be irritating to read, resulting in gossip amongst academics about texts and journal articles which are written in such a way. Arguably this might also be described in terms of ‘peer review,’ illustrating the importance of context when describing and differentiating evaluative talk and text. Acknowledging, therefore, the ‘chatty’ and familiar nature of that which is constituted and experienced as gossip, I have tried deliberately to reflect some of this in my writing about gossip (see also Waddington, 2010). At various points in the book, I reflexively (re)consider some of the issues and empirical material I have encountered by critically reflecting upon incidents, insights, and metaphors. These reflections are not necessarily in any chronological order, and in some instances for reasons of confidentiality, some names have been changed and some details have been altered. Empirical material is used here in the manner advocated by Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009). That is, as an argument which seeks to ‘make a case for a particular way of understanding social reality, in the context of a never-ending debate’ (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009, p. 304, original emphasis). In other words, I am using empirical material to inspire new ideas and theorizing about gossip, organization and organizing, rather than as unequivocal and clear-cut data.

The overarching intention in including such reflective and reflexive material is to develop a wider thinking and analysis of gossip as a complex, equivocal, and ambiguous phenomenon. In doing so, I have adopted the kind of emphasis that Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009, p. 313) refer to as R-reflexivity:

R-reflexivity is about developing and adding something; the person engaged in R-reflexivity is in the construction rather than the demolition industry. It means bringing in issues of alternate paradigms, root metaphors, perspectives, vocabularies, lines of interpretation, political values and representations; re-balancing and reframing voices in order to interrogate and vary data in a more fundamental way.

R-reflexivity is differentiated from D-reflexivity thus:

D-reflexivity practices challenge orthodox understandings by pointing out the limitations of, and uncertainties behind, the manufactured unity and coherence of texts, as well as the way that conformism, institutional domination, and academic and business fashion may account for the production of particular knowledge. (p. 313)

In practice, there are no absolute distinctions, and the border between the two kinds of reflexive emphasis is fluid. Creation of a dialectic between R- and D-reflexivity allows for movement between the various positions that each represent, acknowledging multiple reflexivities. The overarching intention is to stimulate thoughtful and creative challenges to conventional thinking and set out new ideas and directions for future research. The book, therefore, calls into question gendered and managerialist assumptions and thinking which have often uncritically viewed gossip as trivial women’s talk, or dangerous discourse. It introduces new assumptions and thinking which seek to construct fresh understandings of gossip and organizational life.

Reflexivity and Gossip

Reflexivity is a contested term, used variously to acknowledge the role, influence, positioning, subjectivity and visibility of the researcher in the processes of research, knowledge generation, and theory building (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; May, T. with Perry, 2011; Weick, 1999). Gossip and Organizations draws, in part, upon original empirical material from my doctoral research in psychology into the characteristics and functions of gossip in healthcare organizations (see Appendix A for summary, and also Waddington, 2005a; 2005b; 2005c; Waddington & Fletcher, 2005). It is pertinent at this point therefore to begin to articulate my own reflexive position. That is, ‘the self-conscious acknowledgement by authors of their own immersion in an historically contingent and invariably institutionalized set of knowledge-producing practices’ (Ybema et al., 2009, p. 315).

Reflection 1: Witness to Gossip

When practising as a nurse in acute hospital settings in the early stages of my career I watched, listened, and also participated in gossip. It happens everywhere and not just in healthcare organizations. My academic curiosity was later sparked when gossip of a different nature and in a different context appeared later as ‘data’ in research I was undertaking into perceptions of organizational culture in a university. The organizational literature at the time in the early 1990s yielded little theoretical or empirical work that addressed gossip ‘head on’ and this eventually (because at first I was put off by gossip’s dismal reputation) led to doctoral research in psychology into gossip in nursing and healthcare organizations. So my reflexive position has its roots in several institutionalized sets of knowledge-producing practice perspectives: Organizational psychology, nursing, hospitals and universities.

Reflection 1 is the ‘back story’ to the book. It is included as point of reference from which my reflexive and inter-disciplinary choices and actions variously depart, disconnect, return, revise, and re-integrate. Researching a relatively unconventional topic such as gossip from the relatively conventional starting point and perspective of psychology has involved crossing disciplinary boundaries and paradigms. Such inter-disciplinary scholarship also involves ‘crossing words’ when different vocabularies, paradigms, and perspectives collide. I contend that this is a good thing, promoting an open-minded approach, intellectual flexibility, and creativity (Waddington, 2011). Nevertheless, as T. May with Perry (2011) observe, reflexive researchers may find that it is sometimes easier to critically challenge their own disciplinary assumptions, power, and identity than it is to challenge institutionalized knowledge-producing practices.

Similarities can be drawn between crossing disciplinary boundaries, institutionalized or otherwise, and Jörg Bergmann’s notion of gossipers as ‘border-runners’:

Gossipers are border-runners who, in their exciting excursions into the zones of the improper, do not simply ignore the boundaries of the domains of virtue and vice, but recognise and disdain them at the same time—must recognise them in fact, in order to be able to disdain them. This is precisely what gives gossip its equivocal character. (Bergmann, 1993, p. 118)

Healthcare organizations and the applied field of organizational psychology have provided me with a starting point from which to develop an empirical and theoretical analysis and understanding of gossip and organizations. Communication is crucial in healthcare organizations. It plays a vital role in the delivery of high quality care, ensuring patient safety, and promoting the development of effective relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Communication is also crucial to establishing and maintaining effective professional and interprofessional relationships between nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, and social workers. Communication in healthcare organizations is simultaneously formal and structured, as well as informal, unplanned, and opportunistic (Becker, 2007). Healthcare organizations provide a fertile information-rich environment and context for the communicative study of gossip, but obviously this is not the only place nor perspective where gossip can be found.

Gossip features peripherally in literature relating to storytelling, mergers and acquisitions, and complexity (e.g., Boje, 2008; Brown, Denning, Groh, & Prusak, 2005; Moeller & Brady, 2007; Stacey, 2001; 2010). Empirical work is scant, and psychology is but one starting point from which to empirically investigate gossip, or indeed any other, organizational phenomenon. There are obvious limitations to using just one frame of reference. As an applied disciplinary field, organizational psychology is still relatively under-theorized, characterized by much ‘micro-theory,’ and a limited amount of overarching and integrative conceptual work (van Knippenberg, 2011, p. 3). In order to address these limitations the conceptual analysis of gossip and organizations needs to be positioned in a larger literature and context. I therefore draw upon ideas and theories from other disciplines and fields including sociology, anthropology, ethics, and communication studies to advance the theorizing of gossip and organization. My intention is to identify synergies and challenges within an overall framework of reflexive inquiry because:

reflexive inquiry can offer valuable insights into organizational studies and practice by stimulating a critical exploration of how we constitute knowledge and enact our own practices as researchers. In doing so, it raises possibilities for different forms of inquiry and new ways of understanding experience. (Cunliffe, 2003, p. 999, original emphasis)

Reflexive inquiry is underpinned by a number of principles, or higher order contexts, that frame meaning and guide action (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; May, T. with Perry, 2011; Miettinen, Samra-Fredericks, & Yanow, 2009). Oliver (2005) identifies five principles which are ‘systemic, constructionist, critical, appreciative, and complex’ (p. 4, original emphasis). Clearly these principles are not mutually exclusive. As Oliver notes, each principle overlaps and interweaves with the others to provide a theoretical and ethical framework for reflexive inquiry practices. However, it is worth briefly highlighting each one individually to differentiate the value of each as a practice lens with which to examine gossip and organizations.

1. Systemic Principle: this is about patterns, used here to denote forms of feeling, thinking, and action that become enacted and embedded as stories in disciplinary cultures, relationships and identities.
2. Constructionist Principle: this asserts that we share the everyday world of inquiry and scholarship with others, there is concern and engagement with the detail of language, reflexive practice is shaped by the contexts and cultures in which researchers work and talk.
3. Critical Principle: the construction and enactment of power is made visible through inquiry and sensemaking, the development of reflexive positioning encourages mindfulness and critical co-production of knowledge.
4. Appreciative Principle: this positions self and others with care, vulnerability, and empathy and encourages an appreciation that meaning and action are open to multiple interpretations, which are partial, contextual, and unstable.
5. Complex Principle: this adopts the position that we are all members of complex networks and systems inviting us to find strategies and language that go beyond prediction, control and regularity, and find value in so-called negative and difficult experiences.

The above principles are introduced here as orienting points, and will be further developed and interwoven throughout the book. They are blended with reflexive constructs drawn from Cunliffe (2003), which challenge researchers and readers to: (i) question our intellectual suppositions; (ii) recognize that research is a reflexive narrative comprising participant stories which interconnect with researcher stories in some way; (iii) examine and explore researcher-participant relationships and their impact on knowledge; (iv) acknowledge the constitutive nature of our research conversations; and (v) construct emerging practical theories rather than objective truth.

A reflexive inquiry position is thus constituted in terms of relationships, in which researchers construct and co-create knowledge through critical engagement with themselves, research participants, their readers and epistemological communities (Doucet, 2008). Reflexivity occurs at the interfaces in these relationships, and also across levels of interpretation and interaction with empirical material and underlying meanings, power, and contexts. Doucet (2008, p.73) uses the provocative metaphor of ‘gossamer walls’ (which is drawn from Anne Michaels’s (1998) novel Fugitive Pieces) to explore aspects of reflexivity and the construction of relational knowing. Michaels’s novel narrates the relationship between Jakob, a Holocaust survivor, and the ghost of his sister Bella, captured in the imagery of a gossamer wall. In the novel the image is used metaphorically to represent both the sense of separation and connection and also the fragile space between them. However Doucet argues that personal, political, intellectual, and theoretical ‘ghosts’ can also appear in social science work. Consideration of these metaphorical ‘ghosts’ can help to widen current discussions of reflexivity in the social and organizational sciences.

I argue that the illusive imagery of ghosts and gossamer walls allows for further consideration of the ‘ghosts of paradigms past.’ For instance, the lingering influence of orthodox assumptions in organization studies which have previously negated or neglected organizational gossip. The imagery of gossamer walls also resonates powerfully with the elusive nature of gossip and the spaces it occupies. Gossamer is a gauze fabric with an extremely fine texture (http://webster-online-dictionary.org) and the metaphor of gossamer walls combines this sheerness and transparency with the notion of fragile boundaries which ‘provides for creative ways of conceptualizing reflexivity in temporal and spatial terms [and] the constantly shifting degrees of transparency and obscurity, connection and separation that recur in the multiple relations that constitute reflexive research and knowing’ (Doucet, 2008, p. 73, emphasis added).

The spatial quality of reflexivity is important, as it implies different sets of distant and close relationships. Similarly, T. May with Perry (2011) differentiates between endogenous and referential reflexivity. The former is expressed in terms of relations between researchers and their disciplinary communities, the latter in terms of relations between researchers and research respondents. The movement between, and meeting of, these two forms of reflexivity is dependent upon the notion of ‘epistemic permeability’ between disciplines, and the metaphor of gossamer walls is highly pertinent here. The movement ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Organizing Gossip
• 3. Gossip and Ethics
• 4. Gossip and Emotion
• 5. Gossip and Identity
• 6. The Politics of Gossip
• 7. The Management of Gossip
• 8. Future Directions
• Appendix A: Summary of PhD Thesis: The Characteristics and Function of Gossip in Nursing and Healthcare Organizations
• Appendix B: Summary of HRM Strategies and Academic Engagement Project
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index