When Bullying Breeds Gossip: How Faith, Innovation, Meaning, and Trust Protect Employees

What is it about?

This study examines how workplace bullying leads employees to engage in negative gossip—spreading harmful rumors about coworkers—and how personal and contextual resources can weaken this destructive process. Grounded in Conservation of Resources theory, it argues that bullying depletes psychological resources, fueling frustration and prompting retaliation through gossip. However, access to protective resources—religiosity, innovation propensity, work meaningfulness, and trust in top management—can curb this harmful escalation. Using survey data from employees in the Canadian religious sector, the study finds that bullying increases negative gossip, as employees try to regain control or social standing after mistreatment. However, this effect weakens among employees who draw strength from faith, channel energy through innovation, find purpose in meaningful work, or trust top management to ensure fairness. These resources restore psychological energy, provide emotional balance, and reduce the spread of negativity. In short, bullying may breed gossip—but its spread can be contained when employees and organizations cultivate religious faith, creativity, purpose, and trust. Managers can strengthen these four factors by supporting moral reflection, encouraging innovation, fostering meaningful work, and modeling integrity. Such efforts promote fairness and openness, turning potential negativity into collaboration and mutual respect.

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Photo by Thriday on Unsplash

Photo by Thriday on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is unique in showing how workplace bullying, a severe social stressor, can trigger negative gossip behaviors, and how four distinct resources—two personal (religiosity, innovation propensity) and two contextual (work meaningfulness, trust in top management)—buffer this effect. Integrating these factors under COR theory, it demonstrates that resource-rich environments can prevent bullying from spiraling into further harm, offering a multilevel understanding of how moral and motivational forces sustain ethical climates. It is also timely, as bullying and toxic communication remain pressing issues in modern organizations, including value-driven sectors such as religious or nonprofit institutions. By identifying the conditions that curb gossip’s spread, the study highlights how faith-based resilience, a desire to innovative, meaningful work, and trustworthy leadership reduce the contagion of negativity. These findings urge leaders to invest in ethical culture building and psychological resource development to protect both individual well-being and collective integrity.