Management are aliens! Rumors and stress during organizational change

Prashant Bordia, Elizabeth Jones, Cindy Gallois, Victor J. Callan, Nicholas Difonzo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

107 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Rumors collected from a large public hospital undergoing change were content analyzed, and a typology comprising the following five broad types of change-related rumors was developed: rumors about changes to job and working conditions, nature of organizational change, poor change management, consequences of the change for organizational performance, and gossiprumors. Rumors were also classified as positive or negative on the basis of their content. As predicted, negative rumors were more prevalent than positive rumors. Finally, employees reporting negative rumors also reported more change-related stress as compared to those who reported positive rumors and those who did not report any rumors. The authors propose that rumors be treated as verbal symbols and expressions of employee concerns during organizational change.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)601-621
Number of pages21
JournalGroup and Organization Management
Volume31
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2006
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Communication
  • Organizational change
  • Rumor

Cite this