Rumors and its impact on organization

Rumors and its impact on organization

By: Mohamad Afifi Yahaya

According to oxford dictionary, rumors can be seen as stories or statements in general circulation without any confirmation or certainty as to facts. It is also can be called as gossip and hearsay (Hawkins, 2011).

Since people like gossiping and interesting bits of information, rumors often grow and spread over because of people is naturally like to be “in the know”. Most of the time, they feel it’s important for them to know thing that most people don’t. In any organizations, this type of interaction is dangerous and costly. It wastes time, damages reputation, creates anxiety, and promotes divisiveness (Mind Tools, 2015).

According to Davis (2009), in academic line rumors are also known as grapevine. “No administrator in his right mind would ever try to abolish the management grapevine. It is as permanent as humanity is. It should be recognized, analyzed, and consciously used for better communication”.

In some regard the grapevine can be seen as an evil, a thorn in the side which regularly spreads rumor destroys morale and reputations, leads to irresponsible actions, and challenges authority. Sometimes, it was a good thing because it acts as a safety regulator and carries news fast (Davis, 2009).

Some scholars have highlighted a few characteristics of grapevine such as humanly permanent, extremely fast, highly accurate, qualified answer, usually bad news, and a real life example. However, among the policy-makers especially among the government and management, grapevine is something important for them. We can call it as “trial balloons” via grapevine. If an institution is about to implement a new policy, but is unsure about how people may react to it, word of the new policy can be placed on a grapevine and employee reactions being observed. If there is little or no negative reaction to the contemplated policy, then an official announcement of its enactment can be made (Wells & Spinks, 1994).

In 1953, a scholar named as Davis has developed a theory to study grapevine in organizations. Through his theory of Episodic Communication in Channels of Organization (ECCO) analysis, we can trace person-to-person diffusion of rumors and the flow of other information in an organization. By plotting over the communication network, the researcher or investigator probably might know who starts create the rumors and how it has been circulated through the network (Monge & Contractor, 2003).

Reference

Davis, K. (2009). Management Communication and Grapevine. Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions .

Hawkins, J. M. (2011). Oxford Dictionary. Malaysia: Oxford Fajar .

Mind Tools. (2015). Rumors in the workplace. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from Mind Tools "excellent skills for an excellent career": https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_25.htm

Monge, P., & Contractor, N. (2003). Theories of Communication Network. Carlifornia: Oxford University Press.

Wells, B., & Spinks, N. (1994). Managing Your Grapevine: A Key to Quality Productivity. Executive Development , 24-27.