Toward a Theory of Sharing and Responding to Good and Bad News at Work.

Abstract

In this two paper dissertation, I seek to establish news sharing as an area of inquiry in organizational studies. The quantitative paper represents the first steps toward this goal by focusing on how and why responses to good news shared at work matter in organizationally relevant ways. Specifically, I draw on and integrate multiple streams of literature, including interpersonal capitalization, the social valuing perspective, thriving, and the broaden-and-build model, to hypothesize multiple mechanisms through which active-constructive responses to shared good news contribute to the ability of individuals and potentially the collective to achieve organizational goals through thriving and prosocial behavior. Data from three surveys reveal sharing good news at work is common, especially among coworkers. Results provide general support for the hypothesized model, suggesting that active-constructive responses impact sharers’ sense of thriving (i.e., vitality, learning) and prosocial behavior through their felt worth, relationship satisfaction, and positive affect. In the second paper, I utilize a qualitative approach to build on the quantitative work in multiple ways. First, because news must be shared for individuals and organizations to benefit, I shift attention to the initial stages of the news sharing process and explore why and with whom people share or withhold their news at work. Second, I expand my focus to include both good and bad news to provide a more holistic understanding of the news sharing process. Third, through additional integration of extant literature and careful data analysis, I further define and refine the concepts of news events and news sharing. Forty-two semi-structured interviews with hospital employees in varying occupational roles reveal that news is nuanced in its temporality and valence. In addition to self-focused motives, individuals share and withhold good and bad news out of concern for others, their relationships, and their work. Additionally, physical proximity, relationship quality, common experience, and the value one places on the other’s opinion or insights factor into choices regarding particular sharing partners. Together, these papers provide evidence that the seemingly simple process of news sharing is a prevalent workplace phenomenon that is complex, consequential, and a rich area for future research.