Data Collection Method

Data were collected from a thirteen member team and their supervisor at a branch office of Ring
Road Traffic Police in Lahore, Pakistan. Before starting data collection we conducted a pilot
study in a small branch of a private bank. The branch selected for pilot study comprised of six
permanent and five contractual employees .We collected data from the permanent staff only and
they all were involved in gossips. We also conducted semi structured interviews with employees
of traffic police about employee satisfaction and working environment. They all declared that
gossips are present in organizations. Most of the employees we interviewed mentioned gossips in
both positive and negative sense. Hence we concluded, that gossips would be a good topic to
study in organizational settings.
We selected a small team of twenty members because it would be easy to apply whole-network
approach. We asked different questions from the respondents(ego) about their relationships with
the peers/colleges (alters).
A small team of thirteen members was selected and response rate was 100%. A the respondents
completely filled the questionnaire and there was no missing data. All the team members were
male. Average age of team members were 31 years and average tenure of 7.4 years. Two team
members were Mphil, eight were master degree holder and two were bachelor degree holder.
Data Collection and Measures
Sociometric data were collected to evaluate relationship between peers. Two kinds of relational
bonds were considered among peers in this study , workflow ties and friendship ties. For
sociometric data collection each respondent were give a rooster of thirteen employees of a team
of Ring Road Police. All the employees had regular interaction with each other.
We asked different questions from the employees to understand different types of relational
bonds among them. The detailed questionnaire is attached in the Appendix section. Each
respondent could nominate alters for more than one relationship. For instance an individual could
consider somebody to be both a friend and a coworker. One Item question was used to measure
each network relation. Detailed description of survey questionnaire is as under.
Regular Interaction ties: Each respondent were asked to answer the following question about
their coworker. Indicate coworker whom you interact regularly. The data collected were binary
coded( 1=coworker whom you interact regularly, 0= coworker whom you do not interact
regularly) and entered into a matix of 13*13. This regular interaction nmjjl 8n ties matix
was maximally summetrized. Maximally summetrized means that a tie or relation is assumed if
only one actor in the dyad mention that particular relation exists.
Required Workflow ties: The respondents were asked, Are you required to work directly with this
person in order to get your work done? These data were binary coded (1=required to work with,0=not
required to work with) and entered into a 13*13 matrix. This required workflow matrix was
maximally summetrized.
Friendship Ties: To measure the friendship ties the respondents were asked, Do you consider this
person to be a close friend (you have confidence in this person). The data is entered into a13*13
matrix and were binary coded(1=friend,0=not friend). The matrix was maximally summetrized.

Required Workflow only ties: In case of work flow only ties we had to separate those actors who
were both required to work with and were also considered friends by the same actor. To get the
required work flow tie only, we simply multiply the required workflow matrix with friendship
matrix and subtracted the original work flow matrix from the resultant matrix, leaving behind
required workflow only tie .This matrix was binary coded (1=work flow only tie, 0=other).
Gossip ties: Two questions were asked about gossips from the respondents. First question stated
Do you engage in gossip with this person?.The data was entered in 13*13 matrix and was
binary coded(1=Yes,0=No). Second question asked about, Sharing information about others is a
natural occurrence in our social life. If you engage in office gossip with this person, is it most
often positive gossip, negative gossip or even blend of both. The data was entered in 13*13
matrix and coded (1=Positive Gossip, 2=Negative Gossip &3= Both Positive & Negative).The
gossip matrix was then further recoded to extract the positive and negative gossip matrices.
Negative Gossip ties: The 13*13 gossip matrix was further decoded to isolate negative gossip by
recoding (Positive Gossip=0, Negative Gossip=1 & Both Positive& Negative Gossips=1).
Degree of Centrality: Degree of centrality is a network measure that is calculated by summing an
actors total number of incoming and outgoing ties. The degree of centrality of an actors
represents how much an actor is engaged in gossips. A higher degree of centrality represents that
the respondent is engaged in negative gossips with many coworkers.
Positive Gossip Ties: The positive gossip matrix was formed by recoding (Positive Gossip=1,
Negative Gossip=0 & Both Positive and Negative Gossip=0). We also measure the degree of
centrality of positive gossip network. The positive gossip ties were maximally symmetrized.
Structural Embeddedness: The structural embeddedness is defined as the extent to which ego
shares mutual ties to third parties with alter. Structural Embeddedness for each dyad was
calculated by multiplying the friendship matrix with its transpose. This resulted in 13 *13 matrix,
where value of each cell represents third party ties shared by actors both ego and alter.
Coworker Rated Influence: In the network questionnaire, we asked each respondent to rate the
informal influence of their coworkers on a likert scale of five where 1=No formal
influence,2= Low formal influence,3=Neutral,4=Moderate Formal Influence& 5=High
Formal Influence. The data was entered into a 13*13 matrix.

Supervisor Rated Performance: The supervisor of the 13 member team rated their performance
on a separate survey. Performance was rated on a six item scale of overall performance. The
following questions were used to rate the performance and a five point likert type scale was used.
1. Employees quality of work is higher than average.
2. The employees efficiency is much higher than average.
3. Employee strives for higher quality work than required.

4. Employees ability to perform core job tasks.

5. Employees job knowledge with reference to core job tasks.

6. Employees creativity when performing core tasks.

Analysis
In case of Hypothesis H1a,H1b & H1c ,MRQAP regression with Y-permutation routine in ucinet
was used. The MRQAP regression worked in two steps. In step one it performed multiple
regression on corresponding independent and dependent matrix. In second step it ramdomly
computed regression on the rows and columns of dependent matrix. This step was repeated two
thousand time to estimate standards errors .
Table 1: MULTIPLE REGRESSION MRQAP VIA PERMUTATION METHOD FOR H1A




















Dependent variable: Positive Gossips
Independent variables: Regular Interaction
Number of valid observations among the X variables = 156
N = 156
Number of permutations performed: 1999

Table 2: MULTIPLE REGRESSION MRQAP VIA PERMUTATION METHOD FOR H1B









Table 3: MULTIPLE REGRESSION MRQAP VIA PERMUTATION METHOD FOR H1C












Dependent variable: Positive Gossips
Independent variables: Work Flow Tie
Number of valid observations among the X variables = 156
N = 156
Number of permutations performed: 1999


Dependent variable: Both Positive & Negative Gossips
Independent variables: Close Friendship
Number of valid observations among the X variables = 156
N = 156
Number of permutations performed: 1999


TABLE 4 :H4A
Dependent variable: Negative Gossips
Independent variables: Structural Embeddedness
Number of valid observations aong the X variables = 156
N = 156
Number of permutations performed: 1999