ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1588482
This article is part of the Research TopicBystanders' Roles in Workplace Bullying: Impacts and InterventionsView all articles
Negative Workplace Gossip and Turnover Intention among Kindergarten Teachers: Psychological Safety as a Mediator and Organizational Identification as a Moderator
Provisionally accepted
- 1Quzhou University, Quzhou, China
- 2Quzhou College of Technology, Quzhou, China
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Empirical evidence examining factors influencing turnover intention among early childhood educators remains scarce, especially research on negative workplace gossip as the influencing factor.To address these shortcomings, this study empirically analyzed whether and how negative workplace gossip, psychological safety, and organizational identification affect kindergarten teachers' turnover intention based on the Chinese cultural background.Methods: A cross-sectional research design was adopted. Self-reported questionnaire data were randomly collected from 1,872 Chinese kindergarten teachers through an online platform. The questionnaire included perceived negative workplace gossip scale, psychological safety scale, organizational identification scale, intent to leave scale, and demographic variables. A moderated mediation model linking negative workplace gossip, psychological safety, organizational identification, and turnover intention was tested using these data.The study found that there was an association between negative workplace gossip and the turnover intention of kindergarten teachers. Psychological safety played a mediating role in this relationship, that is, negative workplace gossip influenced teachers' turnover intention by reducing their psychological safety. Meanwhile, organizational identification moderated the relationship between psychological safety and turnover intention. A higher level of organizational identification could weaken the negative impact of psychological safety on turnover intention.Conclusions: Kindergarten principals should take various measures to prevent the disorderly development of negative workplace gossip and enhance the psychological safety and organizational identification of kindergarten teachers, which are crucial for reducing the turnover intention of kindergarten teachers.
Keywords: psychological safety, Organizational identification, negative workplace gossip, turnover intention, Kindergarten Teachers
Received: 06 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Feng, Dou and Zhan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Baoan Feng, Quzhou University, Quzhou, China
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