Social capital levels, gossip and employee performance in aviation and shipping companies in Israel

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand better the organizational social capital (SC) levels and their impact on organizations by focusing on personal SC and intra-organizational SC as well as their different connections to organizational gossip and employee performance. Design/methodology/approach: Participants in a field study included 617 employees from five Israeli organizations in the field of aviation and shipping. Levels of personal SC, intra-organizational SC, gossip and self-evaluated performance were measured, and connections between them detected. Findings: The results indicate that intra-organizational SC is positively connected to employee performance, while personal SC is positively linked to gossip. Personal SC also leads to performance with the mediation of intra-organizational SC, although gossip was not found to be connected to performance. Originality/value: The contributions of this study are both conceptual and practical. The distinction between organizational SC levels is refined, improving organizational research accuracy and facilitating a better grasp of the connections between SC and other variables. The scant research on organizational gossip has been expanded. From a practical perspective, clarification of the link between organizational SC and performance can be beneficial to employees and organizations.