When customers become scapegoats: how negative gossip about organizational change can cause negative emotions and displaced aggression

Purpose: Based on affective events theory, this research attempted to investigate how negative gossip about organizational change drives employees to experience negative emotions and direct their aggression toward customers. Design/methodology/approach: We conducted a scenario-based experiment (Study 1) and a multiwave field survey (Study 2) to test our hypotheses. Findings: The results show that (1) negative emotions mediate the relationship between change-related negative gossip and displaced aggression toward customers; (2) perceived organizational constraints strengthen the relationship between change-related negative gossip and negative emotions; (3) future work self-salience weakens the relationship between change-related negative gossip and negative emotions; and (4) change-related negative gossip has a strengthened (weakened) indirect effect on displaced aggression via negative emotions when employees have high perceived organizational constraints (future work self-salience). Originality/value: The study expands research on organizational change and displaced aggression and provides practical implications for managing organizational change.