This study investigates the connection between employees’ experience of time-related work stress and their job performance, with a particular focus on the mediating role of their propensity to engage in negative gossip and the moderating role of their collectivistic orientation. The results based on multisource, three-wave data from employees, their peers, and supervisors in Pakistani organizations show that an important reason that time-related work stress might diminish job performance is that employees expend significant energy discussing their negative evaluations of other organizational members with peers, possibly as a way to protect their self-esteem resources. This mediating role of gossip is also invigorated by employees’ collectivistic orientation. For organizations, this study identifies a key mechanism – informal conversations with peers about the flaws of others in the organization – by which time-related stress prevents employees from allocating sufficient energy to completing their job tasks, and it reveals that this process is more likely among collectivistic employees.

This study explores the relationships of negative affectivity with two frequently studied outcome variables job performance and turnover intentions. Conventional wisdom holds that negative affectivity has a harmful impact on both job performance and intentions to leave; however, we propose a more nuanced perspective using empirical and theoretical arguments (e.g., self-regulation theory) to highlight the functional effects of negative affectivity. To test our hypotheses, we collected self-reported and supervisor-reported data from seven organizations in Pakistan. The findings based on data collected from 280 employees show that while negative affectivity is detrimental for job performance, this effect is mitigated as negative affectivity increases. It further shows that the linear negative main effect of negative affectivity on job performance is more pronounced when employees experience less time-related work stress. Finally, the curvilinear relationship between negative affectivity and turnover intentions is moderated by time-related work stress. The relationship has a U shape at high levels of time-related work stress, whereas at low levels it has an inverted U shape. A discussion of the limitations, future research, and implications for theory building and practice conclude the article.