Organizational exit can be turbulent. This study examines the communication surrounding coworker dismissal, including how remaining employees learn about a coworker’s dismissal and what predicts remaining employees’ information seeking, uncertainty, and perceptions of social costs related to information seeking. Statistical and content analyses were conducted on survey data gathered from 220 participants. Remaining employees most often learned about their coworker’s dismissal from another coworker or the remaining employees’ immediate supervisor; via individual, face-to-face meetings; with moderate formality; at some point within a day of the dismissal; with varying content. Age predicted uncertainty and perceived social costs of information seeking. Message characteristics predicted uncertainty, while interaction frequency predicted the perceived social costs of information seeking. Uncertainty did not predict information-seeking strategy use. Greater perceived social costs predicted less overt questioning and greater observing and testing. This study extends uncertainty reduction and management theories and offers managers advice about communicating coworker terminations.

中文翻译：

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检查同事解雇后留任员工的经历：初始信息特征、信息寻求、不确定性和感知社会成本

组织退出可能是动荡的。本研究考察了与同事解雇相关的沟通，包括留任员工如何了解同事被解雇的情况，以及如何预测留任员工的信息寻求、不确定性以及对与信息寻求相关的社会成本的看法。对从 220 名参与者收集的调查数据进行了统计和内容分析。留任员工最常从另一位同事或留任员工的直接主管那里得知他们的同事被解雇；通过个人面对面的会议；适度的形式；在被解雇后一天内的某个时间点；具有不同的内容。年龄预测信息寻求的不确定性和感知的社会成本。消息特征预测的不确定性，而交互频率则预测了信息寻求的感知社会成本。不确定性不能预测信息寻求策略的使用。更大的感知社会成本预示着更少的公开质疑和更多的观察和测试。这项研究扩展了不确定性减少和管理理论，并为管理者提供了关于沟通同事终止的建议。