Perceived Organizational Repair Strategies and Employee Rumor-Refutation Intention: Normative and Relational Associations

Employees can play an important role in correcting organizational rumors, but how their perceptions of organizational responses relate to their willingness to do so remains unclear. Drawing on signaling and social exchange theories, this study examines personal norms and relationship enhancement motivation as correlates of rumor-refutation intention. Cross-sectional survey data from 919 currently employed respondents were analyzed using separate and simultaneous conditional process models. Separate models showed positive indirect associations between informational repair and intention through personal norms, and between affective repair and intention through relationship enhancement motivation. The informational-repair indirect association was weaker at higher critical thinking disposition across the examined specifications, whereas moderation involving brand familiarity was sensitive to credibility adjustment and model specification. Simultaneous analyses also revealed cross-path associations, while substantial overlap between the repair measures limited claims about distinct, strategy-specific mechanisms. The findings offer an employee-centered account of normative and relational associations with willingness to refute rumors and identify priorities for more differentiated measurement and prospective research. The results concern self-reported intentions rather than observed behavior and do not establish causal mediation.