Interdisciplinary review uncovers seven dimensions shaping adverse news delivery in workplace settings, highlighting strategies to protect employee well-being.
Adverse news in organizations—such as layoffs, denied promotions, or negative evaluations—constitute a critical communicative moment with significant implications for employees, managers, and organizational relationships. Although widely examined in healthcare, the communication of adverse news remains underexplored in workplace settings. This article presents an interdisciplinary review drawing on healthcare, elite sport, and organizational research to examine how adverse news is delivered and experienced at work. Following PRISMA-informed search procedures and an inductive thematic synthesis, the analysis identifies seven recurring dimensions that shape these interactions, including identity-related processes, informational needs, relational dynamics, organizational constraints, social spillover effects, and ethical considerations. These findings conceptualize adverse news delivery as a multilevel communicative process rather than a simple transfer of information. By integrating insights across domains, this review advances organizational communication research and shows how managerial communication practices can mitigate negative outcomes and support employee well-being.
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Dien et al. (2026) studied this question.
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