The delivery of bad news: An integrative review and path forward

Delivering bad news is one of the most challenging tasks for leaders. Recently, the popular press has been awash with examples reflecting poor bad news delivery, such as mass layoffs in the IT sector. While many disciplines have been interested in understanding the delivery of bad news, different emphases across disciplines have resulted in independent silos of research that impeded scholarly and practical advancements. In their interdisciplinary review, Claudia Kitz, Laurie Barclay, and Heiko Breitsohl review 685 articles and identified key challenges in the extant literature while they also provide a path forward by showcasing key opportunities. This is, conceptualizing bad news delivery as a dialectic process that unfolds over time can further enhance theoretical insights and practical guidance for effectively managing bad news delivery in the workplace.

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Abstract:

Managing the delivery of bad news is a crucial component of effective human resource management. However, the diversity of contexts in which this phenomenon has been studied has made it difficult to develop a consolidated theoretical and practical understanding of bad news delivery. Using an interdisciplinary integrative review (N = 685), we critically analyze how bad news delivery has been conceptualized as well as what interdisciplinary theoretical insights and practical guidance can be offered. Beyond identifying key challenges in the extant literature, we also provide a path forward by showcasing key opportunities, including how conceptualizing bad news delivery as a dialectic process that unfolds over time can further enhance theoretical insights and practical guidance for effectively managing bad news delivery in the workplace.