Examining boss phubbing and employee outcomes through the lens of affective events theory
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-07-2021-0198 |
| Published date | 21 December 2021 |
| Date | 21 December 2021 |
| Pages | 877-900 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
| Author | Muhammad Nawaz Khan,Khurram Shahzad,Jos Bartels |
Examining boss phubbing and
employee outcomes through the
lens of affective events theory
Muhammad Nawaz Khan and Khurram Shahzad
Faculty of Management Sciences, Riphah International University,
Islamabad, Pakistan, and
Jos Bartels
Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication and Film,
Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Abstract
Purpose –In this study, the impact of boss phubbing, or using a phone during interaction with subordinates,
on important employee outcomes —work meaningfulness and employee phubbing behavior —through the
mediating role of self-esteem threat was investigated using affective events theory. The moderating role of
rejection sensitivity was also examined.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected in three time lags from head nurses (N5178)
working in public and private hospitals. The hypothesized relationships were tested using variance-based
structural equation modeling with partial least squares.
Findings –Boss phubbing negatively affected employees’sense of work meaningfulness and had a positive
direct and indirect relationship with employee phubb ing behavior through self-esteem threat. The
hypothesized moderating role of rejection sensitivity was not supported.
Practical implications –The authors recommend that organizations develop policies addressing boss
phubbing in the workplace, particularly in contexts in which a high leader–member exchange is desired for
organizational effectiveness, such as health-related services. Superiors, such as doctors, should review their
mobile phone usage during interactions with subordinates because it is detrimental to employee outcomes.
Originality/value –This study is a nascent attempt to test the hypothesized relationships on the emerging
phenomenon of phubbing at work in the human–computer interaction domain in Pakistan, a developing
country, particularly in hospital settings where a high leader–member exchange is pivotal.
Keywords Boss phubbing, Employee phubbing behavior, Medical professionals, Rejection sensitivity, Self-
esteem threat, Work meaningfulness
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Smartphones have become integral components of everyday life in both social and work
settings (Hales et al.,2018;Shenand Wang, 2019). However, their excessiveusage, particularly
in social contexts, undermines the perceived quality of relationships with family, friends and
romanticpartners (Robertsand David, 2016;Zhan et al.,2016;Chotpitayasunondhand Douglas,
2018;Erzen et al.,2019). Using one’s phone in the presence of others is known as phubbing,a
portmanteau of phone and snubbing.Ugur and Koc (2015) defined phubbing a s “the act of
snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention”
(p. 1023).Scholars in their surveys foundthat most respondents admittedto being phubbed by
others in their recent social gatherings (Davey et al.,2018;Roberts and David, 2016).
Phubbing has been studied mainly in the social domain involving relations among fellow
students (Chotpitayasunondh and Douglas, 2018), friends and family members (Moser et al.,
2016), and, prominently, romantic partners (Roberts and David, 2016;Krasnova et al., 2016;
Boss phubbing
and employee
outcomes
877
Note: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2050-3806.htm
Received 17 July 2021
Revised 23 September 2021
17 November 2021
Accepted 17 November 2021
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 74 No. 5, 2022
pp. 877-900
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-07-2021-0198
Halpern and Katz, 2017;Wang et al., 2017;Al-Saggaf and MacCulloch, 2019). Table 1
represents a summary of studies on phubbing in different social contexts. Although research
on phubbing and its outcomes in the workplace is increasing, existing knowledge on it
remains limited, thus warranting further investigation (David and Roberts, 2017;Roberts and
David, 2020;Yasin et al., 2020). Phubbing in workplace settings can be more problematic
compared with phubbing in social settings because individuals often spend more time with
co-workers than they do with family or friends (Erzen et al., 2019;Yasin et al., 2020). Sha et al.
(2019) found that, on average, organizational employees spend more than one working day
(eight hours) per week using their mobile phones in the presence of others. Roberts and David
(2017), while elaborating the issue in a hierarchical chain, were the first to use the term boss
phubbing, which they defined as “the extent to which a supervisor uses or is distracted by his/
her cell phone while in the presence of subordinates”(p. 1). Boss phubbing decreases
employees’job satisfaction and performance because of reduced trust in supervisors (Roberts
and David, 2020). Yasin et al. (2020) established that perceived supervisor phubbing behavior
undermines employees’organization-based self-esteem. However, despite the contributions
of the aforementioned studies to the body of knowledge on phubbing in the workplace,
several issues require scholars’attention because of the increasing importance of this topic in
the human–computer interaction (HCI) domain in an organizational context. Furthermore,
numerous boss phubbing-related adversities among subordinates remain uninvestigated.
Our study is an attempt to enrich knowledge on boss phubbing in several ways. First, this
research determines how employees may feel about the meaningfulness of their work after
being phubbed by their bosses constantly, as evidence has shown that employees’
perceptions of their work meaningfulness primarily depend on their supervisors’feedback
(Monnot and Beehr, 2014). Second, a supervisor acts as a role model for their subordinates,
and employees may follow the behavior they observe in their role model. In other words, this
study examines whether employees could adopt similar behavior toward others after
encountering phubbing from their bosses. Third, the current study considers boss phubbing
as impolite behavior, which could be a threat to the self-esteem of phubbed employees.
Fourth, employees can have different responses to negation or disapproval. We argue that
exploring the role of individuals’dispositions (rejection sensitivity) in response to boss
phubbing is imperative. These some critical and attention-seeking research areas in this
domain require consideration.
Chotpitayasunondh and Douglas (2018) anticipated that, after confronting boss phubbing
behavior, subordinates might adopt similar phubbing behaviors toward others. Nevertheless,
to our knowledge, studies that empirically address this assumption remain limited. Research
on boss phubbing has examined the mediating mechanisms, such as trust and job
satisfaction (Roberts and David, 2020) and psychological needs (Yasin et al., 2020), affecting
employee outcomes. Heck et al. (2005) claimed that self-esteem is among the most important
psychological mediums through which workplace events or challenges affect employee
outcomes. That is, self-esteem may function as an underlying mechanism between boss
phubbing and employee outcomes, thereby requiring investigation.
Several studies (Chotpitayasunondh and Douglas, 2018;Błachnio and Przepiorka, 2019;
Yasin et al., 2020) have also demonstrated that when confronted with boss phubbing,
employees do not always react similarly, which is attributable to personal or dispositional
differences. For example, highly sensitive people are typically hypervigilant and may thus be
more sensitive to being phubbed, whereas those with lower sensitivity may not be bothered
by phubbing (Downey and Feldman, 1996). However, to our knowledge, no studies have
explicitly tested the contingent effects of rejection sensitivity, thereby necessitating empirical
research in this currently understudied field. Moreover, the aforementioned studies on boss
phubbing have been conducted in technologically advanced Western settings like US, so the
generalizability of their findings needs external validity for developing countries (Ahmed
AJIM
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