Workplace ostracism and job performance: roles of self-efficacy and job level
| Pages | 184-203 |
| Date | 04 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-02-2017-0039 |
| Published date | 04 February 2019 |
| Author | Dirk De Clercq,Inam Ul Haq,Muhammad Umer Azeem |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Workplace ostracism and job
performance: roles of self-efficacy
and job level
Dirk De Clercq
Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada
Inam Ul Haq
Lahore Business School, University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan, and
Muhammad Umer Azeem
School of Business and Economics,
University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate how employees’perceptions of workplace ostracism
might reduce their job performance, as well as how the negative workplace ostracism–job performance
relationship might be buffered by their self-efficacy. It also considers how this buffering role of self-efficacy
might vary according to employees’job level.
Design/methodology/approach –Quantitative data came from a survey of employees and their
supervisors in Pakistani organizations.
Findings –Workplace ostracism relates negatively to job performance, but this relationship is weaker at
higher levels of self-efficacy. The buffering role of self-efficacy is particularly strong among employees at
higher job levels.
Practical implications –Organizations that cannot prevent some of their employees from feeling excluded
by other members can counter the related threat of underperformance by promotingemployees’confidence in
their own skills and competencies. This measure is particularly useful among higher-ranking employees.
Originality/value –This study provides a more complete understanding of the circumstances in which
workplace ostracism is less likely to diminish employees’job performance, by specifying the concurrent
influences of workplace ostracism, self-efficacy and job level.
Keywords Self-efficacy, Quantitative, Job performance, Workplace ostracism,
Conservation of resources theory
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The presence of stressful, adverse workplace conditions is a primary reason employees are
unable to complete their job tasks (Abbas et al., 2014; Jamal, 1985; Ng and Feldman, 2012).
Understanding employees’ability to meet their organization’s performance expectations is an
important pursuit, because this ability contributes to positive employee attitudes, including
organizational commitment and job satisfaction (MacKenzie et al., 1998), and it diminishes
turnover intentions (Zimmerman and Darnold, 2009). Many studies emphasize the importance
of positive work features that signal organizational support todriveworkoutcomes
(e.g. Eisenberger et al., 2001; Hussain and Asif, 2012; Khurram, 2009), but a compelling need also
exists to understand the “dark side”of organizational life, including employees’exposure to
misbehaviours that create stress and hardship as they attempt to undertake their daily job tasks
(Baruch and Vardi, 2016; Vardi and Weitz, 2004). Examples of such misbehavior include
dysfunctional organizational politics (Abbas et al., 2014), interpersonal conflicts (Siu et al., 2013)
and psychological contract violations (Raja et al., 2011) –factors that speak generally to
employees’dissatisfaction with how they are treated by their colleagues or their employer.
Another notable source of organizational misbehavior is social exclusion or the absence
of adequate peer attention, also known as workplace ostracism (Ferris et al., 2008).
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 1, 2019
pp. 184-203
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-02-2017-0039
Received 9 February 2017
Revised 27 May 2017
Accepted 5 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
184
PR
48,1
When they are ostracized, employees feel excluded from social interactions with
organizational peers and thereby suffer significant knowledge deficiencies about how their
organization operates ( Jones et al., 2009). Workplace ostracism may become manifest in
different ways, such as receiving “the silent treatment”or not being invited to business
meetings or social gatherings (Williams, 2001). Such ostracism can lead to various negative
consequences, including poor physiological health, greater emotional exhaustion and
increased turnover intentions (Ferris et al., 2008; Hitlan et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2012).
Yet despite the general sense that workplace ostracism is harmful for employees, previous
research offers only equivocal support for its negative effects on employees’ability to meet
their expected performance targets. This ambiguity might be due to employees’varied
responses to being ostracized, according to their personal characteristics (Liu et al., 2013;
Wu et al., 2012), such as the extent to which their self-esteem is contingent on their
workplace performance (Ferris et al., 2015). Thus, employees might not always
underperform when they are ostracized, and the question of which circumstances tend to
lead to negative performance effects remains largely unanswered. Yet this question is
critical for organizations, especially complex firms that cannot avoid a situation in which
some employees will feel excluded or sense that they have been deprived of critical
knowledge needed to complete their job tasks (Fox and Stallworth, 2005; Williams, 2001).
To investigate the possible harmful effects of workplace ostracism on job
performance –defined herein as the extent to which employees meet their in-role
performance requirements –and how this effect might be contained, the current study
draws from conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989). According to this
theory, the stress associated with workplace adversity depletes employees’energy
resources, reducing their propensity to engage in performance-enhancing work behaviors
(Ng and Feldman, 2012; Stock, 2015). Such resource losses might occur, for example, if
employees feel isolated or lack access to critical organizational knowledge that would
enable them to function effectively ( Jones et al., 2009). Moreover, COR theory predicts an
important buffering role of employees’personal resources, such that these resources help
employees cope with work situations that create resource losses (Abbas et al., 2014;
Hobfoll, 2001). The current study proposes that employees’self-efficacy represents one
such critical personal resource that might buffer the negative relationship between
workplace ostracism and job performance. Self-efficacy captures employees’beliefs that
they have sufficient competencies to complete their job tasks successfully (Bandura, 1997;
Gist and Mitchell, 1992; Parker, 1998). Thus, consistent with COR theory, self-efficacy
might function as a personal resource that compensates for the resource loss caused by
being excluded from social interactions with organizational peers (Hobfoll, 2001).
In sum, in response to calls to devote more attention to the dark side of organizational
careers (Baruchand Vardi, 2016; Vardi and Weitz, 2004)and apply contingency approachesto
the outcomes of workplace ostracism (Ferris et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2012), this
study addresses the h itherto unexplore d question of how employ ees’limited ability to meet
their performance requirements, in the presence of workplace ostracism, might be mitigated
by the personal r esource of self-efficacy, con sistent with the COR theory-base d argument that
personal resources help people overcome the adversity associated with resource-depleting
work conditions(Hobfoll, 2001). Identifying self-efficacy as a potential bufferof the workplace
ostracism–job performance relationship also extends previous research that reveals how
self-efficacy mitigates and reduces the harmful effects of other workplace stressors, such
as unmet job expectations (Maden et al., 2016), emotionally charged social interactions
(Heuven et al.,2006),orwork–family conflict (Glaser and Hecht, 2013).
Moreover, this study contributes to research on the negative outcomes of organizational
misbehavior and workplace ostracism by testing whether the buffering role of self-efficacy
might be particularly salient among people employed in higher job levels. Previous research
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Workplace
ostracism
and job
performance
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