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Who responds most strongly to supervisor social undermining? Building on self‐verification theory (Swann, 1983, 1987), we theorize that employees with positive views of the self (i.e., higher core self‐evaluations [CSEs]) who also maintain higher trust in workplace management are more likely to experience heightened stress and turnover intentions when undermined. We argue that this subset of employees (high CSE, high trust) are more likely to feel misunderstood when undermined by their supervisor and that this lack of self‐verification partially explains their stronger responses to supervisor undermining. We find initial support for the first part of our model in a study of 259 healthcare workers in the United States and replicate and extend our findings in the second study of 330 employees in the United Kingdom. Our results suggest that the employees Human Resources often wishes to attract and retain—employees with high CSE and high trust in workplace management—react most strongly to supervisor social undermining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors develop and test theoretical extensions of the relationships of task conflict, relationship conflict, and 2 dimensions of team effectiveness (performance and team-member satisfaction) among 2 samples of work teams in Taiwan and Indonesia. Findings show that relationship conflict moderates the task conflict-team performance relationship. Specifically, the relationship is curvilinear in the shape of an inverted U when relationship conflict is low, but the relationship is linear and negative when relationship conflict is high. The results for team-member satisfaction are more equivocal, but the findings provide some evidence that relationship conflict exacerbates the negative relationship between task conflict and team-member satisfaction. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.)

We developed a fairness theory perspective to explain the experience of being "singled out" for social undermining from supervisors and coworkers, and tested our predictions across four distinct social contexts. We argued and predicted that attitudinal and behavioral reactions to undermining (from supervisors and coworkers) would be strongest when a correspondingly low level of undermining was found in the social context. The hypothesized cross-level interaction was supported for supervisor and coworker undermining among a sample of officers from the national police force in the Republic of Slovenia (Study 1), replicated for supervisor undermining among soldiers in the US National Guard (Study 2), and further replicated with group-member undermining among a sample of individuals working in student teams (Study 3). We then predicted that justice perceptions would mediate the singled out interaction and tested the mediated-moderation model in a coworker-network context among employees of a restaurant chain (Study 4). The results substantially supported the mediation prediction. These findings from diverse settings demonstrate that considering the social context is important when trying to understand the effects of social undermining behaviors at work. (Contains 6 figures and 10 tables.)

Divorce is one of life's most stressful events. By pairing two studies, using mixed‐methods, and drawing on conservation of resources theory, we contribute new and previously unavailable information about three questions. How and to what extent does going through a divorce affect individuals at work? What factors differentiate a lower versus higher impact on work? Do work outcomes improve after a divorce has been completed? In Study 1, individuals currently in the process of divorcing report more negative mood at work, lower job performance, and lower health in comparison to employees recently divorced, divorced over 5 years ago, or never divorced. Qualitative findings illustrate vivid reports of intrusive negative affect and reduced focus at work. At the same time, nearly 39% of individuals reported that divorcing had a positive impact on their job, work, or career. Qualitative findings reveal that for some, divorcing frees up time and energy and amplifies motivation for work. Study 2 is a longitudinal survey study of individuals in the process of a divorce. Findings indicate that levels of divorce‐related grief, quality of the dissolving marriage, the presence of children, and anticipated post‐divorce financial stability differentiate between those with better and worse work outcomes. Individuals improve on work‐related cognitive and physical engagement, job performance, and health after their divorces are completed. Our results extend empirical knowledge and theory with new insights about work outcomes associated with divorcing as well as the recovery of work outcomes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We integrate the social functional view of emotions with recent developments in workplace envy research to develop and test a novel theoretical framework showing that envious employees can use their envy to promote self-enhancing actions rather than other-diminishing behaviors. We theorize that enviers' core self-evaluations and friendship ties will attenuate the extent to which enviers undermine envied targets and promote the extent to which enviers actively learn from their envied targets through observational learning and advice seeking. Using two data sets from round-robin surveys of employees in the cosmetic (Study 1) and the financial (Study 2) industries, we show that, while enviers undermine envied targets, they also capitalize on their envy by seeking advice from the envied targets, and enviers who have higher core self-evaluations and friendship with the envied targets are more likely to seek advice from those targets; higher core self-evaluation also decreases the likelihood of undermining the envied targets. We found limited support for the role of envy in triggering enviers' observational learning. Furthermore, enviers who learn from envied targets perform better and advice seeking is more influential for enviers' performance than observational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors developed an integrated model of the relationships among abusive supervision, affective organizational commitment, norms toward organization deviance, and organization deviance and tested the framework in 2 studies: a 2-wave investigation of 243 supervised employees and a cross-sectional study of 247 employees organized into 68 work groups. Path analytic tests of mediated moderation provide support for the prediction that the mediated effect of abusive supervision on organization deviance (through affective commitment) is stronger when employees perceive that their coworkers are more approving of organization deviance (Study 1) and when coworkers perform more acts of organization deviance (Study 2). Keywords: abusive supervision, affective commitment, organization deviance

The authors developed a model of how raise expectations influence the relationship between merit pay falses and employee reactions and tested it using a sample of hospital employees. Pay-for-performance (PFP) perceptions were consistently related to personal reactions (e.g., pay raise happiness, pay-level satisfaction, and turnover intentions). Merit pay raises were strongly related to reactions only among employees with high raise expectations and high PFP perceptions. The interactive effects of under-met/ over-met expectations and PFP perceptions were mediated by the extent to which participants saw the raise as generous and they were happy with the raises they received. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for expectation-fulfillment theories, merit pay research, and the administration of incentives. Keywords: merit pay, pay raises, job attitudes, expectations, compensation

The authors developed and tested a multilevel interactive model of the relationship between group undermining and individual undermining behavior in 2 multiwave studies of group members. Integrating the literature on group influences on individual behavior with the individual difference literature, the authors predicted a 3-way Group Undermining x Self-Esteem x Neuroticism interaction, such that the relationship between group and individual undermining would be strongest among those simultaneously high in self-esteem and neuroticism. The 3-way interaction was supported in Study 1 (457 participants in 103 groups) and replicated in Study 2 (415 participants in 93 groups) with additional controls and alternative measures of key constructs. The authors discuss the implications of the research and identify future research directions. Keywords: social undermining, self-esteem, neuroticism

Data collected from a field survey of 334 supervisor-subordinate dyads was used to test a model of the antecedents of abusive supervision. Path analytic tests of moderated mediation provided support for the prediction that supervisor's depression mediates the relationship between supervisors' procedural justice and subordinates' perception of their supervisors' abusiveness and that the mediation framework is stronger when subordinates are higher in negative affectivity.

The authors developed and tested the prediction that the relationship between coworkers' organization citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and fellow employees' attitudes depends on the supervisors' abusiveness Results of a longitudinal study using data collected from 173 supervised employees at 2 points in time (separated by 7 months) suggested that coworkers' OCB was positively related to fellow employees' job satisfaction and affective commitment when abusive supervision was low. However, when abusive supervision was high, coworkers' OCB was negatively related to job satisfaction and was unrelated to organizational commitment. The results of a 2nd study were consistent with the idea that the attribution employees make for their coworkers' OCB explains the moderating effect of abusive supervision on relationship between coworkers' OCB and job satisfaction.

Summary: We examine the effects of the balance between positive and negative affect experienced at work on well‐being outcomes. An extensive literature on affect balance suggests that it is not only positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) alone that affect well‐being; rather it is the balance between them that matters. We use experience sampling methods and polynomial regression to test the notion that daily PA and NA at work, along with their interactive and nonlinear effects, predict employee well‐being after work. In a sample of working adults, we find that affect balance—the dynamic interplay between daily PA and NA—at work was differentially associated with various indices of well‐being: PA, NA, and the interaction between them predicted physical and mental health. Affect balance at work also predicted life satisfaction, but only for those low on trait affect balance. Detailed examination of the joint effects of PA, NA, and the balance between them reveals that high PA at work is most important for life satisfaction, whereas both low NA and high PA are important for health. Low NA plays an especially important role in physical health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between subordinates' perceptions of abusive supervision and supervisors' evaluations of subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) wag explored among a sample of 373 Air National Guard members and their military supervisors. As predicted, the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates' OCB was stronger among subordinates who defined OCB as extra-role behavior (compared with those defining OCB as in-role behavior), and this effect was fully mediated by the interactive effect of procedural justice and OCB role definitions. The study's implications for theory and research are discussed, its limitations ate identified, and directions for future research ale suggested.