The social context of undermining behavior at work

doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.04.005

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Volume 101, Issue 1, September 2006, Pages 105-126

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.04.005 Get rights and content

Abstract

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.

Section snippets

A fairness theory of social undermining in context

Folger and Cropanzano’s (1998) fairness theory synthesizes a number of perspectives on equity considerations in organizations, including referent-cognitions theory (Folger, 1993) and group-value theory (Lind and Tyler, 1988, Tyler and Lind, 1992). Fairness theory suggests that when individuals face negative situations (such as being undermined by a coworker or supervisor) they make cognitive comparisons known as counterfactual thoughts; i.e., they compare what actually happened to what might

Context and sample

The sample for this study was drawn from the national police force in the Republic of Slovenia (see Duffy et al., 2002). Slovenia’s National Force is distributed in various cities and villages throughout the country in stations that resemble urban police departments in the United States. They share a centralized bureaucratic structure, but the population is relatively immobile, and thus most officers spend their entire careers in the same location. After we randomly selected stations, members

Context and sample

The Study 1 setting was characterized by relationships between officers, supervisors, and work groups, which are long-term in nature. Interactions among members of these groups played such a large role in the work and personal lives of these individuals that we expected to see strong group-context effects emerge if they indeed existed. In many ways, then, Study 1 provided an optimal setting for observing these phenomena. We aimed to test the fairness theory hypothesis in a group setting that we

Context and sample

Study 1 provides substantial support and Study 2 provides some support for our prediction that group-level undermining would moderate the effects of supervisory undermining on an array of attitudinal, behavioral, and well-being measures. In Study 3, we attempt to replicate the interaction in a dramatically different setting, i.e., by investigating group-member undermining in student work teams. Thus, we test Hypothesis 2 in Study 3. This approach allows us to examine the robustness of the

Theoretical extension

Although the findings from Studies 1–3 are informative and robust, we attempt in Study 4 to examine a more complete explanation for these dynamics. That is, we explored a theoretical mechanism or mediator, viz., justice perceptions, between the singled out interaction and the attitudinal, behavioral, and well-being outcomes investigated in the prior studies. While these variables are the outcomes commonly associated with social undermining behaviors, fairness theory would suggest that being

Discussion

Human judgments are relative to the frame of reference in which they are made. The comparative standing of others in the individual’s domain is one possible context for attitudinal and behavioral judgments and well-being (Parducci, 1995). In keeping with this perspective, our research focused on how people’s reactions to undermining might differ depending on the level of undermining others in their work group were experiencing. We found strong support for a “singled out” hypothesis such that

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Citation Excerpt :
Based on this perspective and integrating hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, we propose that OBSE represents a crucial contextual factor that may lessen jealousy's negative impact on employees' OCB. We suggest that employees high in OBSE who experience feelings of jealousy towards rivals will try to uphold their own self-image and self-esteem by working to enhance their work status rather than feeling threatened by them (Brockner, 1988; Duffy et al., 2006). They achieve this through more constructive and collaborative teamwork and effective performance.
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^☆: Study 2 was funded by the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Kentucky. Study 4 was funded by the SHRM Foundation. The interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of these organizations. We wish to thank Jackie Thompson for editorial assistance.

¹: Present address: University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management, Industrial Relations Center, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

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The social context of undermining behavior at work☆

Abstract

Section snippets

A fairness theory of social undermining in context

Context and sample

Context and sample

Context and sample

Theoretical extension

Discussion

Journal of Management

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

The effects of negative affectivity, hierarchical status, and self-determination on workplace victimization

Academy of Management Journal

Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory

Assessing the attitudes and perceptions of organizational members

Justice at the millennium: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of justice research

Journal of Applied Psychology

The perceptions of fair interpersonal treatment scale: development and validation of a measure of interpersonal treatment in the workplace

Journal of Applied Psychology

Social undermining in the workplace

Academy of Management Journal

Performance and satisfaction in conflicted, interdependent groups: When and how does self-esteem make a difference?

Academy of Management Journal

Comparison process in counterfactual thought

A theory of social comparison processes

Human Relations

Reactions to mistreatment at work

Organizational justice and human resource management

Fairness theory: justice as accountability

Social comparison and fairness: a counterfactual simulations perspective

Effects of procedural and distributive justice on reactions to pay raise decisions

Academy of Management Journal

Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias

Journal of Applied Psychology

The dynamic nature of conflict: a longitudinal study of intragroup conflict and group performance

Academy of Management Journal

The application of hierarchical linear modeling to organizational research

Individual differences in counterfactual thinking

Cognitive processes in perceived social support

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Predicting voice behavior in work groups

Journal of Applied Psychology

Toward a normative model of justice

Fairness heuristic theory: justice judgments as pivotal cognitions in organizational relations