A Meta-Analytic Integration of Mechanisms Linking Workplace Ostracism and OCB

Abstract

Evidence indicates that victims of workplace ostracism typically engage in fewer organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). Not surprisingly, researchers have sought to understand why workplace ostracism is negatively related to OCB. Three perspectives have been offered in the literature, but are typically tested in isolation. Consequently, the relative merit of each perspective is largely unknown. To address these issues, we highlight how all three mechanisms can be subsumed within a need-threat/need-fortification framework of workplace ostracism and conduct meta-analytic structural equation modelling to test the three mechanisms simultaneously with enhanced statistical power. Consistent with theoretical and empirical work indicating that workplace ostracism is a painful experience, we found that workplace ostracism harms employees’ belongingness, self-perceptions, and well-being, which each uniquely in turn, leads to less OCB. Further, well-being was the mechanism with the strongest explanatory power that underlies the negative relationship between workplace ostracism and OCB. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.