Examining the curvilinear relationship of job performance, supervisor ostracism, and turnover intentions

Abstract

Despite the well-supported negative consequences of workplace ostracism, limited research has offered explanations as what causes an employee to be ostracized. Based on the victim precipitation theory, we predict that comparing to middle performers, both poor and high performers are more likely to be ostracized by their supervisors because they deviate from the performance norm. Thus, in this study we establish the curvilinear relationship between job performance and supervisor ostracism. Data were collected from supervisors and their employees from an airline company at three timewaves. Using multi-level modeling analysis, our data revealed three major findings. First, there was a curvilinear relationship between job performance and supervisor ostracism, indicating that both poor and high performance were related to more supervisor ostracism than middle performance. Second, supervisors' transformational leadership buffered the curvilinear relationship between employees' job performance and supervisor ostracism. Third, supervisor ostracism mediated the curvilinear relationship between job performance and turnover intentions. Our study supports the victim precipitation theory and contributes to the limited research on the antecedents of workplace ostracism. Furthermore, we contribute to the push-and-pull model of turnover by suggesting that there is a workplace relationship mechanism (e.g., supervisor ostracism) linking employees' job performance and turnover intentions. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed.