Abstract
As a component of organizational aggression, co-worker undermining erodes the well-being of the victims and the sustainability of the organization. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study identified the negative impact of co-worker undermining on the victim’s psychological capital, and empirically examined the influence of performance pressure as an antecedent and of authentic leadership as a moderator to suggest approaches to minimize this negative impact. A total of 485 subordinate employees from 10 organizations in South Korea completed a questionnaire survey. To prevent common method bias, the survey was designed to recruit participants from multiple organizations and was conducted in two waves. First, the results revealed that performance pressure had a positive relationship with the perception of co-worker’s undermining. Second, this perception of co-worker undermining had a negative influence on the victim’s psychological capital. Third, authentic leadership had the moderating effect of decreasing the negative relationship between co-worker undermining and psychological capital. Furthermore, authentic leadership moderated the mediating relationship between the performance pressure and psychological capital through co-worker’s undermining. These findings suggest that the level of performance pressure should be managed in advance so as not to reach excessive levels and the psychological capital of victims should be preserved through authentic leadership to minimize the negative impact of co-worker undermining.
Highlights
Social undermining has recently received attention as one form of organizational aggression that victimizes employees (Duffy et al, 2002)
This study empirically examines the relationship between co-worker undermining and psychological capital (“PsyCap”) of the victim
As a consequence of co-worker undermining, we examine the negative influence of undermining the PsyCap of the victim
Summary
Social undermining has recently received attention as one form of organizational aggression that victimizes employees (Duffy et al, 2002). Co-worker undermining may pose a psychological and physical threat to the victim (Aquino and Thau, 2009), but may lead to serious conflicts within the organization, hindering its sustainability. Many studies have been conducted to date on the negative consequences of co-worker undermining, but there is relatively little research on the antecedents of undermining. The role of leaders will likely be critical in minimizing the negative impact on victims in cases of co-worker undermining. Few studies have analyzed what leadership styles can help alleviate the negative influence of co-worker undermining. This study was conducted from the perspective of a sustainable workplace to provide data to facilitate pre-controlling and postmanaging the negative effects of co-worker undermining
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