Self-deception, emotional neglect and workplace victimization

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to define workplace victimization as any behavior that impairs employees’ basic psychological needs and explores the mutually interactive association between trait self-deception; emotional neglect, especially by supervisors, and workplace victimization. Design/methodology/approach Workplace victimization is identified as a pervasive problem in organization. This paper zeroes in on self-deception and emotional neglect as two possible antecedents of workplace victimization, explores the genesis of the two concepts and analyzes their conceptual relationship with each other and with workplace victimization. Based on the conceptual analysis, it identifies the lack of intentionality as a common element in both constructs and identifies a set of possible frameworks linking self-deception, emotional neglect and workplace victimization for future research. Findings This paper explores four possible frameworks to model the expected association while advocating for investigation of these given models to check whether one has considerable expository success than other by either connecting or disassociating these two constructs. Research limitations/implications The amount of linkage between self-deception and emotional neglect at workplace is worth investigating, and this research paper presents several possible models that might help to focus and organize the future workplace investigations. Practical implications The current paper postulates that supervisors’ and subordinates’ ability to display appropriate leadership and follower behavior and interaction will be impaired if they are high in trait self-deception and have been the victim or perpetrators of emotional neglect. Originality/value In the workplace, self-deceptive individuals display behaviors such as conscientiousness, resilience, optimism and competitiveness that are considered characteristics of good employees and, hence, are more likely to be promoted to supervisory positions, where emotional neglect of others such as subordinates becomes more pertinent.