The social context of undermining behavior at work

By M. Duffy, Daniel C. Ganster, Jason D. Shaw, Jonathan L. Johnson, Milan Pagon. 2006

313 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d2f3617a7dc3a96580c8467b2d407e3662f485d6

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In Applied Psychology

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Do peers make the place? Conceptual synthesis and meta-analysis of coworker effects on perceptions, attitudes, OCBs, and performance. (2008, background): “Are the influences of all these social agents additive, interactive, or compensatory? Do they hold equally well across categories of outcomes? Research has started to uncover how supervisor and coworker behaviors are related to work outcomes across valences and domains (Duffy et al., 2006).”
Social Exchange Implications of Own and CoWorkers' Experiences of Supervisory Abuse (2014, background): “Together with research that has examined how work-unit mean levels of supervisory abuse interact with individuals’ own experiences (Duffy et al., 2006; Hannah et al., 2013), our findings also highlight the importance of vicarious experiences of leader mistreatment to understanding follower behavior.”
The Impact of Call Center Employees' Customer Orientation Behaviors on Service Quality (2008, background): “Research in organizational behavior all too often ignores the critical role of context when examining the association between employee behaviors and organizational outcomes (Duffy et al. 2006; Johns 2006; Morgeson et al. 2006).”
The role of justice and social exchange relationships in workplace deviance: Test of a mediated model (2010, result): “It is also consistent with the finding that abusive supervision – which should lead to low LMX – is positively related to deviant behaviors (Duffy et al., 2002, 2006; Tepper, 2007; Thau et al., 2009).”
A Social Context Model of Envy and Social Undermining (2012, methodology): “We define undermining norms in the team context as aggregate perceptions that individuals in the social context are undermining others (e.g., Duffy et al., 2006; Tepper et al., 2008).”
When Leaders Fail to “Walk the Talk” (2015, background): “…undermining constitutes an unfair event (Bies, 2005; Bies & Greenberg, 2002; Bies & Tripp, 2005; Cropanzano & Ambrose, 2001; Miller, 2001) that involves supervisors hindering a subordinate’s work-related success, interpersonal relationships, and reputation (Duffy et al., 2002; Duffy et al., 2006).”
Negative reciprocity and the association between perceived organizational ethical values and organizational deviance (2010, background): “While the relationships reported between the article variables are consistent with previous work in this field (Duffy et al., 2006; Tepper, 2000), other explanations for my findings may exist.”
Workplace victimization: aggression from the target's perspective. (2009, background): “Duffy et al. (2006a) showed that the group social context moderates the relationship between being the target of undermining and undermining others such that the relationship was stronger in groups where group-level undermining was low than in groups where it was high.”
Emotional and behavioral reactions to social undermining: A closer look at perceived offender motives (2009, background): “…such as increased counterproductive behaviors, reciprocated social undermining, and decreased job satisfaction and retention, as well as negative personal outcomes such as depression, decreased self-esteem, and psychosomatic symptoms (Duffy et al., 2006a; Duffy et al., 2006b; Duffy et al., 2002).”