Abstract
With the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and the rise of telecommuting, loneliness has become a prevalent emotional experience in the workplace. Therefore, it is important to understand how employees cope with loneliness. The consensus from previous research has been that employees can repair their relationships with colleagues by engaging in altruistic helping behaviors, which reduces loneliness. However, recent research also proposes that individuals may engage in unethical conduct to enhance their inclusive status within a team or organization. The empirical research on this proposition is scarce and has not been verified in the field of loneliness. To fill the existing research gap, this paper investigates how and when workplace loneliness leads to employee unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), based on the need-to-belong theory and the evolutionary model of loneliness. A three-stage questionnaire survey of 249 employee-colleague dyads in China reveals that workplace loneliness increases the likelihood of employee UPB by thwarting their relatedness need. Moreover, employees’ collectivism orientation moderates both the direct effect of workplace loneliness on relatedness need thwarting and the indirect effect of workplace loneliness on UPB via relatedness need thwarting. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to commitments to participants, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
We only report the fit indices of four-factor model here. Please contact the corresponding author if need detailed CFA results.
Many thanks to the reviewer for this valuable comments.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [723B2007; 72132001].
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Zhang, Y., Zhu, Y., Huang, Z. et al. Compensatory effects of loneliness: how and when does workplace loneliness promote employees unethical pro-organizational behavior. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06103-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06103-4