Collaborative effect of workplace ostracism and self-efficacy versus job stress.

• Author: Sarwar, Ambreen

INTRODUCTION

Workplaces are sites embodying specific regulations deemed as suitable in a particular society (Di Marco, Martinez-Corts, Arenas, & Gamero, 2018). Often, these regulations might be disregarded by employees as they engage in behaviors viewed as deviant at that instance and in that setting (Pawar, 2013), influencing their wellbeing, satisfaction (Di Marco, Martinez-Corts, Arenas, & Gamero, 2018) and workplace social context (Chung, 2018). Such social context has substantial importance in modern-day work settings since employees spend a significant amount of time with each other at work (Chung, 2018). Unfortunately, workplace social context has been increasingly characterized by negative attitudes and behaviors including various forms of mistreatment and victimization (Aquino & Thau, 2009) like incivility (Di Marco et al., 2018; Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018) social undermining (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002), harassment, bullying (Einarsen, 2000), and abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000). One of the most prevalent of these is workplace ostracism (Fox & Stallworth, 2005; as cited by Steinbauer, Renn, Chen, & Rhew, 2018).

Regrettably, it is one of the neglected areas in the literature, especially in developing nations that perhaps might serve as a crucial determinant of negative mental states of personnel in the workplace, resulting in harmful behaviors. When personnel comes across verbal abuse, rude or indecorous behavior, or unfair burden in the workplace, mistreatment arises (Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018; McCord, Joseph, Dhanani, & Beus, 2018).

Some recent studies on mistreatment have tried to shed light on its harmful influences on employees' physical and mental health (Harnois & Bastos, 2018), turnover intentions (Chaudhry, Mahesar, Pathan, Arshad, & Butt, 2017; Lyu & Zhu, 2017) and interpersonal deviance (Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2017) among others. Mistreatment gives a feeling of social rejection and exclusion to the employees, which might hamper their capacity to contribute positively towards the achievement of organizational goals (Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018).

Since ostracism is found to be most prevalent in workplaces (Fox & Stallworth, 2005; as cited by Steinbauer, Renn, Chen, & Rhew, 2018), the focus of the current study is this kind of covert mistreatment, prevailing in the banking industry of a developing nation, Pakistan, where legislation regarding workplace mistreatment is rather weak. A couple of relatively recent studies show that most of the surveyed employees had sensed workplace ostracism (WPO) at one time or another during their work course (Fox & Stallworth, 2005; O'Reilly, Robinson, Berdahl, & Banki, 2014). Unfortunately, companies do not generally regard WPO as liable to be punished as it is usually considered as a passive form of mistreatment (Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018; O'Reilly et al., 2014).

Conservation of resources (COR) theory offers an insightful perspective to comprehend the impact of WPO. WPO depletes valuable resources which are vital to assist personnel in the workplace (Leung, Wu, Chen, & Young 2011). In such a situation, a person's defense mechanism might be triggered. In an attempt at protecting against additional resource loss, personnel might face continuous stress and go through more resource deficit, resulting in a range of adverse work-related outcomes.

According to Hobfoll, Halbesleben, Neveu, and Westman (2018), COR theory starts with the precept that people attempt to gain, retain, foster, and protect the possessions they centrally value. Among these commonly valued resources are health, sense of belongingness, well-being, family, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose and meaning in life. The degree of belongingness, social controls, self-esteem, and meaningful existence determine the level of individuals' personal and social resources. The threat to these resources may result in a tend-and-befriend reaction (Williams, 2007) and results in stress (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Additionally, in the premises of COR theory, personal, situational and other positive resources like self-control and self-belief might prove helpful in mitigating the adverse effect of resource loss that might ultimately be translated into poor performance.

WPO has been implied to be an interpersonal stressor (Williams, 1997; 2001; Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2017); nonetheless, researchers have seldom examined WPO from a stress standpoint (Chung, 2018) in a developing country. According to Wu Yim, Kwan, and Zhang (2012), it is imperative to examine the association between WPO and stress-related outcomes. Hence, the current study will investigate the association between WPO and stress in the non-western context of Pakistan, specifically in the banking industry, where jobs are characterized as one of the most stressful ones in Pakistan (Badar, 2011; Khattak, Khan, Haq, Arif, & Minhas, 2011).

Banking staff from junior to the most senior levels are involved in providing customer services and have frequent interactions with customers on a daily basis (Khattak et al., 2011). The daily customer turn-up in this industry is high (Badar, 2011), when compared to other service-related industries, since people in Pakistan must usually visit their bank for any financial transaction related to cash, cheques, paying bills, demand drafts, account statements, and other queries. Also, the task inter-dependence of banking colleagues is on the higher side. Employees must interact with each other, management, peers and colleagues frequently to complete customer-related tasks (Badar, 2011). According to Aquino & Thau's (2009) prediction, employees can expect to be a victim of workplace mistreatment when it is vital for them to interact with each other more often and to work interdependently. Such high task interdependence may transmute into magnified adverse impacts of workplace ostracism, and consequently, such effects will shift towards bankers' services to customers. It is also important to note that the work culture, context, and processes in the public versus private sector in Pakistan are noticeably different (Rashid & Rashid, 2012; Khan, Safwan, & Ahmad, 2011; Khan, Aslam, & Riaz, 2012), and therefore the intensity and effects of mistreatment in these sectors might be different.

Interestingly, extant literature has shown mixed results between various forms of mistreatment and their effects between the genders (e.g., see Aquino & Thau, 2009). Women are also found to sense more stress, anxiety, and distress. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2000), females are more frequently diagnosed with general anxiety as compared to males. The banking sector in Pakistan, characterized as stressful (Badar, 2011), means higher stress levels for women as compared to men. Since women are found to be more relationship-oriented and attain a sense of identity through affiliation, depicting themselves using relational terms, such as "giving", "helping", "caring", "being kind", and "not hurting others" (Gilligan, 1982); it is expected that the negative influence of mistreatment on women, in the form of stress, might be more nuanced comparative to men. The early socialization theory attributes such differences in value orientation, as internalized through the early socialization process. The theory emphasizes that regardless of social changes, gender remains an elementary social category that outlines a person's values, perceptions, work-related outlook and behaviors (Danziger & Eden, 2007). Studying the effect of gender, in ostracism, stress relationships, in Pakistan would be an added contribution to the literature.

Furthermore, there are calls for identifying various boundary conditions (Chung, 2018; Lyu & Zhu, 2017; Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018; Zhu, Lyu, Deng, & Ye 2017) that might mitigate or exacerbate adverse effects of ostracism, by applying theories other than job embeddedness (Lyu & Zhu, 2017) in the service sector (e.g. banking, hospitality and others) of a developing country (Abubakar, Yazdian, & Behravesh, 2018) since they are underexplored (Chung, 2018). Based on conservation of resources theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 1989) and answering to the call of Abubakar, Yazdian and Behravesh, (2018) to include psychological capital as a boundary condition in the form of a personal factor, the present research argues that self-efficacy (SE) (a person's primary belief in his or her capabilities and control over outside events), would serve as a mitigating agent and buffer the detrimental influence of workplace ostracism on stress in the banking industry in Pakistan.

Moreover, this study offers an exciting social, in addition to institutional, counterpoint to the leading Western (mainly US and UK) based researches (Quratulain, Khan, Crawshaw, Arain, & Hameed, 2016) of workplace ill-treatment (e.g., Steinbauer et al., 2018). Pakistani culture, being relatively high in power distance, collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, points to a society with a high rule orientation, and support to high disparities in authority and prosperity (Hofstede, 2001). Such a cultural sketch might endorse stout interpersonal and deferential links among employer and employee and signal general absolute respect for power (Hofstede, 1991; Khilji, 1995). This cultural outline suggests that employees might swallow or absorb any agitation caused by workplace mistreatment without any retaliatory or hostile action towards the organization or the boss, and continue working in the same job in the absence of too many job opportunities. This endurance of workplace mistreatment without demonstrating any overt reaction might result in a stressful mental and emotional state.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Workplace ostracism (WPO)

Ostracism points to the extent to which an individual feels overlooked or excluded by another person, persons or group of persons (Ferris, Brown, Berry, & Lian, 2008...