| Ostracism, as an experience of being rejected, excluded, or ignored, is painful for everyone. However, Ostracism is a very common phenomenon across our social contexts. Workplace is one of the social contexts where ostracism often happens. Much prior research shows that being ostracized can be an extremely painful and unpleasant experience, leading to negative physical and psychological consequences, which in turn negatively influences targets'reactions and functions. This is especially true in workplace, where the frequency of team works has increased, thereby providing powerful needs to communicate with other colleagues. The ostracism targets'four basic human needs, namely the need to belonging, the need for self-esteem, the need for control, and the need for a meaningful existence are all threatened. And then, it negatively affects their job performance.Since Williams (1997) first proposed the concept of 'Ostracism', the research results of 'Ostracism' have been brought by as an endless stream. However, studies on 'workplace Ostracism' have just started recent years. Since Ferris first proposed the concept of 'workplace Ostracism' in2008, it has slowly drawn the attention of the Academia. In recent years, researching results show that Workplace Ostracism will seriously affect employees' organizational citizenship behavior, contextual performance, and even will lead to the staffs' depression. Scholars have responded to the suggestion of Ferris that the next research should make clear the mechanism of how workplace Ostracism affects the job performance. For example, research from Wu Long zeng proves that workplace ostracism affect employees' OrganizationalIdentification, and thus influence employees'OCB; while Li Rui's research proves that workplace Ostracism affects the Contextual Performance of employees through influencing employees' organizational identification and job involvement.The negative impact of workplace ostracism has drawn the attention of the Academia, but the research of workplace ostracism has just begun and now there is also no research on the cause of workplace ostracism in the Academia. However, learning the factors which lead to workplace ostracism is essential for us to reduce or avoid it. As Williams'(1997,2001, and2007) suggested, ostracism can have three board categories of antecedents, namely the characteristics of the target, the characteristics of the source and the characteristics of the situation.The article explores the cause of workplace Ostracism based on one of the characteristics of the target-the Big Five personality traits, which is the most important issue to be addressed in this article. Secondly, this article is inspired by predecessors' study to explore the relationship between workplace Ostracism and employees' contextual performance under the context of Chinese organizations, and this is the second question to be addressed in this article. Finally, explore the mediating effect of neuroticism between the relation of workplace ostracism and contextual performance. These are the three issues to be addressed in this article.This article reviews related research results of academia in review of the theory part, including:(a) Ostracism and the concept, hazards and existing research models of Workplace Ostracism;(b) The development process of Big Five, and contents of the Big Five;(c) How the concept of Contextual Performance was proposed, the content and influencing factors of Contextual Performance;(d) The content of victim precipitation theory.Based on the three issues to be addressed, the existing research results and the victim promote theory; this paper puts forward the following hypothesis:Hypothesis1: Extraversion is negatively related to workplace ostracism.Hypothesis2: Agreeableness is negatively related to workplace ostracism.Hypothesis3: Neuroticism is positively related to workplace ostracism.Hypothesis4: Conscientiousness is negatively related to workplace ostracism.Hypothesis5: Openness to experience is negatively related to workplace ostracism.Hypothesis6: Workplace ostracism is negatively related to contextual performance.Hypothesis7: Neuroticism moderates the negative relationship between workplace ostracism Contextual Performance.This study has received a total of276valid questionnaires. Through Reliability Analysis on these questionnaires, it shows that the scales have high reliability; Analysis the control variable (gender, age, educational background, total working time) through Independent-Sample T-test and One-Way ANOVA, and the results show that:A, Men is significantly higher in Workplace Ostracism, openness to experience and extraversion than women, and women is significantly higher than women in neuroticism. B, The test groups younger than24years are significantly higher than the groups aged between25-35years in neuroticism.C, The conscientiousness of the test groups of Masters, junior college and technical secondary/high school degree are significantly higher than the undergraduate degree groups.D, The test groups, whose total working time is more than6years, are significantly higher than the groups whose total working time is between3-6years in Contextual Performance.Verify the relations among Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Openness to experience, Workplace Ostracism and Contextual Performance through Correlate and hierarchical regression analysis. The results support the entire hypothesis, except the hypothesisl.Based on the above findings, I raise the theory research significance of the paper and put forward a proposal for the practice of management. The theory research significance of the paper include:a, For the first time, through Empirical Evidence I prove that the personality of the employee play a decisive role in the workplace ostracism; b, The results not only contribute to the workplace ostracism research by indicating some critical dispositional antecedents, but also provide additional evidence for the transportability of victim precipitation theory from criminology field to management field. C, the results provide evidence for that sex, age, education background and total working time have effect on the variables. Our examination of the mediating effect of neuroticism moves research on workplace ostracism beyond the main effect to an investigation of the underling mechanisms.Practical implications to management include:a, we should have strict standards of the recruitment, and take the results of personality test as an important indicator for hiring or not. b, Management should create a culture that discourages workplace ostracism, and encourage employees to use discussion to solve problems. At the same time, management should pay special attention to these employees, and provide training, counseling, and social support for them so as to help them stay away from workplace ostracism. |
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