Workplace Exclusion And Counterproductive Work Behaviors:Exploring The Effects Of Work Ethic

Considerable evidence proposed that workplace ostracism has a negative effect on individual’s counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), but the mechanism for the effect is not clear. Meanwhile, there has been lack of studies which investigated the work ethic. The study aimed to explore the workplace ostracism on CWBs’mechanism, including the moderating effect of work ethic. As expected, the findings of 468 staffs from 15 units of Shanghai, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Xi’ an suggested that workplace ostracism would be positively and significantly related to individual’s CWBs, and the three dimensions of work ethic would moderate the effect. In addition, the research enriched our understanding about the inner mechanism between workplace ostracism and individual’s CWBs.This study revealed:(1) CWBs would consist of two factors, that is, interpersonal CWBs and organizational CWBs.(2) workplace ostracism would positively influence interpersonal CWBs and organizational CWBs.(3) work ethic would act as an effective predictor of interpersonal CWBs and organizational CWBs.(4) the moderating mechanism of workplace ostracism on CWBs, namely, the relationship between workplace ostracism and interpersonal CWBs would be weaker when the individual tend to be internals, moreover, the relationship between workplace ostracism and organizational CWBs would be weaker when the individual tend to be hardworking and ascetic.