IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/85632.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prosocial response to client-instigated victimization: the roles of forgiveness and workgroup conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Booth, Jonathan E.
  • Park, Tae-Youn
  • Zhu, Luke (Lei)
  • Beauregard, T. Alexandra
  • Gu, Fan
  • Emery, Cécile

Abstract

We investigate forgiveness as a human service employee coping response to client-instigated victimizations and further explore the role of workgroup conflict in (a) facilitating this response, and (b) influencing the relationship between victimization and workplace outcomes. Using the theoretical lens of Conservation of Resources (Hobfoll, 1989), we propose that employees forgive clients—especially in the context of low workgroup conflict. From low to moderate levels of client-instigated victimization, we suggest that victimization and forgiveness are positively related; however, this positive relationship does not prevail when individuals confront egregious levels of victimization (i.e., an inverted-U shape). This curvilinear relationship holds under low but not under high workgroup conflict. Extending this model to workplace outcomes, findings also demonstrate that the indirect effects of victimization on job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions are mediated by forgiveness when workgroup conflict is low. Experiment- and field-based studies provide evidence for the theoretical model.

Suggested Citation

  • Booth, Jonathan E. & Park, Tae-Youn & Zhu, Luke (Lei) & Beauregard, T. Alexandra & Gu, Fan & Emery, Cécile, 2018. "Prosocial response to client-instigated victimization: the roles of forgiveness and workgroup conflict," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85632, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:85632
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/85632/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arnetz, Judith E. & Arnetz, Bengt B., 2001. "Violence towards health care staff and possible effects on the quality of patient care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 417-427, February.
    2. Karl Aquino & Murray Bradfield, 2000. "Perceived Victimization in the Workplace: The Role of Situational Factors and Victim Characteristics," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(5), pages 525-537, October.
    3. Duffy, Michelle K. & Ganster, Daniel C. & Shaw, Jason D. & Johnson, Jonathan L. & Pagon, Milan, 2006. "The social context of undermining behavior at work," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 105-126, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henry C. Y. Ho & Wai Kai Hou & Kai-Tak POON & Angel N. M. Leung & Joyce L. Y. Kwan, 2023. "Being Virtuous Together: A One-Year Prospective Study on Organizational Virtuousness, Well-Being, and Organizational Commitment," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 521-542, February.
    2. Balaji, M.S. & Jiang, Yangyang & Singh, Gurbir & Jha, Subhash, 2020. "Letting go or getting back: How organization culture shapes frontline employee response to customer incivility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Fürstenberg, Nils & Booth, Jonathan E. & Alfes, Kerstin, 2023. "Benefitting or suffering from a paradoxical leader? A self-regulation perspective," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120369, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xin Zhao & Xiaoxue Li & Benno Torgler & Uwe Dulleck, 2021. "Patient violence, physicians treatment decisions, and patient welfare: Evidence from China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1461-1479, June.
    2. Ely Zarina Samsudin & Marzuki Isahak & Sanjay Rampal & Ismail Rosnah & Mohd Idzwan Zakaria, 2020. "Individual antecedents of workplace victimisation: The role of negative affect, personality and self‐esteem in junior doctors' exposure to bullying at work," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1065-1082, September.
    3. Gang Wang & Peter Harms & Jeremy Mackey, 2015. "Does it take two to Tangle? Subordinates’ Perceptions of and Reactions to Abusive Supervision," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 487-503, October.
    4. Li, Teng & Lu, Runjing, 2022. "Social undermining as a dark side of symbolic awards: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Leigh T. Graham, 2007. "Permanently Failing Organizations? Small Business Recovery After September 11, 2001," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 21(4), pages 299-314, November.
    6. Maureen L. Ambrose & Darryl B. Rice & David M. Mayer, 2021. "Justice Climate and Workgroup Outcomes: The Role of Coworker Fair Behavior and Workgroup Structure," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 79-99, August.
    7. Dhanakorn Mulaphong, 2023. "Social Undermining in Public Sector Organizations: Examining its Effects on Employees’ Work Attitudes, Behaviors, and Performance," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1229-1248, September.
    8. Booth, Jonathan E. & Shantz, Amanda & Glomb, Theresa M. & Duffy, Michelle K. & Stillwell, Ellie, 2020. "Bad bosses and self-verification: the moderating role of core self-evaluations with trust in workplace management," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100839, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Cokkie Verschuren & Maria Tims & Annet H. De Lange, 2023. "Beyond Bullying, Aggression, Discrimination, and Social Safety: Development of an Integrated Negative Work Behavior Questionnaire (INWBQ)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(16), pages 1-24, August.
    10. Richard J. Arend, 2021. "The Nefarious Hierarchy: An Alternative New Theory of the Firm," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, February.
    11. Ying Song & Zhenzhi Zhao, 2022. "Social Undermining and Interpersonal Rumination among Employees: The Mediating Role of Being the Subject of Envy and the Moderating Role of Social Support," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-20, July.
    12. Mundbjerg Eriksen, Tine L. & Hogh, Annie & Hansen, Åse Marie, 2016. "Long-term consequences of workplace bullying on sickness absence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 129-150.
    13. Siyuan Miao & Abdulkhamid Komil ugli Fayzullaev & Alisher Tohirovich Dedahanov, 2020. "Management Characteristics as Determinants of Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role of Employee Job Satisfaction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-14, March.
    14. ADEGOKE Olusegun Steve & AYANTAYO, Solomon Ojo, 2020. "Organizational Stress and Demographic Variables as Predictors of Workplace Violence in the Telecommunication Industry," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 4(8), pages 461-474, August.
    15. Linda Anderson & Mary FitzGerald & Lauretta Luck, 2010. "An integrative literature review of interventions to reduce violence against emergency department nurses," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(17‐18), pages 2520-2530, September.
    16. Zhu, Yue & Wang, Jie & Chen, Tingting & Crant, Michael J. & Yang, Xiaoling & Li, Chang & Wang, Yongyue, 2024. "Can high performers take charge? The effects of role breadth self-efficacy and hostile interpersonal environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    17. Yejun Zhang & Mark C. Bolino & Kui Yin, 2023. "The Interactive Effect of Perceived Overqualification and Peer Overqualification on Peer Ostracism and Work Meaningfulness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 699-716, January.
    18. Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa & Sam Farley & Monica Zaharie, 2021. "Examining the Boundaries of Ethical Leadership: The Harmful Effect of Co-worker Social Undermining on Disengagement and Employee Attitudes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 355-368, November.
    19. Zapata, Cindy P. & Hayes-Jones, Laura C., 2019. "The consequences of humility for leaders: A double-edged sword," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 47-63.
    20. Yanan Dong & Limei Zhang & Hai-Jiang Wang & Jing Jiang, 2023. "Why is Crafting the Job Associated with Less Prosocial Reactions and More Social Undermining? The Role of Feelings of Relative Deprivation and Zero-Sum Mindset," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 175-190, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    client-instigated victimization; forgiveness; workgroup conflict; human service employees;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:85632. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.