Too Defeated to Work? The Effects of Dispatched Employees’ Upward Social Comparison on Time Theft

Yi Li () and Yunhan Lin
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Yi Li: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
Yunhan Lin: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 18, 1-16

Abstract: Organizations are under pressure to seek out new and sustainable practices to address the deepening inequity and waste of limited resources. This study aims to explore the relationship between upward social comparison (USC) and time theft of dispatched employees by proposing a mediated moderation model and examining (1) whether emotional exhaustion mediates this relationship and (2) the roles of relational energy and psychological availability as different kinds of resources on the basis of conservation of resource (COR) theory. Data were collected from a questionnaire survey completed by 978 dispatched employees from a Chinese labor dispatch enterprise. SPSS Macro Process and MPLUS were used to test the hypotheses of the proposed mediated moderation model. Results showed that (1) emotional exhaustion partially mediates the positive relationship between USC and time theft; (2) both relational energy and psychological availability negatively moderate the positive relationship between USC and emotional exhaustion and further influence time theft; (3) relational energy is positively related to psychological availability; (4) psychological availability fully mediates the moderating effect of relational energy. This study not only contributes to the existing literature on social comparison and COR theory but also provides insights into how to mitigate employee time theft, thereby fostering the sustainable development of both employees and organizations. The implications, limitations, and future directions were discussed.

Keywords: upward social comparison; emotional exhaustion; time theft; relational energy; psychological availability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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