The need to belong: Relational coping strategies in the face of coworker envy

Timea David and Hsi-An Shih

European Management Journal, 2024, vol. 42, issue 5, 791-799

Abstract: We develop a theoretical framework delineating employees' relational coping strategies in the face of co-worker envy. Drawing upon belongingness theory, we explicate why and how the perception of being envied prompts employees to engage in social reconnection behaviors inside and outside of their work teams. We propose that in-group versus out-group targeted relational coping strategies are linked to different foci of proactivity. In particular, prosocial helping in the face of co-worker envy increases team-oriented proactivity, whereas network extension leads to career-oriented proactivity. We further posit that social integration in the team moderates envied employees’ relational coping strategies and subsequent proactivity. We test these hypotheses in a multi-source survey among teams in various industries and firm sizes and find support for the mediating mechanism. Furthermore, the results of a multilevel analysis suggest that high social integration in the team strengthens the indirect effect of being envied on team-oriented proactivity via prosocial helping behaviors.

Keywords: Being envied; Belongingness theory; Proactivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237323000786
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:42:y:2024:i:5:p:791-799

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2023.06.004

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().