When everybody wants what you want: The moderating effect of team envy of supervisors on the relationship between envy, relational energy and subsequent work behaviors

Abstract

This dissertation shifts research attention from individual-level envy toward team-level envy (the average level of other team members' envy toward the supervisor). Given that envy leads to tremendous detrimental effects such as social undermining and reduced helping behaviors, it is important to investigate how to mitigate the negative effects of envy on workplace behaviors. Drawing from social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), I seek to explain when and how other team members' feelings of envy toward the supervisor affect focal employees' reactions to their own feelings of the envy toward the supervisor. I hypothesize the feelings of envy toward the supervisor will reduce the received relational energy from the supervisor. Furthermore, I examine the moderating role of team envy to assess the role that team members play in relation to the focal employee's emotional responses. In three studies, I found that employees' envy reduces received relational energy from the supervisor, but high team envy mitigates this relationship. Also, in Study 2, an online lab study and Study 3, a field study, I found that employees' envy reduces interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior (OCBI) toward the supervisor because the employee perceives the supervisor as undeserved and draws little relational energy from the supervisor. Moreover, high team envy mitigates this indirect relationship because high team envy weakens the positive effect of employees' envy on perceived supervisor undeservedness.