Phubbing in the workplace: stress, social support, and outcomes

Abstract

Phubbing, the act of ignoring a co-present interaction partner in favor of one’s mobile phone, has been examined extensively in romantic, family, and peer contexts, but its role in organizational life remains understudied. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and leader-member exchange frameworks, this dissertation conceptualizes phubbing as a form of communicative inattentiveness that disrupts the everyday interactions through which employees acquire and maintain relational resources. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 400 employed adults recruited through Prolific. Participants reported on supervisor phubbing, their own phubbing, communication-based emotional support (CBES), leader-member conversation quality (LMCQ), burnout, intention to leave, engagement, and multicommunication. Supervisor phubbing was the focal predictor, while employee phubbing was included to control for employees’ own phone-directed inattentiveness and to examine its supplementary associations with employee outcomes and relational resources. Results indicated that supervisor phubbing was positively associated with burnout and intention to leave and negatively associated with engagement after controlling for employee phubbing. Supervisor phubbing was also negatively associated with both CBES and LMCQ. Employee phubbing predicted higher burnout and lower engagement. Contrary to expectations, neither CBES nor LMCQ moderated the relationship between phubbing and employee outcomes, suggesting that these relational resources may be more clearly affected by phubbing than able to buffer its effects. These findings extend COR theory by identifying phubbing as a micro-level communicative mechanism of resource loss and position relational attentiveness as a communicative resource within leader-member relationships.