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1. Introduction
Employee work behaviors are a prime concern of an employer in any organization. These are influenced by many tangible and intangible factors. These factors may be influential not only for stimulating the positive work behaviors, but also what we consider as counterproductive work behaviors. One of the important factors in this context is the kind of treatment and interaction employees have in their workgroup with their bosses, peers and the subordinates.
Human behavior is a manifestation of symbols in the human interactions. These symbols do not have any intrinsic explanation of the events and objects rather these are man-made. The symbolic behaviors of others make people perceive meanings out of that. Doing so, people try to position themselves at the place of other and try to respond in a manner that best suits the other person’s expectations. In other words, human behavior is shaped by creating social environment and being shaped by it (Zafar, 1999). So, we may conceive that if the employees are being socially undermined (defamed and undervalued) by people around, at the workplace, they would conceive the meanings that are unfavorable for themselves, not expecting any good from them in terms of performance and value for the organization. Placing themselves in this symbolic view of others, they will feel de-motivated and demeaned and eventually act in manner conforming to this perception. The resultant behaviors may include a variety of outcomes identified in previous research works.
Studies have identified negative outcomes of social undermining (Duffy et al., 2002; Taylor, 1991). They suggest negative affective, cognitive and behavioral outcomes of the phenomenon of social undermining (Castille et al., 2017). Yoo and Frankwick (2013) discussed supervisor, peer and subordinate undermining and its impact on counterproductive behaviors of sales employees. The work of Aquino et al. (2004) and Weiner (2006) in social undermining clearly differentiates between intentional and accidental underminings. Yet there is a vast scope in finding out the motives for intentional undermining and the perceptions of people formed as a consequence. The mixed motives for jealousy, greed or self-promotion can bring about different behavioral outcomes in employees. In the context of Pakistani universities, there exists tough competition among the faculty. Due to lack of transparent appraisals, unclear performance standards,...