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Introduction
Birds of the same feathers flock together, and when they flock together they fly so high. (Ziegler and Golbeck, 2005)
Every human strives to be happy, and happiness is related to a supportive network of close relationships (Myers and Diener, 1995; Seligman, 2011). Csikszentmihalyi (1990) asserted that “we are biologically programmed to find other human beings the most important objects in the world” (p. 164). It is the gratification of social needs for love, acceptance and belongingness (Maslow, 1943) that drives happiness in humans (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Unfulfilled need for social relationships gives rise to several negative emotions. Loneliness is one such human emotion that arises when a person's network of social relationships is deficient either qualitatively or quantitatively (Russell et al., 1980). Although loneliness has been identified to be associated with a range of psychological outcomes such as anxiety, depression and mental disorders (Igbokwe et al., 2020), research on loneliness in the work context is limited (Anand and Mishra, 2019; Wright and Silard, 2020).
The study of loneliness in the workplace is relevant and assumes increased importance given that individuals spend equal if not greater amount of time at work than elsewhere. Employees in the fast-paced and highly competitive work environments experience negative emotion of loneliness when their need for genuine social relationships is not adequately met. Although increase in the use of technology has brought people virtually closer, it has reduced the opportunities for face-to-face communication and instilled a sense of psychological loneliness (Katz, 2020). Loneliness is a “psychological pain of perceived relational deficiencies in the workplace” (Wright and Silard, 2020, p. 6). Ozcelik and Barsade (2018) defined workplace loneliness as “employees' subjective affective evaluations of, and feelings about, whether their affiliation needs are being met by the people they work with and the organizations they work for” (p. 2350). Wright et al. (2006) conceptualized loneliness at work in terms of two dimensions: emotional deprivation (quality of the relationships) and social companionship (quantitative aspects of relationships). Emotional loneliness refers to the absence of close emotional bonds with others while social loneliness indicates lack of integration into social network (Weiss, 1973).
Despite the ubiquity of the phenomenon of loneliness, studies on workplace loneliness remain sparse and scholars have called for...