Keeping up with the Joneses

Abstract

In this study, we draw on concepts within the abusive supervision literature, the moral exclusion literature, and the broader unethical behavior literature to develop and test a model that explains how and when envious employees engage in social undermining in the workplace. Our results from multisource field data suggest that relationship conflict mediates the relationship between envy and social undermining, while job performance moderates the indirect effect of envy on social undermining (via relationship conflict). Thus, a moderated-mediation model is proposed. Our findings provide general support to our hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice as well as future research avenues are also discussed.