Effect of Personality Characteristics on Workplace Ostracism: Role of Employee Popularity and Emotional Intelligence- An Evidence from Telecomm Industry of Pakistan

Abstract

Humans are known to be social beings and the interpersonal interactions we have in our daily lives lay a great impact on our mental and physical health. The phenomenon known as ostracism, defined as exclusion from social gatherings, is the one being studied in this thesis. As per the previous researches, ostracism ramifies depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, and turnover; ultimately adding to the dissatisfaction level. The environments that require a heap of social linkages to perform certain tasks and maintaining interpersonal relationships is a means to align with the cultural values, it is indispensable to understand the perils of being ostracized. As previous researches have mostly focused on the negatives originating from the said phenomenon, we aim to hone these negative affinities by introducing the variables (charisma, political skill, and extraversion) as a counteractive measure to alleviate the downturns branching out. Also, the moderation effect of emotional intelligence and mediation of employee popularity is expected to enhance the relationship even further. The evidence taken from the 5 big telecommunication companies of Pakistan (Islamabad / Rawalpindi) would provide a great sample to substantiate the practical implications of the proposed model. The Questionnaire adopted to gather data is selected from the most valid and widely used sources to further the credibility of the responses. The findings are expected to ameliorate the current understanding of a heinous phenomenon that degrades an individual’s ability to perform and adds to the productivity of an organization.
 Purpose: To find counteractive measures to hone the phenomenon called ostracism and signify the need to minimize ostracism at work along with all the negatives behaviors associated.
 Methodology: A 34 item questionnaire was rolled out in the top 5 telecommunication companies of Pakistan and data collected was analyzed using SPSS and SMART PLS
 Results / Findings: Charisma has a direct negative correlation with workplace ostracism and employee popularity partially mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and charisma. Political skills and charisma don’t have a significant negative correlation with workplace ostracism but employee popularity completely mediates the relationship between political skills and WPO, and charisma and WPO. However, emotional intelligence didn’t have a significant moderation relationship with workplace ostracism.

Workplace ostracism: a qualitative enquiry

“…The study exploring the antecedents of workplace ostracism has focused on target's characteristics such as personality, attitudes, skills and social resources (Howard et al, 2020;Bedi, 2021) Workplace ostracism target of ostracism to personality traits such as neuroticism, paranoia, narcissism and psychopathy (Wu et al, 2011;Liu et al, 2021). On the other hand, personality traits such as agreeableness, extraversion and proactive personality (Zhao et al, 2013;Zaidi, 2021); political and social skills (Zhao et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2021) and expressions of charisma and warmth (Liu et al, 2021;Zaidi, 2021) reduce the likelihood of being a target. Approach tendencies decrease the likelihood of being a target while avoidance tendencies increase the likelihood (Liu et al, 2021).…”