The link between interpersonal conflict and knowledge hiding: mediated by relatedness need frustration, moderated by narcissistic rivalry

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between employees’ experience of interpersonal conflict and their engagement in knowledge hiding, according to a mediating effect of their relatedness need frustration and a moderating effect of their narcissistic rivalry. Design/methodology/approach The tests of the hypotheses rely on three-wave, time-lagged data collected among employees in Pakistan. Findings A critical reason that emotion-based fights stimulate people to conceal valuable knowledge from their coworkers is that these employees believe their needs for belongingness or relatedness are not being met. This mediating role of relatedness need frustration is particularly salient among employees who are self-centered and see others as rivals, with no right to fight with or give them a hard time. Practical implications The findings indicate how organizations might mitigate the risk that negative relationship dynamics among their employees escalate into dysfunctional knowledge hiding behavior. They should work to hire and retain employees who are benevolent and encourage them to see colleagues as allies instead of rivals. Originality/value This research unpacks the link between interpersonal conflict and knowledge hiding by explicating the unexplored roles of two critical factors (relatedness need frustration and narcissistic rivalry) in this relationship.

The Moderating Effects of Technostress Inhibitors on Techno-Stressors and Employee's Well-Being

This study determined the effects of techno-stressors on employees' well-being. It also determined the moderating role of technostress inhibitors in techno-stressors and employees' well-being. We employed a time-lagged design and self-administered survey method to collect data from banking employees. We retrieved 355 usable responses. The results showed that techno-stressors significantly and negatively affected employees' well-being. Technostress inhibitors significantly and positively affected the employee's well-being. The moderating effects of techno-stressors and technostress inhibitors showed that six of nine moderating effects were significant and positive. The results implied that technostress inhibitors help to improve employees' well-being. In the end, we present some implications for theory and practice.

Platform riders' occupational stigma consciousness and workplace deviant behavior: the mediating role of self-depletion

PurposeThe study aims to analyze how occupational stigma consciousness affects workplace deviant behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a time-lagged research design. Data from 354 riders working on the platform were gathered, and multiple regression and bootstrapping were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsBased on the ego depletion theory and resource perspective, the study explores the relationship between the occupational stigma consciousness and workplace deviant behavior of platform riders in China. Occupational stigma consciousness promotes workplace deviant behavior; self-depletion mediates the positive relationship between occupational stigma consciousness and workplace deviant behavior and workplace mindfulness exerts a negative moderating effect on the relationship between occupational stigma consciousness and self-depletion.Originality/valueThe study provides a resource perspective to understand how occupational stigma consciousness is related to workplace deviant behavior and how workplace mindfulness alleviates resource depletion caused by occupational stigma consciousness. The research results provide practical information for managers to reduce deviant behavior, which helps to promote riders' performance on the platform.

When and How Workplace Helping Promotes Deviance? An Actor-Centric Perspective

Despite the vast academic interest in workplace helping, little is known about the impact of different types of helping behaviors on physiological and behavioral ramifications of helpers. By taking the actor-centric perspective, this study attempts to investigate the differential impacts of three kinds of helping behaviors (caring, coaching, and substituting helping) on helpers themselves from the theory of resource conservation. To test our model, 512 Chinese employees were surveyed, utilizing a three-wave time-lagged design, and we found that caring and coaching helping were negatively associated with workplace deviance, whereas substituting helping was positively associated with subsequent workplace deviance. Emotional exhaustion mediated the effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance. Moreover, employees' extrinsic career goals influenced the strength of the relationship between three helping behaviors and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance via emotional exhaustion. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theories and practices.

Health-related fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic: perceived trust and information search

PurposeHealth-related online fake news (HOFN) has become a major social problem. HOFN can lead to the spread of ineffective and even harmful remedies. The study aims to understand Internet users' responses to HOFN during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic using the protective action decision model (PADM).Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected pandemic severity data (regional number of confirmed cases) from government websites of the USA and China (Studies 1 and 2), search behavior from Google and Baidu search engines (Studies 1 and 2) and data regarding trust in two online fake news stories from two national surveys (Studies 2 and 3). All data were analyzed using a multi-level linear model.FindingsThe research detected negative time-lagged relationships between pandemic severity and regional HOFN search behavior by three actual fake news stories from the USA and China (Study 1). Importantly, trust in HOFN served as a mediator in the time-lagged relationship between pandemic severity and search behavior (Study 2). Additionally, the relationship between pandemic severity and trust in HOFN varied according to individuals' perceived control (Study 3).Originality/valueThe authors' results underscore the important role of PADM in understanding Internet users' trust in and search for HOFN. When people trust HOFN, they may seek more information to implement further protective actions. Importantly, it appears that trust in HOFN varies with environmental cues (regional pandemic severity) and with individuals' perceived control, providing insight into developing coping strategies during a pandemic.

Despotic leadership and IT project efficiency: the role of resilience

PurposeBased on conservation of resources theory, the present study aims to investigate the negative leadership style (i.e. despotic leadership) and its influence on a key dimension of project success (i.e. project efficiency) directly and indirectly via employees’ job stress. Moreover, this study also aims to investigate the moderating role of resilience on the relationship between despotic leadership and employees’ job stress.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a time-lagged design and collected data via purposive sampling technique from 342 information technology project employees. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25 and AMOS 24.FindingsThe findings are in line with the proposed relationship, as despotic leadership negatively influences project efficiency via employees’ job stress and resilience plays a vital role in mitigating the effects of despotic leadership on employees' job stress.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide direction to information technology firms to develop strategies to decrease employees’ stress and increase project efficiency.Originality/valueThis study extends the literature on leadership and information technology projects by examining how despotic leadership influences project efficiency via employees’ job stress. Negative leadership exists in organizations but has not yet been empirically explored; this study finds that it increases subordinates’ stress level and ultimately influences project efficiency.

Creativity in the South Korean Workplace: Procedural Justice, Abusive Supervision, and Competence

Innovation is now a feature of daily life. In a rapidly changing market environment and amid fierce competition, organizations pursue survival and growth through innovation, and the key driver of innovation is the creativity of employees. Because the value of creativity has been emphasized, many organizations are looking for effective ways to encourage employees to be creative at work. From a resource perspective, creativity at work can be viewed as a high-intensity job demand, and organizations should encourage it by providing and managing employee resources. This study is an attempt to empirically investigate how competence and abusive supervision affect the relationship between procedural justice and creativity from the conservation of resources perspective. Findings from two-wave time-lagged survey data from 377 South Korean employees indicate that procedural justice increases creativity through the mediation of competence. Furthermore, abusive supervision has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between procedural justice and competence. The findings show that competence moderates the relationship between procedural justice and creativity and that the lower the level of abusive supervision, the greater the effect of procedural justice on competence and creativity.

Critical Transitions in Lake Ecosystem State May Be Driven by Coupled Feedback Mechanisms: A Case Study from Lake Erhai, China

Critical transitions between ecosystem states can be triggered by relatively small external forces or internal perturbations and may show time-lagged or hysteretic recovery. Understanding the precise mechanisms of a transition is important for ecosystem management, but it is hampered by a lack of information about the preceding interactions and associated feedback between different components in an ecosystem. This paper employs a range of data, including paleolimnological, environmental monitoring and documentary sources from lake Erhai and its catchment, to investigate the ecosystem structure and dynamics across multiple trophic levels through the process of eutrophication. A long-term perspective shows the growth and decline of two distinct, but coupled, positive feedback loops: a macrophyte-loop and a phosphorus-recycling-loop. The macrophyte-loop became weaker, and the phosphorus-recycling-loop became stronger during the process of lake eutrophication, indicating that the critical transition was propelled by the interaction of two positive feedback loops with different strengths. For lake restoration, future weakening of the phosphorus-recycling loop or a reduction in external pressures is expected to trigger macrophyte growth and eventually produce clear water conditions, but the speed of recovery will probably depend on the rates of feedback loops and the strength of their coupling.

Skepticism Toward Online Advertising

Despite the enormous spending on digital advertising, consumers are skeptical toward online advertising (STA). We integrated advertising value and stimulus-organism- response (SOR) frameworks to develop a model of STA's causes and consequences. Product knowledge and perceived ethics of online seller (ETH) were proposed as moderators. For study 1, moderated-moderated mediation technique was applied on the time-lagged data of 411 consumers. For study 2, a between-subject experiment (n = 179) compared the effects of skepticism across video and picture ads. The results indicate that ETH and product knowledge moderated the relationships between stimulus-organism and organism-response states, respectively. Moreover, consumers showed favorable attitudes toward video ads. This study made novel contributions to research on STA by filling multiple voids (a) integration of advertising value and SOR (b) infotainment and puffery as predictors (c) product knowledge and perceived ethics of online seller as moderators (d), and comparison across advertisement type (video vs. picture).