Psychological Entitlement and Work-related Outcomes during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Role of Telecommuting as a Moderator

Telecommuting is a necessary change imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, little is known about its interactions with the employees’ personal traits and their impact on work-related outcomes. With this study, we aimed to test the moderating role of telecommuting on the relationship between psychological entitlement and three work outcomes (job satisfaction, counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior). Also, job satisfaction was included as a mediator between psychological entitlement and counterproductive work behavior, respectively organizational citizenship behavior. Our sample consisted of 253 employees who were either telecommuting or working from their workplace. The moderated mediation analyses showed significant differences between the two groups. The outcomes of telecommuting and their managerial implications are discussed.

Antecedents of Knowledge Hiding and Their Impact on Organizational Performance

Research on knowledge management has rapidly increased in the last decade, leaving a huge gap on how, why, and what triggers knowledge hiding in inter-organizational setups. Furthermore, the fostering factors for knowledge sharing have also remained unexplored because the employees in an organization are unwilling to share their knowledge with others for several reasons. The current study has attempted to explore the reasons that make employees hide their knowledge from other employees in order to excel. The individual factors considered in this study that make employees hide their knowledge are the lack of rewards for knowledge sharing, internal competition, and psychological entitlement. Furthermore, the interesting consequent factor of knowledge hiding in this study was found to be significant. The moderating role of employees’ social status has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between knowledge-hiding behavior and organizational performance. The population of the study was the managerial employees of financial institutions of China and the sample size taken in his study was 446 via convenient sampling technique. The independent factors in this study found significant results of knowledge-hiding behavior, thus approving the mediating role of knowledge hiding in the organizational performance of the financial institutions of China. The software used in this study for the data analysis was smart PLS and the technique used was partial least square SEM for the measurement of the hypothesis of the study. The study’s findings also have certain implications for policymaking in financial institutions that may hinder knowledge hiding practices and support the uninterrupted flow of knowledge among employees.

The Relationship Between Locus of Control, Self-Efficacy, and Entitlement in the United States

A small body of prior research that utilises a unidimensional conceptualisation of psychological entitlement suggests that individuals with a more internal locus of control and higher levels of self-efficacy tend to have lower levels of entitlement. However, prior research has not explored how locus of control and self-efficacy interact to predict entitlement using a multidimensional conceptualisation of entitlement. In the current quantitative research study, the researchers sought to explore the interaction between locus of control and general self-efficacy in predicting the multiple dimensions of psychological entitlement. A nationwide sample of 316 adult participants from the United States completed an anonymous survey measuring locus of control, self-efficacy, and entitlement. A hierarchical multiple regression indicated that general self-efficacy and locus of control significantly predict active and revenge entitlement, but there were no significant interactions between the predictor variables. Individuals with higher general self-efficacy demonstrated lower levels of active entitlement and higher levels of revenge entitlement. Individuals with a more external locus of control demonstrated lower levels of both active and revenge entitlement. No significant relationships were found for the traditional maladaptive conceptualisation of entitlement or passive entitlement.

Will Someone Be Checking My Work? The Effect of Psychological Entitlement and the Expectation of Being Monitored on Task Performance and Misreporting

Psychological entitlement is a sense that one deserves more than others, and is correlated with a host of negative workplace behaviors. Because entitled individuals have a strong desire for the approval of others, we examine whether increasing the expectation of being monitored can limit some of these negative behaviors. We find that when the expectation of being monitored is low, psychological entitlement is associated with lower performance and higher misreporting. In contrast, when the expectation of being monitored is high, not only are these behaviors reduced, but performance increases and misreporting decreases for entitled individuals. Our results suggest that expectations of performance monitoring can be used to improve workplace outcomes for entitled employees.

Work connectivity behavior after-hours and job satisfaction: examining the moderating effects of psychological entitlement and perceived organizational support

PurposeThis study aims to examine the moderating effects of psychological entitlement and perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationship between work connectivity behavior after-hours (WCBA) and job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 217 full-time employees of an Internet company in China at two points in time separated by about one month. Hierarchical regression and simple slope analyses were conducted to test hypotheses.FindingsThe results showed that WCBA was negatively related to job satisfaction and that this relationship could be mitigated by POS. Moreover, psychological entitlement aggravated this relationship, and this aggravating effect was stronger when POS was at low levels.Practical implicationsManagers should avoid intervening employees' nonwork domains too much. If this is unavoidable, managers should provide adequate organizational support to help employees cope with the challenges brought by WCBA. Besides, managers need to pay close attention to highly entitled employees and take measures to modify their expectations.Originality/valueFirst, this study enriches the understanding of what WCBA is and how WCBA works by investigating the influencing mechanism of WCBA from the perspectives of effort–reward imbalance and job demands–resources. Second, by verifying the moderating effects of psychological entitlement and POS, this study provides insights into the boundaries of the WCBA–job satisfaction relationship. Third, this study contributes to the literature on psychological entitlement by identifying its one applicable condition.

Thanks, but No Thanks: Unpacking the Relationship Between Relative Power and Gratitude

Power and gratitude are universal features of social life and impact a wide range of intra- and interpersonal outcomes. Drawing on the social distance theory of power, we report four studies that examine how relative power influences feelings and expressions of gratitude. An archival analysis of author acknowledgements in published academic articles ( N = 1,272) revealed that low-power authors expressed more gratitude than high-power authors. A pre-registered experiment ( N = 283) involving live conversations online found that having relatively low power caused increased feelings and expressions of gratitude after benefiting from a favor. Another pre-registered experiment ( N = 356) demonstrated that increased interpersonal orientation among lower power individuals and increased psychological entitlement among higher power individuals drove these effects. Finally, an archival analysis of conversational exchanges ( N = 136,215) among Wikipedia editors revealed that relational history moderated the effect of relative power on gratitude expression. Overall, our findings highlight when and why relative power influences feelings and expressions of gratitude.