Does conformity lead to gains? The effect of workplace ostracism on performance evaluation from a self-presentational view

Workplace ostracism is an increasingly widespread and serious social problem nowadays. Many studies have shown that being rejected in the workplace can significantly increase employees’ psychological stress, lead to health problems, and even cause deviant workplace behaviors, thereby ultimately damaging the normal operation of an organization and lowering organizational performance. However, existing research regarding the impact of workplace exclusion on individual performance has reached inconsistent conclusions; thus, this field involves hidden mechanisms that need to be further explored. To address this theoretical gap, we drew upon the self-presentational perspective and hypothesized that employees’ collectivism values strengthen the likelihood that employees will create facades of conformity when suffering from workplace ostracism. We further assumed that whether or not a supervisor is a collectivist determines how the employees’ creation of facades of conformity affect subsequent performance ratings. We tested these hypotheses in an experimental study and a field sample of supervisor-employee dyads. For the experimental study, we recruited 142 full-time Chinese workers in different industries as participants through the authors’ alumni networks. The respondents were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: the ostracism condition ( N = 70) versus the inclusion condition ( N = 72). Participants first completed a measure of collectivism values and reported their demographics. Then, they were asked to read a scenario from a computer screen, one which depicted a situation in which the participant was ostracized (or included) by team members in a hypothetical organization. After reading the scenario, participants finished the manipulation check of workplace ostracism and indicated the extent to which they would be likely to engage in creating facades of conformity. For the field study, we collected 254 dyadic data from a major air company in China at three time-spots. At Time 1, employees assessed perceived workplace ostracism and their collectivism values, as well as provided their demographic information. At Time 2 (one months after Time 1), employees rated their self-esteem level and the extent to which they create facades of conformity, conduct self-leadership, and implement impression management strategies. At Time 3 (one months after Time 2), supervisors provided a performance evaluation of the focal employee and their own collectivism values. We applied confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and bootstrap methods via SPSS 22.0 and Mplus7.4 software to analyze the data. Empirical results supported our arguments that workplace ostracism was positively related to facades of conformity. The relationship between workplace ostracism and facades of conformity was stronger when employees had high levels of collectivism values. When supervisors themselves also hold high levels of collectivism values, the employees’ facades of conformity are positively related to the supervisors’ evaluations of job performance. Moreover, workplace ostracism has a conditional, positive indirect effect on supervisor evaluations of employee performance via employee facades of conformity, such that the indirect effect is positive only when both the employees’ and supervisors’ collectivism values are high. With these findings, we make several contributions to the literature and management practice. First, we offered a new explanatory mechanism for understanding the complex relationship between workplace ostracism and employee performance from a self-presentational perspective by examining the mediating role of creating facades of conformity. Second, our findings on the moderating effect of employees’ collectivism values provide explanations for the differential reaction to negative workplace experiences such as workplace ostracism. Third, by exploring the contingent role of leaders’ collectivism values, our study is among the earliest attempts to consider the role of bystanders in the ostracism process. Finally, we enrich the research field of conformity by examining new criteria, thereby providing a response to the call for investigating the antecedents and consequences of facades of conformity.