Purpose This study aims to examine how toxic leadership and interpersonal conflict are associated with knowledge hiding through psychological entrapment among creative industry MSME employees and investigates financial vulnerability as an intensifier of entrapment and kinship employee engagement (KEE) as a culturally embedded factor that may weaken knowledge hiding. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 317 employees of creative MSMEs in Lampung, Indonesia, using purposive sampling. Hypotheses were tested with covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). Findings Toxic leadership and interpersonal conflict are positively associated with psychological entrapment, which in turn is positively associated with knowledge hiding. Mediation occurs for toxic leadership but not for interpersonal conflict. Financial vulnerability strengthens the positive associations of both predictors with entrapment, while KEE weakens the positive association between entrapment and knowledge hiding. Research limitations/implications Several limitations should be considered when interpreting these findings. First, the cross-sectional design limits firm conclusions about causality. Future studies using longitudinal or diary methods could better reveal how psychological entrapment forms and changes over time within MSMEs. Second, the use of self-reported data may introduce perceptual bias. However, the presence of interaction effects, which are generally less sensitive to such bias, reduces this concern to some extent. Practical implications MSME owners and managers should reduce dominating leadership practices, manage interpersonal tensions and enhance employee security. Strengthening kinship-based engagement is a culturally aligned strategy to maintain cooperative knowledge exchange. Social implications By showing how economic vulnerability and relational climate shape defensive behaviors, this study supports the development of healthier work communities where solidarity and mutual care discourage knowledge withholding Originality/value This study examines psychological entrapment as a potential mechanism linking relational adversity to knowledge hiding in MSMEs, while integrating financial vulnerability and KEE as contextual moderators.
Purpose This study aims to advance understanding of how low-intensity interpersonal conflict in the form of workplace incivility influences service delivery among frontline hotel employees (FHEs). Anchoring on Affective Events Theory, the study examines emotional irritation as a central emotional response through which uncivil interactions impair service delivery. Recognising that employees differ in how they experience and manage workplace events, the study further investigates psychological resilience as an individual coping resource and workplace friendship as a situational resource that may attenuate the emotional consequences of workplace incivility. Design/methodology/approach To test the hypotheses, 410 data points were collected from FHEs across different locations in India. The study used a multi-phase data-collection method to gather responses. During data analysis, the measurement model was validated, and Process Macros were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The analysis established an inverse link between workplace incivility and service delivery and a positive association between workplace incivility and emotional irritation. A negative relationship between emotional irritation and service delivery was also established. In addition, the study established the role of emotional irritation as a mediator, and that of psychological resilience and workplace friendship as moderators. Practical implications As the Indian hotel sector is characterised by excessive workplace incivility, the study’s findings provide valuable insights for practitioners on the deleterious effects of this incivility on employees’ service delivery. Additionally, the mediating role of emotional irritation and the moderating roles of psychological resilience and workplace friendship established in the study have vital scholarly and managerial implications. The study directs practitioners to use interventions to enhance employees’ psychological resilience and nurture workplace friendships to reduce the deleterious effects of workplace incivility. Originality/value Scholarly pursuits to understand the associations between workplace incivility, emotional irritation and service delivery of FHEs are scarce. To the best of the authors’ understanding, no prior studies have examined emotional irritation as a mediator and psychological resilience and workplace friendship as moderators in the relationship between workplace incivility and its outcomes.
Purpose - Renqing, which refers to complex social ties marked by the reciprocal exchange of favors, including money, goods, services or knowledge has gained immense relevance in the Chinese context. Despite the significant traction, the effect of workplace incivility on employee renqing behavior among academicians has been underexplored. With this background, the purpose of the paper was to conduct an exploratory, sequential mixed method study. Study 1 comprised of thirteen semi-structured interviews to explore the constraints and enablers of employee renqing behavior. Using the findings of qualitative study and drawing on affective events theory and social exchange theory, the authors developed and tested a model. Study 2 examined the mediating effect of spitefulness on the relationship between workplace incivility and employees' renqing behavior among academicians. It also assesses the moderating effects of camaraderie. Design/methodology/approach - Study 1 was carried out using data collected from 13 academicians. In study 2, data was gathered from 280 academicians and was analyzed using SPSS, AMOS and PROCESS macros. Findings - Study 1 revealed that spitefulness is a constraint to renqing behavior whereas employee camaraderie enhances renqing behavior. Study 2 found out that workplace incivility impacts the renqing behavior of employees directly and through spitefulness. The relationship between workplace incivility and spitefulness was found to be moderated by employee camaraderie. The research concluded that when employees had the highest level of camaraderie, the indirect influence of workplace incivility on their renqing behavior via spitefulness was lessened. Originality/value - This study offers a novel contribution by extending the culturally embedded construct of renqing to the underexplored setting of Indian academicians using a mixed method design. By integrating workplace incivility, spitefulness and camaraderie into this framework, the study presents an original mechanism explaining how incivility undermines renqing in a hierarchical Indian academic environment, making this study novel.
Purpose- This study aims to examine how work-family conflict is associated with psychological well-being through workplace mindfulness and burnout, and whether segmentation preference conditions these relationships. Design/methodology/approach- Data were collected from 700 full-time employees in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, using a cross-sectional survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied to test the higher-order psychological well-being construct, indirect associations and moderating effects. Findings- Work-family conflict was negatively associated with workplace mindfulness and positively associated with burnout. Workplace mindfulness was positively associated with psychological well-being, whereas burnout was negatively associated with it. The direct association between work-family conflict and psychological well-being was not significant, but both indirect associations were significant. Segmentation preference did not moderate the mindfulness-psychological well-being relationship, but it strengthened the negative associations of work-family conflict and burnout with psychological well-being. Originality/value- This study extends work-family research by examining eudaimonic psychological well-being, distinguishing attentional and depletion-related pathways and identifying segmentation preference as a selective vulnerability condition. Because the data are cross-sectional, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.
Purpose-This study aims to investigate whether hostile work climates give rise to sensitizing or desensitizing processes in relation to workplace bullying, and whether exposure to bullying behaviours in such climates amplifies or attenuates subsequent mental health problems. Furthermore, the study examines the role of victimization in explaining how exposure to bullying behaviours translates into mental health outcomes. Design/methodology/approach-The study was based on a prospective two-wave survey of a national probability sample of Swedish employees with a seven-month interval between measurements (n = 2,024). Findings-The results provided clear evidence of desensitization in hostile work climates, with exposure to bullying behaviours associated with attenuated rather than amplified mental health problems. Victimization played a central role in explaining the association between exposure and subsequent mental health problems, and in highly hostile climates the effect was fully mediated by victimization. In less hostile climates, however, partial mediation was observed. Hostile work climates thus appear to foster normalization processes that raise the threshold for self-labelling as bullied, attenuating short-term consequences but risking delayed recognition and more severe long-term outcomes. Originality/value-Taken together, these findings provide new knowledge on the mechanisms linking exposure and health, offer a better understanding of how bullying operates in different work environments, and point to the need to address both workplace climate and individual perceptions in future research and interventions.
