Why Leader’s Trust Hurt the Relationship between Peers? Feeling Trusted and Workplace Ostracism: A Social Comparison Perspective

Abstract

Abstract: Feeling trusted is a crucial part of trust research. Previous researches on the consequences of feeling trusted have largely developed along two paths: the first has examined the impact of feeling trusted on employees, and the second has examined the impact of feeling trusted on the relationships between employees and their leaders. However, there is no current research exploring the potential impact feeling trusted on the relationships between employees and their peers. To fill this gap, drawing on social comparison theory, we conduct an experiment and a multi-source field study to explore the effect of employees feeling trusted by supervisors on being envied by peers, which in turn influences employees workplace ostracism. Furthermore, we examine the moderating effect of perceived intraorganizational competition on the relationship between feeling trusted on being envied. We find that perceived intraorganizational competition moderates the indirect effect of feeling trusted on workplace ostracism via being envied, such that the indirect effect will be stronger and positive when perceived intraorganizational competition is high and will be weaker when perceived intraorganizational competition is low.

Key words: feeling trusted, social comparison theory, perceived intraorganizational competition, being envied, workplace ostracism

Lu Hailing, Zhang Xin, Duan Guang, Wang Yongli, Yang Yang, Liu Dege, Lv Haoran. Why Leader’s Trust Hurt the Relationship between Peers? Feeling Trusted and Workplace Ostracism: A Social Comparison Perspective[J]. Management Review, 2025, 37(1): 166-176.

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