Seeing Green: Exploring Envy in

Leader-Member Relationships

Taylor K. Odle (Vanderbilt U.)

Timothy P. Munyon, Ph.D. (U. of Tennessee-Knoxville)

Risks and Benefits of Workplace Affect

Leader-Member Exchange

• There is arguably no more important relationship for employees than their relationship with an immediate supervisor (Graen, 1976; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995)

• LMX is distinguished from other leadership theories because of its dyadic orientation

• Social Identity Theory (Blau, 1964)

• Relationships: High- and Low-Quality • In- and Out-Group Memberships

• Predictive of individual, group, and organizational outcomes

• Group memberships form quickly, relatively enduring

Performance

• Followers within high-quality leader-member exchange relationships are nourished by mutual trust, respect, and obligation (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) • As a result of the typically extraordinary contributions

to the organization by high-quality followers, many receive special privileges, workplace opportunities, and increased levels of job discretion from their supervisors (Wang et al., 2005)

• Employees value this personal relationship and feel the need to reciprocate this workplace exchange (Kamdar & Van Dyne, 2007) • Increased task performance serves a mode of

currency to fulfill these obligations

Relational Envy

• “Pain at another’s good fortune” (Tai,

Narayanan, & McAllister, 2012)

• Unfavorable social comparisons serve as

the foundation of envy’s development

(Gilbert, Giesler, & Morris, 1995)

• Differentiation in LMX quality

• Debate on the positive and negative

outcomes of envy in the workplace

Relational Instrumentality of

Performance • Relationship instrumentality reflects the gains

each partner receives from participation in the relationship itself (Ferris et al., 2009)

• Relationships represent goals in and of themselves, and behaviors that facilitate relationships can be viewed as instrumental • Some relationships may be more instrumental than

others

• To some subordinates, performance may be the key to developing or maintaining a high-quality supervisor relationship • Lack of performance could predict the onset of envy

emotions

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: Relational instrumentality of performance beliefs moderate the relationship between leader task-performance evaluations and member reports of leader-member exchange (LMX), such that LMX is highest when performance is high and instrumentality beliefs are low, and lowest when performance is low and instrumentality beliefs are high.

Hypothesis 2: Leader-member exchange is negatively associated with relational envy.

Hypothesis 3: Relational instrumentality of performance beliefs moderate the indirect relationship of leader-member exchange (LMX) in the task performance evaluation – envy emotion relationship, such that LMX mediates the relationship between task performance evaluations and envy emotions when performance relational instrumentality beliefs are low.

Task Performance Relational Envy Leader-Member

Exchange

Relationship Performance

Instrumentality Beliefs

Theoretical Model

Methods

• Participants and Procedure

• Cross-sectional, online survey

• 112 supervisor-subordinate dyads

• Analyses

• Hierarchical multivariate regression (H1)

• Correlation (H2)

• Estimation of Conditional, Indirect Effects (H3) • Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes (2007)

• PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2013)

Moderated Regression Predicting

Leader-Member Exchange Predictor β t p

Controls Subordinate Sex -.03 -.28 .78

Supervisor Sex .13 1.64 .11

Subordinate Age .08 .88 .38

Supervisor Age .14 1.69 .09

Subordinate Ethnicity -.03 -.35 .73

Supervisor Ethnicity .06 .81 .42

Subordinate Positive Affect .08 .77 .44

Supervisor Positive Affect .04 .44 .66

Supervisor Negative Affect .01 -.18 .86

Subordinate Affect -.11 -1.13 .26

Communication Frequency .05 .56 .58

Work Relationship Tenure -.02 -.25 .80

Subordinate Turnover Intentions -.05 -.53 .60

Main Effects Rating of Subordinate Task Performance .84 2.89 .00

Performance Relationship Instrumentality 1.05 3.68 .00

Interaction Task Performance Rating X Instrumentality Beliefs -.94 -2.12 .04

R2 in Leader-Member Exchange 51%

Moderating Role of Performance Relational

Instrumentality Beliefs on the Indirect Effect of Leader-

Member Exchange between Task Performance

Evaluations and Relational Envy

Moderator: Performance Relational Instrumentality Beliefs

Level Indirect Effect Bootstrap SE 95% CILL 95% CIUL

LMX (10th Moderator Percentile) -.05 .04 -.17 -0.01

LMX (25th Moderator Percentile) -.04 .03 -.13 .00

LMX (50th Moderator Percentile) -.03 .03 -.11 .00

LMX (75th Moderator Percentile) -.02 .03 -.09 .01

LMX (90th Moderator Percentile) -.01 .03 -.09 .03

Total Model R2 in Relational Envy 42%

SE = Standard Error; CILB = Confidence Interval Lower Limit; CIUL = Confidence Interval Upper Limit

Implications • Complex relationship between performance evaluations,

relational performance instrumentality beliefs, leader-

member exchange (LMX), and relational envy emotions

• Supervisor evaluations of task performance influence

subordinate assessments of LMX when subordinates

believe that performance has relational instrumentality

• Resultant levels of LMX then predict relational envy emotions in

subordinates

• Beliefs concerning the relational instrumentality of

performance are a critical boundary condition regarding

whether or not employees experience relational envy

emotions within a leader-member context

• Important extensions of literature for future empiric work

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?

Taylor K. Odle (Vanderbilt U.)

taylor.k.odle@vanderbilt.edu

@tkodle

Timothy P. Munyon, Ph.D. (U. of Tennessee-Knoxville)

tmunyon@utk.edu

@TimMunyon

#AOM2015

OB: “Risks and Benefits of Workplace Affect”

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1. Subordinate Sex 1.62 .49 1

2. Supervisor Sex 1.42 .50 .24* 1

3. Subordinate Age 44.87 12.90 -.14** -.30** 1

4. Supervisor Age 51.74 9.08 .10 -.05 .28** 1

5. Subordinate Ethnicity 1.26 .81 .12** .17 -.13* .00 1

6. Supervisor Ethnicity 1.1 .53 .11 -.07 -.05 -.03 -.06 1

7. Subordinate Positive Affect 4.1 .53 .03 -.14 .17** .25** .08 -.03 .82

8. Supervisor Positive Affect 4.09 .39 .17 .03 .16 .16 -.15 .05 .13 .73

9. Subordinate Negative Affect 1.87 .59 -.04 .09 -.18** -.30** .00 -.04 -.33** -.17 .82

10. Supervisor Negative Affect 1.95 .40 -.09 -.09 -.01 -.13 0.00 .03 -.14 -.31** .07 .75

11. Communication Frequency 6.2 1.24 .41** .22* -.09 -.08 .09 .00 -.05 .00 .00 -.07 1

12. Work Relationship Tenure 3.8 4.30 .04 -.12 .19* .26** -.09 -.07 .07 -.01 -.06 -.07 .12 1

13. Subordinate Turnover Intentions 2.01 1.06 -.03 .04 -.25** -.11 .12** -.02 -.32** .21* .40** .06 -.08 -.05 .91

14. Rating of Subordinate Task Performance 6.45 1.20 .09 -.19* -.01 -.05 -.03 .08 .17 .14 -.05 -.05 .01 .07 -.20* .98

15. Performance Relationship Instrumentality 3.74 .67 -.04 -.05 .09 .10 -.08 -.04 .22** .05 -.19** -.11 .02 .08 -.32** .18 .82

16. Leader-Member Exchange 4.07 .79 -.02 .00 .10* .23* -.10* .05 .29** .16 -.38** -.06 .03 .11 -.43** .32** .56** .92

17. Relationship Envy 1.67 .75 .00 .16 -.19** -.18 .08 -.12 -.23** -.16 .37** .04 .11 .01 .38** -.23* -.29** -.53** .92

n = 113 for supervisors, 518 for subordinates; * Correlation is significant at the p < 0.05 level (2-tailed); ** Correlation is significant at the p< 0.01 level (2-tailed); Internal consistency estimates are presented on the diagonal where appropriate.

Descriptive Statistics, Inter-Item

Correlations, and Reliability Estimates

LMX and Relational Envy: r = -.53, p < .01