Chapter 7: Social Networks, Groups, and Social Exclusion: Combining Sociometric and Psychometric Approaches to Understanding Social Exclusion in Organizational Settings

We examine the phenomenon of interpersonal workplace exclusion (IWE) using both a sociometric and a psychometric approach. In our definition, IWE occurs when an employee is ignored, excluded by or intentionally kept apart from other individuals or groups of individuals in the workplace and/ or at work-related events. We find that being the target of IWE from one’s ingroup coworkers is negatively related to satisfaction with social rewards as well as perceived coworker trustworthiness. These relationships do not exist, however, when the source of IWE is from one’s out-group coworkers. In addition, we examine the interaction between perceived IWE and actual levels of IWE. We find that the level of actual workplace exclusion moderates the relationship between an individual’s perceived social exclusion and their supervisor’s ratings of the individual’s social undermining of others. Similarly, we find that the level of actual workplace exclusion moderates the relationship between an individual’s perceived social exclusion and their supervisor’s ratings of the individual’s organizational citizenship behavior. Finally, we introduce and discuss the validation of two scales for the measurement of IWE. The first scale measures coworker IWE, while the second scale measures supervisor IWE.