This study aims to understand how loneliness at work affects employees' task performance and their involvement with their jobs. Since supervisors often play a central role in shaping employees' experiences, the study also looks at the effect of having shared values with one's supervisor on the proposed relationships at low levels of value congruence. By doing so, the study goes beyond the usual focus on peer relationships and brings attention to the importance of supervisor–employee value alignment in creating a sense of belonging at work.
Employing a quantitative design using PROCESS MACRO, the theoretical model was tested using data collected from 500 mid-level IT managers in two phases.
The results revealed that workplace loneliness significantly undermines both task performance and job involvement among employees. Importantly, the analysis showed that person–supervisor value congruence moderated these relationships. When value congruence was low, the detrimental effects of loneliness were amplified, indicating that a lack of alignment with supervisors makes employees more vulnerable to the emotional costs of loneliness at work.
The findings provide an early and novice perspective on loneliness beyond peer-to-peer relationship quality and reflect on the significance of value congruence with their supervisors. Moreover, the proposed model empirically establishes that lonely employees indulge more in negative information than positive by establishing that while positive value congruence does not affect any outcome, missing value congruence worsens the job outcomes.
