Muhammad Kashif Imran

Purpose: Based on the theory of displaced aggression (DA) and the trickle effects model, the current research aims to test the trickle impacts of perceived dehumanization by supervisors. Specifically, we claim that supervisors who experienced dehumanization displace aggression towards subordinates; in turn, subordinates will show their anger towards customers, co-workers and family members. Design/methodology/approach: Time-lagged and multi-source data were collected from 290 employees working in the clothing and banking sectors of the Gujrat and Gujranwala cities of Punjab, Pakistan. The obtained data were analyzed using the PROCESS model 4. Findings: The trickle-down impacts suggested that the supervisors DA towards the subordinates after being dehumanized. The trickle-out and around implications show that the subordinates direct this experienced anger to their coworkers (trickle-around), family and customers (trickle-out), perpetuating the spiral effects of organizational dehumanization (OD) faced by their supervisor. Originality/value: This is one of the first investigations to examine the trickle-down, trickle-out and trickle-around impacts of supervisors' perceived OD.

Purpose: The educational literature is always hot on how to make a happy teacher and its influence on students. However, the mechanism of the impacts of decent work remains to be studied. To fulfill this gap, this research investigates the relation of teachers’ decent work behavior with students’ emotional support and satisfaction by mediators such as teachers’ organizational dehumanization, teachers’ anger and teachers’ undermining behavior. Design/methodology/approach: About 180 responses were gathered in a four-wave design from the teachers and students of universities that were present in Punjab, Pakistan. The serial mediation was tested by using SPSS software (Preacher and Hayes’ PROCESS MACRO technique). Findings: The results found that decent work behavior of teachers decreased their organizational dehumanization perception. Organizational dehumanization, anger and undermining behavior acted as mediators among decent work behavior, students’ emotional support and satisfaction. Practical implications: This research is useful for policymakers, managers and educators because it suggests that decent work behavior can reduce dehumanization, anger and undermining behavior of employees. Further, managers can understand that dehumanization can directly and indirectly impact the employees; however, it can be handled by decent work, giving organizational justice, personal growth and training opportunities so that employees feel themselves valuable and important to an organization. Originality/value: This is the first study to test the impact of decent work behavior in reducing organizational dehumanization, anger and undermining behavior among teachers while improving emotional support and satisfaction of students in the higher education sector of a developing country.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to test the precursors of presenteeism. The research has examined the relationship between workplace bullying and presenteeism via depression and anxiety. Furthermore, moderating the role of toxic leadership is also investigated which may strengthen or weaken workplace bullying and mental health relationships. Design/methodology/approach: The mediations and moderation models were tested in SPSS software through the Preacher and Hayes PROCESS macro technique. Data was gathered from 165 employees, working in public and private universities of Pakistan. Findings: The results supported that depression and anxiety act as mediators in the relationship between bullying and presenteeism. Further, toxic leadership moderated the relationship between bullying and depression, bullying and anxiety. Originality/value: As per the author’s knowledge, rare studies have determined that bullying can increase mental health issues and presenteeism in employees. Bullying and toxic leadership together increase the loss of psychological resources that force employees to work while feeling sick.

Purpose: Based on the cognitive perspective of self-regulation theory and role balance theory, this study examines the moderating effects of self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion on the indirect path between impaired work–life balance and job performance through psychological depletion. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptualized model was tested through a four-wave dyad data obtained from the employees and their supervisors of services sector organizations selected through stratified random sampling. Findings: The results specify that psychological depletion partially mediates between impaired work–life balance and job performance. Further, self-efficacy acts as a buffering function to reduce the harmful effects of adverse impaired work–life balance on psychological depletion and emotional exhaustion provokes the injurious effects of psychological depletion on job performance. Research limitations/implications: This research provides important theoretical implications for work–life balance and psychological domains with boundary-spanning roles of self-regulatory measures. Originality/value: This research is a unique attempt to link the self-regulatory perspective with role balance theory to understand and buffer the issues of impaired work–life balance.

Purpose: Based on the conservation of resources and emotional regulation theories, this research seeks to examine the relationship between social rejection and work-deviant behavior with a moderated mediation effect of emotional tolerance and psychological trauma.Design/methodology/approach: A three-wave multi-sourced (dyad) data were collected from the professionals and respective supervisors of state-managed services sector organizations operating in Pakistan (n1 = 252, n2 = 126) selected through snowball sampling technique.Findings: The results reflected that socially excluded employees indulge in work-deviant behaviors and psychological trauma perform a partial transmitting link. Further, an ability to be emotionally tolerant buffers the detrimental aspects effects of social rejection on psychological trauma but might not be an effective tool while one moves to the trauma stage. Further, the conditional effect confirms that a high level of emotional tolerance weakens the moderated mediation relationship between social rejection and work-deviant behavior via psychological trauma.Practical implications: The present study provides guidelines to carefully identify and tackle the incidences of social rejection in the workplace and develop tolerance capabilities of employees to tackle the trauma and reduce work deviance.Originality/value: This is a novel attempt to link the emotional regulation theory with the conservation of resources theory in order to minimize the deviance-related issues provoked by social rejection by introducing emotional tolerance as a coping mechanism which was paid less attention in the contemporary literature.

Purpose: Despite noted instances of organizational cronyism in public sector Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), there is a lack of empirical evidence on its detrimental outcomes. The present investigation tested the impact of organizational cronyism on knowledge hiding via the mediating role of moral disengagement and moderating role of egoistic climate.Design/methodology/approach: A multi-stage random sample was drawn from the 312 teaching faculty working in HEIs of Lahore, Pakistan in three waves. M-plus was used to validate a longitudinal moderated mediation model based on Structural Equation Modeling.Findings: The results showed that organizational cronyism leads to knowledge hiding. In addition, it was substantiated that moral disengagement acts as a mediator in the relationship between organizational cronyism and knowledge hiding. The strengthening impact of an egoistic climate was found in the direct and indirect association between organizational cronyism, moral disengagement, and knowledge hiding.Originality/value: There is a dearth of research on the consequences of organizational cronyism and the understanding of the factors that underlie this association is limited. This research has bridged this gap by investigating the role of moral disengagement and egoistic climate in linking organizational cronyism and knowledge-hiding by building on social exchange and social cognitive theory.

In a dynamic and competitive world, organizations need healthy interpersonal relationships in the workplace to achieve success. Within the interpersonal relationship domain, the supervisor–employee bond is the most important that determines the fate of employee performance. Drawing on the conservation of resources and self-control theory, this empirical inquiry investigates the buffering effects of self-control on the relationship between abusive supervision and employee performance through the mediating effects of defensive silence and constructive voice behaviours. The data were collected from a sample of 293 respondents from the services sector organizations functioning in the southern Punjab region of Pakistan and were analyzed by deploying partial least squares structural equation modelling technique. The results revealed that abusive supervision has negative effects on employee performance with partial mediation of defensive silence and constructive voice behaviours. This research adds to the existing literature in organizational behaviour and psychology by introducing moderated mediation of self-control perspective between the relationship between abusive supervision and employee performance through silence and voice behaviours. Further, this study provides guidelines to practitioners on how to reduce the injurious effects of abusive supervision on employee performance.

Purpose: The combination of action and process has remained the attention of the psychology of entrepreneurship research. Moreover, special attention has also been paid to the whens and hows of entrepreneurial psychological training. Keeping this in view the current study has tested the impact of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) training on small business entrepreneurial career resilience. Using action regulation theory (ART), a serial mediation model of IEO behaviour and entrepreneurial career adaptability is hypothesised.Design/methodology/approach: This study used a longitudinal randomised controlled field experiment in which the data were collected at four points. A total of 546 small business owners from Lahore, Pakistan, participated in this research (training group = 265, control group = 281). The data were analysed using ANCOVAs and PROCESS Model 6.Findings: The research has found that IEO training impacts the entrepreneurial career resilience of small business owners through the development of IEO behaviour and career adaptability.Originality/value: This experimental inquiry is a novel attempt to extend the career-related outcomes of IEO training (career resilience) based on ART through the mediating role of IEO behaviour and career adaptability. In addition, it has tested the IEO training in the developing country of Pakistan, which is a relevant context for enhancing its socio-economic growth.

Purpose: Based on action regulation theory (ART), this study aims to test the impact of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) training on small business owner career success (financial attainment, satisfaction and achievement). Moreover, this relationship was unpacked through a dual mediation model of IEO behaviour and career resilience.Design/methodology/approach: A four-wave, longitudinal randomized controlled field experiment was conducted in which 527 small business owners participated from Lahore, Pakistan (training group = 256, control group = 271). The data analysis was done via ANCOVAs (group comparison) and PROCESS Model 6 (for serial mediation).Findings: The results demonstrated that after getting IEO training, the small business owners had increased IEO behaviour, career resilience and career success as compared to their counterparts in the control group. In addition, the effect of IEO training on career success was attributed to the underlying role of IEO behaviour and career resilience development.Originality/value: This is one of the few studies that have demonstrated the impact of IEO training on the career-related outcomes based on the action regulation perspective.

Purpose: The present research aims to empirically test the “Barriers to abusive supervision model” to find how employee-related (core self-evaluations) and situational factors (perceived job dependency) make an employee trapped in the spiral of supervisory abuse. In addition, the work–family spillover lens is used to explain how employees' retaliation is targeted at their families in response to abuse from their bosses.Design/methodology/approach: The current study has employed a three-wave longitudinal moderated mediation design and analysed data from 265 employees working in the hospitality industry of Pakistan.Findings: The results of this study have shown that low core-self evaluations put employees in a spiral of supervisory abuse and they instil aggression towards their families. This association is further strengthened when employees are dependent on their job.Originality/value: This study is one of the first to use the “Barriers to Abusive supervision” model to answer who and in which conditions tend to trap in the spiral of abuse and integrate the work-to-family interface model for elaborating the outcomes to the family domain.