The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business

Korea Distribution Science Association (한국유통과학회)
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Impact of Workplace Ostracism on Turnover Intention: An Empirical Study from Pakistan

  • FARASAT, Mobina (Department of Management Sciences, Lahore College for Women University) ;
  • AFZAL, Urooj (Lahore College for Women University) ;
  • JABEEN, Shaista (Department of Management Sciences, Lahore College for Women University) ;
  • FARHAN, Muhammad (Department of Management Sciences, National University of Modern Languages (NUML)) ;
  • SATTAR, Ammara (Government Graduate College Sabzazar)
  • Received : 2021.07.15
  • Accepted : 2021.10.16
  • Published : 2021.11.30
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Abstract

The current research aims to examine how workplace ostracism influences employee turnover-oriented intention and investigates the mediating role of job burnout in the workplace ostracism - turnover relationship. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, we hypothesize that higher levels of workplace ostracism develop employee turnover through job burnout. Precisely, we predict that workplace ostracism is positively associated with turnover intention, both directly and indirectly via job burnout. To test our theoretical model, we collected field data from 311 banking employees in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling is used to test the relationship between workplace ostracism and employee turnover intention. The empirical findings reveal that workplace ostracism is positively associated with turnover intention. Furthermore, the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention is mediated by job burnout. By using job burnout as a mediator, the present study sheds light on "why" workplace ostracism is related to employee turnover intention. In doing so, the present research provides a comprehensive understanding of the negative effects of ostracism on the workplace. This has subsequently provided practitioners with new insight into how to reduce employee turnover in organizations. We conclude by discussing the future directions and practical implications of our study.

Keywords

1. Introduction

Professional and personal life are two vital elements of human functioning (Hoang et al., 2020). The human need for belongingness can be fulfilled when other people accept a person’s presence in their groups and relationship but may remain unfulfilled when a person feels rejected (DeWall & Bushman, 2011). The fear of being rejected by others is deeply rooted in individuals, which has spurred an interest in organizational researchers to study the effects of social exclusion, also known as workplace ostracism, on work-related outcomes. Workplace ostracism, defined as “the extent to which an individual perceives that he or she is ignored or excluded at work” (Ferris et al., 2008; p. 1348), is prevalent in the workplace (Lyu & Zhu, 2019). Ostracism involves unethical encounters and aversive experiences, severely impacting an employee’s psychological well-being and behavior. Extant research indicates that workplace ostracism might lead to more counterproductive work behavior (Peng & Zeng, 2017; Yang & Treadway, 2016), higher emotional exhaustion (Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2018; Jiang et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2012), lower levels of self-control (Yan et al., 2014), low job performance (Clercq et al., 2019) and reduced engagement in citizenship behaviors (Wu et al., 2016).

To date, organizational researchers have made significant strides towards understanding the negative consequences of workplace ostracism (e.g., Peng, & Zeng, 2017; Wu et al., 2012), but much remains to be understood. Specifically, current research offers little insight into why workplace ostracism may lead to employee turnover intention. Turnover intention refers to employee willingness “to leave an organization deliberately” (Tett & Meyer, 1993, p. 265). In a meta-analysis study, Howard et al. (2020) demonstrated a positive relationship between workplace ostracism and employee turnover intentions. However, an important question remains about the underlying theoretical mechanism that links workplace ostracism to turnover intention.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory (COR), this study proposes burnout as a mechanism through which workplace ostracism increases employees’ turnover intention. COR theory stresses that people are motivated to preserve their valuable recourse and acquire new resources to meet personal and professional objectives (Hobfoll, 1989). Accordingly, we argue that employees experiencing ostracism feel emotionally disconnected because they fail to build meaningful relationships with coworkers. Consequently, such employees may feel emotional distress and psychological strain; both are significant reasons for burnout (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Further, we stressed that high levels of burnout increase turnover intention. Prior empirical studies have provided evidence that employee burnout increases employee turnover (Chiang & Jang, 2008; Kim & Stoner, 2008). Hence, the main objectives are to examine (a) the relationship between workplace ostracism and employee turnover and (b) the mediating role of burnout in the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention.

In addressing these objectives, the present study makes significant theoretical contributions. First, by theorizing and testing a model that demonstrates that workplace ostracism is positively related to turnover intention, this study responds to scholars’ call for more research to explicate the effects of ostracism on attitudinal outcomes (Balliet and Ferris, 2013; Lyu & Zhu, 2019; Zhao et al., 2013). Moreover, by investigating the mediating role of job burnout in the workplace ostracism-turnover intention relationship, our study unraveled the process through which workplace ostracism exerts effects on employees’ intention to leave. Finally, our findings provide empirical evidence suggesting that social exclusion at work drains employees’ physical and mental resources, influencing whether to remain in the organization. In doing so, we expect that this study will help practitioners manage, protect, and handle ostracism within the organization. Moreover, this research’s findings would help policymakers develop strategies and programs to overcome the turnover problem.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Workplace Ostracism

The organizations have to address diverse problems to avoid unfavorable circumstances such as workplace incivility (Liu et al., 2019), workplace bullying (Magee et al., 2017), and workplace ostracism (Ferries et al., 2008) that affect the overall organizations. Out of these issues, ostracism has gained considerable attention as it harms individual and overall organizational performance. Athenians had used the word ‘Ostracism’ to ostracize someone for ten years; in 500 B.C, however, it was considered an administrative issue. It got massive attention when Ferris et al. (2008) correctly presented the conception of workplace ostracism, and he also developed the tool for it.

Ostracism is a common experience of individuals. In various cases, people avoid others as they have less spare time to unintentionally ignore individuals and their responses. So, individuals may not be intentionally involved in ostracism as sometimes they do not know that they are engaged in behavior that leads to social ignorance of ignoring others (Sommer et al., 2001). This is one of the most occurring types of ostracism in which an individual is not conscious of his acts (Robinson et al., 2013). Like, one can mistakenly forget to include someone’s email address while sending any group mail. According to Williams (1997), this kind of ostracism sometimes creates ambiguity in individuals’ minds to target ostracism or a mistake. On the other hand, purposively ostracisms occur when a person intentionally hurts others and excludes them socially.

Workplace ostracism can lead to various negative consequences. Ostracized employees’ have a higher level of loneliness and depression than other people (Heaphy & Dutton, 2008; Jiang & Chen 2020). Ostracism might also lead to counterproductive work behaviors (Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2018; Yang and Treadway, 2016); Ostracism can be considered as an occurrence over a wide range of social settings and negatively impacts employee attitudes and behaviors (Ferris et al., 2008; Kwan et al., 2018; Lyu & Zhu, 2019) and commonly occurs in social settings (Robinson et al., 2013). Organizational members who are ostracized might show a negative impact on physical health (Heaphy & Dutton, 2008), weak psychological well-being (Wu et al., 2012), bad job attitudes (Richman & Leary, 2009), conflicts in work-family settings (Hitlan et al., 2006) and job performance (Cropanzano et al., 2003).

2.2. Job Burnout

Burnout may be a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged and unnecessary stress. Burnout happens when employees feel swamped and incompetent to satisfy continual demands. Burnout reduces productivity while enhances, the offended, pessimistic, helpless, and desperate feeling among the employees. Employees, who face burnout, cut off their social relationships to handle the work effectively and efficiently. Thus, burnout reduces the sense of psychological and physical well- being. Initially, burnout comes out as a social problem, not research constructs (Maslach & Scheafeli, 1993). Later on, the first measure constructed to measure burnout was Maslachbureau Inventory (MBI). MBI defined burnout as three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (cynical), and lack of personal accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).

Emotional exhaustion is an essential dimension of burnout (Leiter & Maslach, 1998). Emotional exhaustion refers to showing emotions that have been exhausted and overextended of resources and perceived as a stress element (Maslach et al., 2001). Emotional exhaustion features are tiredness, loss of energy, debilitation, and wearing out (Bakker et al., 2004). When employees face social stressors like relationship conflict, they may suffer some exhaustion. In addition, exhausted employees realize cognitive tiredness and face difficulties related to the failure in task performance, perception, and memory retention associated with bad job performance.

Depersonalization (cynical) is termed as the “other- evaluation component.” It is explained as cynicism, irritability, loss of optimism, and inappropriate behaviors toward the beneficiary. It refers to a negative, insensitive, or excessively secluded response to other people (Schaufeli & Salanova, 2014). Exhaustion indicates a lack of ability to use efforts, while cynicism indicates a disinclination to use efforts for the task that has lost its significance (Schaufeli, 2003). Withdrawal and demotivation from work are characteristics of cynicism. Cynicism “indicates a vigorous and wide reaction of emotional, cognitive and behavioral abandonment of the work” (Bakker et al., 2004). Reduced personal accomplishment is the “self-evaluation component” associated with reduced professional efficiency, inability, and low morale to deal with rising job demands and diminishes achievement and competence at work.

2.3. Turnover Intention

Turnover has been taken as an effective human resource management indicator concerning the high recruiting cost (Pham et al., 2021). Turnover intention is defined as “an employee will change their job within a specific time” (Sousa-Poza & Henneberger, 2004) and is a direct sign of turnover. The turnover intention is one of the most considered variables because these intentions cause lesser productivity due to a decline in skilled labor, loss of experienced employees, and organizational investment (Shaw et al., 2005). It has been explained that turnover intention prevails in the roots of an organization and is quite difficult to detect (Aryani et al., 2021). Employee turnover can be divided into voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary turnover occurs when an employee intends to quit the organization for a variety of reasons. For example, employees are likely to accept a job with the best physical or mental health experience compared to other companies. As mentioned above, this is a type of concern for managers and can negatively influence the organization. Alternatively, an individual may request to leave the organization for various reasons, including dismissals, low job performance, or other performance that harms the company. Many scholars have determined a consistent and robust relationship between the intention of leaving and the voluntary departure (Wright & Bonett, 2007).

3. Theoretical Framework

3.1. Workplace Ostracism and Turnover Intention

Workplace ostracism can affect the psychological and physical well-being of employees (Heaphy & Dutton, 2008). Ostracism involves painful and unfavorable experiences; such experiences likely arouse negative feelings and emotions such as anger, sadness, and anxiety (Wu et al., 2012). Some possible outcomes that can be observed in a work environment where ostracism is common are higher turnover intentions (Ferris et al., 2008; Lyu & Zhu, 2019). Employee turnover indicates employees voluntarily quitting an organization (Shaw et al., 2005). An individual’s choice to leave an organization is expensive for both the organization and individual (Lee et al., 2004; Park & Min, 2020). Individuals who experience ostracism in the workplace usually do not like to reconnect with those who rejected them and tend to escape from the situation in which exclusion occurs (Maner et al., 2007; DeWall & Richman, 2011; Singh & Srivastava, 2021). However, if their efforts to reestablish social relations with their colleagues fail, they may form intentions to leave the workplace. The following hypothesis is proposed based on previous literature:

H1: Workplace ostracism is significantly associated with turnover intention.

3.2. Workplace Ostracism and Burnout

Employees who experience workplace ostracism may be more emotionally exhausted, stressed, and tense, consequently experience burnout (Bakker et al., 2004). Research indicates that workplace ostracism results in burnout (Qian et al., 2019; Sliter et al., 2010). Similarly, empirical research revealed that emotional exhaustion (a core element of burnout) occurs if someone experiences ostracism in the workplace (Jiang et al., 2020; Thompson et al., 2020). Due to ostracism, people are generally less satisfied with their work and may also face burnout. Burnout may also result in disengagement, termed psychological distance, and lack of interest in the workplace (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Finally, ostracism in the workplace indicates a lack of social support which means employees who experience ostracism are not intended to handle the stressful job experience (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008; Demerouti et al., 2001). Based on these connections, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2: Workplace ostracism is significantly associated with burnout.

3.3. Burnout and Turnover Intention

Burnout results in lower self-esteem, helplessness, and anxiety. This may lead to a negative attitude toward employing an organization (Ogungbamila et al., 2014). A psychological disorder of cynicism and emotional exhaustion frequently occurs among people who suffer from chronic work stress (Leiter et al., 2014). Burnout is a serious issue for employers and individuals as it affects quality, productivity, job performance, and job satisfaction (Reinardy, 2006). In addition, burnout leads to depression and anxiety (Peterson et al., 2008), job dissatisfaction (Becker et al., 2006), and the worker’s turnover (Laschinger & Fida, 2014). Researchers propose that burnout is positively and significantly associated with turnover intention (Claschinger & Fida, 2014; Kraemer & Gouthier, 2014; Ogungbamila et al., 2014; Srivastava & Agrawal, 2020). Based on the literature, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H3: Burnout is significantly associated with turnover intention.

3.4. Burnout as a Mediator

The research has focused on investigating the association between workplace ostracism and turnover intention, but the factors that may mediate such a relationship have not been studied adequately. Burnout can be defined as a “phenomenon related to stress that can potentially affect the somatic aspects of health, e.g., headaches, fatigue, muscle tension, hypertension, and sleep disorders” (Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 499). Previous studies have found that workers’ ostracism is positively associated with burnout (Leiter et al., 2011; Han et al., 2016). The current study proposes a direct and indirect linkage of job burnout with turnover intention and workplace ostracism. Workplace ostracism impends social resources, which can be withdrawn when required to resolve an issue or deal with a difficult situation. Considering the conservation of resources (COR) theory, people strive to protect, defend and build up resources as they constrain them (Hobfoll, 1989). The theory of Conservation of Resource (COR) proposed by Hobfoll (1989, p. 516) states that “the threat of a net loss of resources, or a lack of resource gain after the investment of resources. Depleting resources prevents the individual from coping with future stressful events and ultimately evoking Burnout (Tepper, 2000). Ostracism has significant confronts that can reduce the resources that persons can hold. In terms of work support from colleagues, Ostracism in the workplace exhausts a worker’s resources. Moreover, insufficient resources to deal with challenging work-related tasks can lead to burnout and increase turnover intention (Wu et al., 2016). It is therefore proposed that:

H4: Burnout significantly mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention.

The theoretical framework of this study is depicted in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: The Research Model

4. Methodology

This study is intended to examine the direct impact of workplace ostracism on turnover intention and indirectly through the mediating role of burnout by developing and testing the hypothesis; therefore, a positivist and deductive approach is employed. Moreover, the current study mainly used explanatory research to determine the fact to describe “what exists” to the circumstances in a situation or variables (Yin, 2015). Data is collected from employees working in the banking sector. Convenience sampling is used for data collection. Three hundred eleven questionnaires were received out of 350 questionnaires; therefore, the response rate was 88.8%. A 10-item scale of workplace ostracism developed by Ferris et al. (2008) is adopted. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is 0.920, which indicates that the WOS scale is reliable. The turnover intention is measured by adapting the scale of Wayne et al. (1997). The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is 0.890, which indicates that the turnover intention scale is reliable. Burnout was measured using 16-items Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS; Bakker et al., 2002). This multifaceted variable is comprised of three dimensions, including emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and personal accomplishment. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is .0878, which indicates that the burnout scale is reliable. All items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree.”

5. Data Analysis

5.1. Demographic Analysis

The demographic characteristics are presented in Table 1. It has been shown that out of 311 respondents, 179 (58%) were male respondents, and female respondents were 132 (42%). Based on the collected data, 47% of respondents were aged between 20–29 years, and less than 1.3% were older than 50 years. 46% of employees had a permanent job while 54% had temporary jobs. According to education level, 51% of respondents have graduation degrees, and the remaining 49% were masters. The majority of the employees were relatively young, having limited experience. 55% of employees have less than 5–year experience while 35%, 7%, and 1% of employees had 5–10, 11–15, and 16–20 years of experience. Based on collected data, 35% of respondents were from the public sector, and the remaining 65% were from the private sector.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Demographic Variables and Characteristics (N = 311)

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5.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

The confirmatory factor analysis tests variables’ reliability and overall validity (Farrell & Rudd, 2009). First, factor loadings of items were assessed. The items having less than 0.5-factor loadings were deleted (Geuens et al., 2009), and the remaining items with more than 0.5-factor loadings are shown in Table 2. Moreover, mean and standard deviation (S.D) are also shown in Table 2. Mean is an average value and standard deviation is a measurement of variability from the mean. For example, the mean and Standard deviation of workplace ostracism is 1.170 and 0.451, respectively. Furthermore, the mean and standard deviation of turnover intention are 1.762 and 0.809, respectively. The mean and standard deviation of burnout are 2.217 and 0.864.

Table 2: Standardized Regression Weights

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From Table 3, it can be observed that Cronbach Alpha is from 0.87 to 0.92, which is higher than 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978). Cronbach Alpha measures the internal consistency and is considered a measure of the variable’s reliability.

Table 3: Reliability Estimates

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To assess the adequacy of the constructs, we evaluated convergent validity using average variance extracted (AVE hereafter). All the AVE values were higher than the minimum threshold value (i.e., 0.5), as shown in Table 4, thereby supporting convergent validity. At the same time, we examined discriminant validity by computing the square root of the AVE of each variable (Anderson & Gerbing 1988). As shown in Table 4, the values of the square root of the AVE were higher than the correlation between the variable and any other construct in the model; thus, discriminant validity is achieved. Finally, Composite Reliability (CR) of all constructs is greater than 0.7, indicating scale items are internally consistent (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Table 4: Validity and Reliability

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aDiagonal values show the square root of AVE.

4.3. The Goodness of Fit Model

To assess the fit of the CFA model, we evaluate the “Chi- square test statistic” (χ2 (df), p), “comparative fit index” (CFI), and “root means square error of approximation” (RMSEA). Chi-square test statistic shows that the model fits the data very well (χ2 = 541.955, degree of freedom = 265, and p-value = 0.000). As shown in Table 5, other measures also indicate that the fit of CFA for the three factor model, in that case, the model is acceptable (CMIN/ df = 2.045, CFI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.058).

Table 5: Summary for Goodness of Fit Indices for the Measurement Model

OTGHEU_2021_v8n11_265_t0006.png 이미지

4.4. Hypothesis Testing

In order to test the hypothesis, structural equation modeling (SEM) has been applied using AMOS 22. Figure 2 shows a path diagram of the relationships between three variables: workplace ostracism (IV), turnover intention (DV), and burnout (MED). As shown in Table 6, standardized regression values and p-values indicate that workplace ostracism is positively related to burnout and turnover intentions. Also, the results suggest that burnout is positively associated with turnover intention.

Table 6: Estimates and Standardized Regression Weights

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Note: Values are significant at p < 0.005; TI = Turnover intention, WPO = workplace ostracism.

OTGHEU_2021_v8n11_265_f0002.png 이미지

Figure 2: Path Diagram of the Relationships Between Variables

4.5. Results Summary

H1 predicted that Workplace Ostracism has a positive and significant impact on turnover intention. The proposed model showed a positive and significant relationship between ostracism and turnover intention. As shown in Table 6, H1 was accepted (p < 0.005).

H2 predicted that Workplace Ostracism has a significant impact on Burnout. The proposed model demonstrated a positive and significant relationship with Burnout. As shown in Table 6, H2 was accepted (p < 0.005).

H3 predicted that Burnout has a significant impact on Turnover Intention. The proposed model illustrates a positive and significant effect on Turnover Intention. As shown in Table 6, H3 was accepted (p < 0.005).

H3 predicted that Burnout has a significant impact on Turnover Intention. The proposed model showed a positive and significant effect on Turnover Intention. As shown in Table 6, H3 was accepted (p < 0.005).

4.6. Mediating Effect of Burnout

The mediating effect of burnout between ostracism and turnover intentions was assessed by a mediation test proposed by (Baron & Kenny, 1986). According to these authors, mediation exists if three conditions are met (a) a significant relationship exists between a proposed mediating variable and dependent variable, (b) a significant relationship exists between a proposed mediating variable and independent variable, (c) a direct relationship between dependent and independent variable either becomes insignificant or weaker when includes mediating variable in a model. As shown in table 6, the first two conditions are met. The authors ran the model without burnout to examine whether the relationship between ostracism and turnover intentions becomes more robust in the absence of burnout. The results indicate that in the presence of burnout compared to its absence, the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intentions becomes weaker, suggesting partial mediation.

5. Discussion

The H1 hypothesis predicted that Ostracism is associated with a high turnover intention. From the analysis results, it can be found that turnover intention is positively correlated with workplace ostracism. Thus, Ostracism is associated with a high turnover intention of employees at work. Therefore, the H1 is accepted, in concordance with what was stated previously, Ostracism can be related to turnover, leading to negative individual behaviors in the workplace (Ferris et al., 2015; Choi, 2020). Furthermore, ostracism is a stressful and painful experience that leads to turnover intention (Vui-Yee & Yen-Hwa, 2020), which also supports the validation of the first hypothesis of this study. From the analysis performed in AMOS, a positive correlation is found between Ostracism and job burnout (Qian et al., 2017). These findings are in concordance with the second hypothesis (H2) of this research study, being, in this manner, the hypothesis accepted and confirmed. According to (H2), ostracism experiences are associated with job burnout. The literature has shown that experiencing Ostracism in the workplace can increase job burnout among employees (Liu & Xia, 2016).

Additionally, Ostracism can also decrease co-workers’ and supervisors’ job satisfaction in organizations (Leung et al., 2011). Thus, it can be implied that the findings of this study related to (H2) are in agreement with the previous literature. The result of the third hypothesis (H3) analysis illustrates a positive relationship between job burnout and turnover intention. Therefore, the research hypothesis that there is Job burnout associated with turnover intention is supported. According to (H3), job burnout is associated with a turnover intention (Najam et al., 2018). Therefore, turnover intention, low job satisfaction, absenteeism, and disengagement, are expected consequences of job burnout (Scanlan & Still , 2019). In literature, turnover intention is defined in different meanings. For the analysis of the fourth hypothesis (H4), a mediation analysis using AMOS PROCESS was performed with the variable Burnout as a mediator. According to (H4), ostracized individuals would report a high turnover intention mediated by job burnout. The fourth hypothesis (H4) of this study has significantly and positively been proved by our study results. A positive relationship between Ostracism, turnover intention, and Burnout was found, and the mediation between the mentioned variables occurred. Thus, the fourth hypothesis (H4) is accepted; the earlier literature supports these results. Ostracism is an aversion and painful experience that usually leads to high turnover, depression, and stress (Ferris et al., 2008; Vui-Yee & Yen-Hwa, 2020). So, it hypothesized that workplace ostracism has a more harmful effect on employee turnover intention. It is also hypothesized that Burnout acts as a mediator for the relationship between ostracism and turnover intention.

6. Conclusion

Workplace ostracism has been studied before in different occupations, e.g., among laborers, nurses, teachers. Now, we have studied ostracism among the banking sector employees as it is observed that- while doing the job in the bank, an employee has to deal with many challenges. Such as customer pressure, long working hours, challenging processes and procedures, stiff targets, and limited social life make their job more stressful. So, in the presence of these factors, workplace ostracism can have severe consequences. Therefore, the main purpose of the current research is to investigate the relationship between Ostracism at the workplace and turnover intentions of banking employees of Pakistan. It also investigated the mediating role of Burnout between workplace ostracism and turnover intention. The employees are the intellectual property of any organization. They support the organization through the development of strategic plans. This study finds that workplace ostracism is a painful experience and is harmful to job-related outcomes such as turnover intention. After analysis, research objectives were proved by considering the outcomes of the hypothesis. The results demonstrated that job burnout partially mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and turnover intention. Considering the analysis performed in AMOS and SPSS, a positive relationship existed between workplace ostracism, Burnout, and turnover intention. Finally, our results support all proposed hypotheses for the relationship between ostracism and turnover intention by mediating the role of Burnout. In conclusion, we present a new account to enlighten when and why workplace ostracism may influence employee turnover intention.

The present study has specific practical implications that may provide a little help to the organizations. Given the practical consequences of the findings, the researcher wants to emphasize that managers must carefully observe situations in which workers report being excluded (Ostracized). By separating actual behaviors and their perception, managers can pinpoint the causes of workplace ostracism and develop a personalized assistance program for employees to help them cope with this.

As companies focus on psychological aspects, we must prevent ostracism incidents and their negative consequences, such as burnout and turnover intention. Organizations would benefit from more satisfied employees, but employees could also avoid negative Ostracism experiences and perform better and more efficiently. From a practical and theoretical point of view, our findings show that Ostracism in the workplace is costly for organizations and employees because employees who experience a high level of ostracism have high levels of burnout and are more inclined to turnover intention.

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