İşyerinde Arkadaşlığa İhtiyaç Var mı? İşyerinde Arkadaşlık ve Çalışanlar Üzerindeki Sonuçlarının Teorisi: Çalışma Etiğinin Rolü
Do We Need Friendship in the Workplace? The Theory of Workplace Friendship and Employee Outcomes: The Role of Work Ethics
There are important missing pieces in our understanding of the effect of workplace friendship. To move our knowledge further, we need to grasp how workplace friendship effects important employee outcomes. To achieve this goal, this study focuses on the extending our knowledge about the effect of workplace friendship on four employee outcomes (job insecurity, turnover intention, job performance, and organizational deviance) using organizational social capital perspective and social exchange theory. Specifically, the current study investigates the negative influence of two types of workplace friendships (friendship with coworkers and friendship with a supervisor) on employees’ job insecurity and turnover intention. The current study also argues that the positive association between workplace friendship with a supervisor and job performance is stronger for employees having a low work ethic than for those with a high work ethic. In addition, this study also assumes that the negative relationship between friendship with a supervisor and organizational deviance is stronger for employees who have a low work ethic but not for those with a high work ethic. I propose that when a supervisor builds a friendship with employees or supports coworkers to develop a strong friendship amongst themselves, employees can feel secure in the workplace. In response to this positive situation (job security), an employee will not intend to quit the organization, will display high performance and will show less organizational deviance. If a supervisor develops a friendship with his/her employees or supports coworkers’ friendship, employees feel happy, relaxed and secure. Thus, the supervisor expects that the employees who are feeling secure in their jobs will behave according to management’s expectations (not quitting the organization, displaying high-performance and low deviance) as a requirement of reciprocity within this positive working environment. To test hypotheses, 313 data samples have been collected from service sector employees. The employees’ mean age was 29.4 years (s.d.= 4.6). 51% of them were male. The employees’ average job tenure was 4.81 years. 34% of the employees had a high school education, 26% of them had a junior technical college education and 40% of them had a college degree. 58% of the participants were working in the marketing and sales department. Other employees were working in the finance, accounting, and the human resource management departments.
Employees filled out the scales workplace friendships, turnover intention, job insecurity, work ethic,and organizational deviance. The supervisor working with the employee only filled out the job performance scale. I used workplace friendship scale as independent variable. The two-factor model, which specified the friendship with coworkers and the friendship with a supervisor as unique constructs, fit the data well. I used 4-items job insecurity and 2 items turnover intention scale as dependent variables in this study. I also used job performance scale as one of the dependent variable. This scale was evaluated across 5 items. Further, I used 12-items organizational deviance scale as other dependent variable. I used 17 items work ethic scale as moderator variable. I also used age, education, tenure, gender, and income as control variables. According to the results, friendship with coworkers and friendship with a supervisor are negatively associated to job insecurity and turnover intention. The results also show that friendship with a supervisor was positively associated with job performance for employees having a low work ethic but not for those with a high work ethic. Furthermore, the results show that friendship with a supervisor was negatively associated with organizational deviance for employees having a low work ethic but not for those with a high work ethic. Unexpectedly, the friendship with a supervisor is positively associated with organizational deviance for employees having a high work ethic. This study revealed that workplace friendships decrease job insecurity and turnover intention. The current study also found that positive association between friendship with a supervisor and job performance is stronger for employees having a low work ethic but not for employees with a high work ethic. Further, results show that the negative association between friendship with a supervisor and organizational deviance is stronger for employees having a low work ethic but not for those with a high work ethic. In short, the benefit of workplace friendship for an employee is less job insecurity and the benefits of workplace friendships for an organization are less turnover intention, high job performance, and less organizational deviance.