Preferential Mistreatment: How Victim Status Moderates the Relationship Between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Workplace Victimization

Abstract

This study investigates whether the performance of organizational citizenship behavior and three indicators of social status—hierarchical position, gender, and race—predict employees' vulnerability to being victimized by the harmful actions of others. We hypothesize that interpersonally directed organizational citizenship deflects mistreatment by others because it enhances social attractiveness and creates bonds of mutual obligation and reciprocity. However, drawing from prior research that shows that people with high social status are perceived more favorably than people with low status, we also hypothesize that benefits of organizational citizenship are more likely to accrue to employees in high, as compared to low, status groups. Data were from 448 employees of a U.S. manufacturing firm. As expected, citizenship was more strongly and negatively related to perceived victimization for whites as compared to African-Americans. However, contrary to our prediction, citizenship was more strongly related to perceived victimization among employees with low, as compared to high, hierarchical status. No moderating effect of gender was found. Implications for organizations are discussed and future research directions are offered.