Mind Your Language: The Effects of Linguistic Ostracism on Interpersonal Work Behaviors

Abstract

Business and demographic trends are conflating to bring language issues at work to the forefront. Although language has an inherent capacity for creating interpersonal bonds, it can also serve as a means of exclusion. The construct of linguistic ostracism encapsulates this phenomenon. Drawing on ethnolinguistic identity theory, we identify how linguistic ostracism influences two interpersonal work behaviors: interpersonal citizenship and interpersonal deviance. We conduct a set of studies that uses multisource data, data across time, and data from three countries. Our results reveal that linguistic ostracism was associated with the enactment of lower interpersonal citizenship behaviors and higher interpersonal deviance behaviors. We find that disidentification served as a mechanism to explain why linguistic ostracism resulted in interpersonal citizenship behaviors and interpersonal deviance behaviors. Furthermore, linguistically ostracized employees with low (vs. high) social self-efficacy engage in fewer interpersonal citizenship behaviors and greater interpersonal deviance behaviors. We discuss theoretical implications associated with the phenomenon of linguistic ostracism and the implications for managers working in linguistically diverse organizations.

Impact of linguistic ostracism on knowledge sharing, hiding and hoarding and the moderating role of cultural intelligence

“…The motives of linguistic ostracism are primarily to (1) make others feel rejected or uncomfortable (punitive), (2) bridge communication gaps caused by language deficiency and (3) a lack of awareness of the negative impact of using an unfamiliar language in the presence of others (Dotan-Eliaz et al , 2009). Language is entwined into the cultural fabric of the society, a medium by which workers communicate and share knowledge (Fiset and Bhave, 2019; Hitlan et al , 2016). Therefore, the inability to effectively communicate with others can increase a sense of in-group and out-group relationships (Hitlan et al , 2016).…”

Does perceived overqualification cultivate angels or demons? Examining its interpersonal outcomes through pride from an evolutionary psychology perspective

“…Interpersonal citizenship behaviors and interpersonal deviant behaviors reflect positive and negative orientations, respectively (Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2017). Specifically, interpersonal citizenship behaviors indicate the depth of feeling for others in an organization (Brosi et al, 2016) and are regarded as positive (Luthans & Youssef, 2007;Podsakoff et al, 2009), while interpersonal deviant behaviors encompass actions that are detrimental to organizational functioning (Fiset & Bhave, 2021). These behaviors have been well established in the literature and are consistently related to affective processes (Brosi et al, 2016;Lee & Allen, 2002).…”

Silence and proactivity in managing supervisor ostracism: implications for creativity

“…In this context, a recent meta-analysis (i.e. Howard et al, 2020) has demonstrated that ostracism can trigger a gamut of negative outcomes, including, but not limited to, hampered performance (task-related performance, citizenship behaviors, counterproductive behaviors) (De Clercq et al, 2019;Fiset and Bhave, 2021;Jahanzeb et al, 2020;O'Reilly et al, 2015), reduced well-being, negative organizational perceptions (i.e. organizational injustice, reduced commitment, disengagement, dissatisfaction) (Boon and Brown, 2020;Miner et al, 2019) and employees leaving the organization (Vui-Yee and Yen-Hwa, 2019; Zhang et al, 2019;Zheng et al, 2016).…”