ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1280074
A meta-analysis of workplace exclusion on employee work behavior in the Chinese context
Provisionally accepted
Zhengdong LI1,2*
Wenyu Li1- 1University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
- 2Research Center for Organizational Behavior and Creative Management, Shanghai University of Applied Science, Shanghai, Shanghai, China
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This study explores the impact of workplace exclusion on employee work behavior in the Chinese context. By employing the doctrine of the mean value orientation and self-consistency theory, the study aims to enhance the understanding of local workplace exclusion in China and its effects on employees' work behavior. Furthermore, the study investigates the moderating role of employee types, data collection points, and data sources. Our meta-analysis included 24,662 participants from 72 independent samples.The findings indicate that workplace exclusion significantly influences employees' positive work behavior negatively and their negative behavior positively. Moreover, the study identifies a moderating effect based on employee type (knowledge vs. non-knowledge type), revealing a stronger relationship between workplace exclusion and employee work behavior among knowledge employees. Examining the data collection point (crosssectional vs. non-cross-sectional) as another moderating factor, the study demonstrates a stronger relationship between workplace exclusion and employee work behavior in the cross-sectional mode. Additionally, the data source (self-evaluation vs. superior evaluation plus self-evaluation) plays a moderating role, with employee self-evaluation strengthening the relationship between workplace exclusion and employee work behavior.
Keywords: Workplace exclusion, Positive work behavior, negative work behavior, Chinese context, Meta-analysis
Received: 19 Aug 2023; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LI and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhengdong LI, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
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