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Although the targets of envy have received increasing attention in management research, how envied employees respond to envy remains ambiguous and merits further investigation. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, this paper aims to reconcile these inconsistent findings by developing and testing a model that elucidates how different types of being envied (i.e. benignly or maliciously) can elicit either favorable or unfavorable motivational and behavioral reactions.

An experience sampling study was conducted on 131 employees across 10 consecutive workdays in China. Focusing on within-person effects, multilevel mediation models using multilevel structural equation modeling were applied.

Results indicated that on days when employees are benignly envied, they engage in more organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) due to increased daily promotion focus. On the contrary, on days when employees are maliciously envied, they participate in more counterproductive work behavior (CWB) due to decreased daily promotion focus.

Organizations and managers should take a more holistic view of workplace envy when considering that envied employees may use OCB to deal with benign envy. Conversely, considering that CWB may emerge from employees who are maliciously envied, it is crucial for managers to be vigilant in discouraging and addressing malicious envy in the workplace.

This paper takes an initial foray into incorporating the concepts of benign envy and malicious envy into the literature on being envied and provides a novel perspective to explain why being envied can lead to both functional and dysfunctional responses.

From a relational maintenance perspective, this study explores the impact of being envied (benignly vs maliciously) on consumers' feelings of social anxiety and its influence on their tendencies toward inconspicuous consumption, based on the resource conservation theory and the model of “Sensitivity about Being the Target of a Threatening Upward Comparison.” (STTUC)

Four studies were conducted in this paper. Studies 1a and 1b tested the main hypothesis that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) can increase consumers' inconspicuous consumption of luxury products and luxury hotel experiences. Study 2 replicated this finding and examined the mediating role of social anxiety. Study 3 investigated the moderating effect of ideal self-congruity (low vs high).

The findings reveal that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) is associated with higher levels of inconspicuous consumption and social anxiety acts as a mediating role. Moreover, when individuals have a strong sense of ideal self-congruity, the positive impact of being maliciously envied (vs benignly) on inconspicuous consumption is further amplified, confirming the moderating role of ideal self-congruity.

This study sheds light on a novel mechanism that elucidates how different types of being envied influence consumers' inconspicuous consumption and the conditions under which this impact is heightened.

Very limited research exists examining envy from the viewpoint of an envied consumer, rather than an envier. This paper aims to address this gap by examining whether and how the experience of being envied actually affects consumers.

This paper presents three experiments. Study 1 investigates the ambivalent experience of being envied. Study 2 examines the effect of being envied in consumption contexts on consumer satisfaction, analyzing the combined ambivalent effects of positive and negative feelings. It also investigates the moderating role played by consumer coping responses to enviers (mitigation vs exacerbation). Finally, Study 3 applies the hypothesized model in a specific context (i.e. a material possession context), focusing on adult consumers.

Results show that negative (e.g. guilt and anxiety) and positive (e.g. sense of well-being and prestige) feelings for being envied depend on the type of relationship between the envier and the envied, and the type of desired object, and consumer satisfaction is driven by the combined ambivalent effects of positive and negative feelings, where coping responses by envied consumers moderate the effects of such feelings on satisfaction.

This paper makes three main contributions: it extends prior research by highlighting the role of personal relationship factors and the type of object of desire in the experience of being envied; demonstrates that both positive and negative feelings of being envied affect consumer satisfaction; and shows conditions regulating the influence of positive and negative feelings on satisfaction, demonstrating that mitigation strategies decrease the effects of negative feelings on satisfaction, whereas exacerbation strategies failed to regulate the effects of positive feelings.

Knowledge transfer is a crucial ingredient of employee innovation, yet affective work events may disrupt knowledge flow among employees. This study aims to investigate a previously overlooked, yet frequently occurring affective work experience, namely, that of being envied, and examine how perceptions of being envied may drive contrastive knowledge behaviors of sharing and hiding, which subsequently impact employee innovation. The study further examines how the zero-sum game beliefs of the envied individual may moderate these mechanisms.

This study builds on territorial and belongingness theories to delineate the contrastive motivations for knowledge hiding and knowledge sharing. This study tests a moderated mediation model through a multisource survey design involving 225 employees.

The results support the notion that perceptions of being envied are linked to both knowledge hiding and knowledge sharing; however, the indirect effect of being envied on innovation is observed only through knowledge sharing. The indirect positive link between perceptions of being envied and innovation via knowledge sharing is weakened when the envied employee holds high zero-sum game beliefs.

This study advances knowledge scholarship by identifying and testing the organizationally relevant but largely overlooked antecedent of being envied at work. The results provide useful insights to practitioners on how sharing or hiding knowledge serves as a strategic asset in response to being envied at work and how this may in turn impact employee innovation.

This study aims to investigate the fit of a promotion (prevention) focus with malicious (benign) envy and how this fit influences positive and negative behaviours, depending on the context.

Four empirical studies (two laboratory and two online experiments) were used to test key hypotheses. Study 1 manipulated regulatory focus and envy in a job application setting with university students. Study 2 engaged similar manipulations in a social media setting. Studies 3 and 4 extended the regulatory focus and envy manipulations to the general population in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) and pay-it-forward (PIF) restaurant contexts.

The findings showed that a promotion (prevention) focus fits with the emotion of malicious (benign) envy. In the social media context, promotion and prevention foci demonstrated negative behaviour, including unfollowing the envied person, when combined with malicious and benign envy. In the PWYW and PIF contexts, combining envy with a specific type of regulatory focus encouraged both positive and negative behaviours through influencing payments.

Future research could validate and extend this study’s findings with different product/service categories, cross-cultural samples and research methods such as field experiments.

The four studies’ findings will assist managers in formulating marketing strategies to enhance their positioning of target products/services, possibly leading to higher prices for PWYW and PIF businesses.

The conceptual model is novel as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior research has proposed and tested the fit between envy type and regulatory foci.

Expressions of pride may elicit others’ envy. In the consumer context, prior research has repeatedly demonstrated that such envy significantly affects consumers’ attitudinal and behavioural responses towards the object of envy. This paper aims to investigate whether this pride-envy relationship is bi-directional. Does being envied by others affect consumers’ self-directed feelings of pride, as well as their subsequent attitude towards a product (i.e. the object of envy)?

Three experiments examined how emotional reactions of envy from others may influence consumers’ subsequent affective and attitudinal responses towards their own product or purchase. The first experimental study (n = 129) examined whether exposure to benign envy from others evokes higher levels of authentic pride and positively influences product attitude. The second experiment (n = 159) investigated whether exposure to malicious envy from others evokes high levels of hubristic pride, and therefore, negatively influences product attitude. The third study (n = 80) was a quasi-field experiment seeking to provide further empirical support for the relationship between benign (vs malicious) envy and authentic (vs hubristic) pride and their effects on attitude.

The first experiment showed that when participants observed expressions of benign envy towards them, they expressed authentic pride, which ultimately increased positive attitudes towards the product. The second experiment showed that when participants observed expressions of malicious envy towards them, they expressed hubristic pride, which, in turn, reduced positive attitudes towards the product. The effect of malicious envy was further moderated by susceptibility to social influence, whereby the indirect effect of malicious envy on product attitudes was only significant among participants with high susceptibility. The third experiment demonstrated the relationship between benign (vs malicious) envy and authentic (vs hubristic) pride and the effects on attitude in a quasi-field study.

The present paper aims to fill a research gap by showing how being the recipient of others’ malicious or benign envy affects consumers’ self-directed feelings of pride, as well as their attitude towards a product that is the object of envy.

The current research is among the first to show that the emotional expressions of other consumers can influence existing consumers’ affective responses and attitudes towards a product. These findings highlight the importance of building a positive culture and community around brands and products, whereby other consumers’ consumption of the brand or product is perceived positively.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical evidence demonstrating that others’ expression of benign (malicious) envy may lead to the self-feeling of authentic (hubristic) pride, which has a downstream effect on attitude towards the product.

Based on the situational approach for envy, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of two-dimensional workplace envy (being envied and envying others) on the task and contextual performance of employees working in either private or public sector organizations.

This study was conducted on survey data collected from 988 private sector employees and 530 employees from the public sector employed in Istanbul. Following a quantitative empirical design, structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The study results revealed that envying-others dimension has a significant negative effect on both task performance and contextual performance. In addition, the findings indicate more envious feelings of private sector employees than public sector employees. For public sector employees, male participants were found to envy others more than females.

In addition to the contributions, this study has its limitations. First, although the study was carried out with a comprehensive sample, it is limited to the views of 1,518 employees in Istanbul and is a cross-sectional study. Also, employee performance is evaluated through self-reporting, which forms another limitation; it could have been more reliable for the supervisors to assess their subordinates' performance.

Apart from scholars, our findings have implications for practitioners. Feelings such as envy that comes with a sense of competition can create an environment that stimulates people, motivates them to work, can make them productive and can also cause an ultimately destructive situation. This makes it critical to manage envy in the workplace. Though there may be facilitators behind it, one crucial factor that fuels envy in the workplace is the lack of fair human resources policies and systems. Still, human resources management is undeveloped in most public organizations. With effective human resources management, there may be some roadmaps for managers to dissolve conflicts arising from envy. First, it is imperative to have systems that will separate the employee from the others, which everyone will accept, strengthening the feelings of justice among employees. Envy often occurs following a social comparison. Management can implement an incentive system that supports employee collaboration and avoid nepotism. Especially in private organizations where the competition is more among employees, managers should give more attention to understand their subordinates' feelings. The managers' attention to expressing their feelings toward their subordinates could establish an equal distance within the workplace. In this sense, language selection is critical, and managers should be mindful of linguistic triggers. Managers should not avoid giving both positive and negative feedback to their employees. Unwarranted and unsystematic reward and/or punishment systems, made with the good intentions of increasing competition, can trigger envy. Finally, managers should implement an open-door policy and open communication that will encourage all team members to be transparent to each other.

The study was based on a rationale that envy has detrimental workplace outcomes that lead to low task and contextual performance. Although there exists a recent interest for examining the relation between workplace envy and employee performance, based on being envied and envying others dimensions, these studies are limited. This study focuses on these dimensions and performance relations, and it also provides a comparative outlook for public and private sector employees in Turkey in terms of workplace envy.

Status is a key in the workplace. Although status is desirable when it has positive outcomes, little is known about its negative consequences. This study investigates both the bright and dark sides of workplace status in terms of employees' feelings and behaviors.

Data were collected from 227 employees in various industries at two time points.

Workplace status is associated with knowledge hiding through two opposing mechanisms: felt obligation to share knowledge and feeling envied.

Managers may need to direct high-status employees' attention to felt obligation to share knowledge and shift their attention away from feeling envied.

Our study enriches the understanding of workplace status by theoretically proposing and empirically testing a comprehensive framework that simultaneously considers its positive and negative impacts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the prevalence of benign and malicious envy on social media, and to examine the relationships between shared content (experiential vs material purchases), envy type (benign vs malicious), and purchase intention (toward the same vs a superior object).

Three studies (N=622) were conducted to ask participants to recall the last time they experienced envy due to browsing social media, report an envy-triggering post about either an experiential or a material purchase shared by others and read a post about a friend’s newly bought MacBook in either an experiential or a material phrasing. The degrees of benign and malicious envy were measured, as well as the future purchase intentions toward the same and a superior object.

The results showed that most of the envious emotions were actually benign envy. Although there was no main effect of purchase type on envy type, both experiential purchases and phrasings were less likely to be perceived as showing off, and therefore triggered less malicious envy. Furthermore, benign envy was positively associated with the purchase intention of the same envied purchase, and malicious envy was positively associated with the purchase intention of something even superior.

As browsing other’s social news sometimes evokes envy, people were concerned about the negative effects of envy on consumers. However, this paper addressed the positive effects of envy which comes along with a motivation of moving up. This positive motivation can also be utilized for social media advertising.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, with a Pakistani sample, the destructive and constructive behavioral intentions associated with benign and malicious envy in the context of perceived opportunity to perform.

The authors conducted two cross-sectional studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, data were obtained from students (n=90), whereas in Study 2, the authors used an executive sample (n=83).

The primary motivation of benign envy was to bring oneself up by improving performance on the comparison dimension, whereas the primary motive of malicious envy was to pull the envied other down. The relationship between malicious envy and behavioral “pulling down” intentions of derogating envied other was conditional on perceived opportunity on the comparison dimension. Consistent with a motive to improve self-evaluation, this study also found that perceived opportunity to perform interacted with benign envy to promote performance intentions on an alternative dimension. Furthermore, malicious envy was also associated with self-improving performance intentions on the comparison dimension, conditional upon perceived opportunity to perform.

Envy, depending on its nature, can become a positive or negative force in organizational life. The pattern of effects for opportunity structure differs from previous findings on control. The negative and positive effects of malicious envy may be managed by attention to opportunity structures.

This study supports the proposition that benign envy and malicious envy are linguistically and conceptually distinct phenomena, and it is the first to do so in a sample from Pakistan, a non-western and relatively more collectivistic culture. The authors also showed that negative and hostile envy-based behaviors are conditional upon the perceived characteristics of the context.