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In the competitive retailing environment, retailers who provide service experiences that stand out from the competition can gain a competitive advantage. Increasingly, an important aspect of the service experience involves product returns, in particular, the fairness of returns policies and procedures. Previous research studies support that interpersonal justice and informational justice relate positively to consumer attitudes and behaviors. In this paper, the authors examine the relative effects of interpersonal justice and informational justice on return satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth (PWOM) and trust. Additionally, the authors examine the moderating effects of returns process convenience and returns policy restrictiveness as indicators of procedural justice.

A scenario-based experiment methodology was used to test the relationships of interest.

Results support that the effects of interpersonal justice on the outcome variables are stronger than the effects of informational justice. There is also support for a moderating effect of returns process convenience on the relationships between interpersonal justice and each outcome variable, as well as partial support for the moderating effect of returns policy restrictiveness on the relationship between interpersonal justice and PWOM.

The research extends previous work on the effects of justice on customer outcomes. Results support the importance of retailers treating customers with fairness during the returns experience and further support the benefits of providing a convenient returns experience.

Abusive supervision provokes subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. It is, therefore, essential to explore the contingent factors of this relationship. Drawing upon gender role theory, this study aims to explore how subordinate and leader genders moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate interpersonal deviance. Furthermore, this study posits a three-way interaction effect of abusive supervision with leader and subordinate genders on interpersonal deviance.

Multisource survey data were collected from 45 supervisors and 170 subordinates in eight companies in China. The data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS.

The results showed that the positive relationship between abusive supervision and interpersonal deviance was stronger among female leaders than male leaders. Furthermore, the authors found a three-way interaction effect between abusive supervision and leader and subordinate genders on subordinates’ interpersonal deviance. Compared with female subordinates, male subordinates engaged in significantly more interpersonal deviance when experiencing abusive supervision from a female leader than from a male leader.

The authors reveal that gender differences exist in the effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that subordinate and leader genders jointly influence the effect of abusive supervision. Finally, the findings extend the literature on gender’s moderating effects from constructive and neutral leader behaviors to destructive leader behaviors.

Trust is an important facilitator of successful B2B relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate affect-based antecedents of both interpersonal and interorganizational trust, and their impact on the performance of buyer–supplier relationships. The authors ask two research questions: (1) What are affect-based dimensions of interpersonal and interorganizational trust? (2) How do interpersonal and interorganizational trust influence buyers’ operational performance?

The authors use data from an original survey of 156 buyer–supplier relationships between multinational enterprise subsidiaries and local suppliers in the Thai manufacturing sector to develop a structural model in which the authors test the hypotheses.

Consistent with social exchange theory and social psychology, the empirical analysis shows that affect-based dimensions at the individual level, namely, likeability, similarity and frequent social contact, and at the organizational level, namely, supplier firm willingness to customize and institutionalization of cooperation, are important for establishing trust. In addition, interpersonal trust enhances buyers’ operational performance indirectly via interorganizational trust.

Buying and selling firms may develop organizational trust by developing processes that enhance organizational trust. Individuals with purchasing or sales responsibilities may enhance trust in their personal relationship. However, such interpersonal trust needs to be translated to the organizational level to benefit organizational performance.

The findings contribute to the literature on affect-based antecedents and outcomes of trust. Specifically, the authors offer theory and empirical evidence regarding the contribution of salespersons toward affect-based dimensions of trust and its impact on buyer’s operational performance.

This cross-sectional study had several objectives. This paper aims to study the direct effect of teleworking on interpersonal conflict, the mediating role that interpersonal conflict can play between teleworking and psychological well-being, the moderating role emotional intelligence (EI) can play between teleworking and interpersonal conflict and whether this moderation effect can, in turn, be associated with psychological well-being (moderated mediation effect).

Path analyses using Mplus software were performed on a sample of 264 employees from 19 small- and medium-sized organizations.

While teleworking was associated with lower interpersonal conflict, it was not associated with enhanced psychological well-being. Interestingly, workload seemed to be associated with higher interpersonal conflict, while decision authority and support garnered from one’s supervisor seemed to be associated with lower interpersonal conflict. Teleworking was indirectly associated with higher psychological well-being via interpersonal conflict. Finally, EI played a moderating role between teleworking and lower interpersonal conflict. This was, in turn, associated with higher psychological well-being.

EI is an essential skill to develop in the workplace.

A deepened understanding of the role played by EI at work could help organizations to provide positive work environments, both in person and online. This is especially relevant today, with the continued increase in teleworking practices and the resulting rapidly changing interpersonal relationships.

The purpose of this study was to investigate trust within human-AI teams. Trust is an essential mechanism for team success and effective human-AI collaboration.

In an online experiment, the authors investigated whether trust perceptions and behaviours are different when introducing a new AI teammate than when introducing a new human teammate. A between-subjects design was used. A total of 127 subjects were presented with a hypothetical team scenario and randomly assigned to one of two conditions: new AI or new human teammate.

As expected, perceived trustworthiness of the new team member and affective interpersonal trust were lower for an AI teammate than for a human teammate. No differences were found in cognitive interpersonal trust and trust behaviours. The findings suggest that humans can rationally trust an AI teammate when its competence and reliability are presumed, but the emotional aspect seems to be more difficult to develop.

This study contributes to human–AI teamwork research by connecting trust research in human-only teams with trust insights in human–AI collaborations through an integration of the existing literature on teamwork and on trust in intelligent technologies with the first empirical findings on trust towards AI teammates.

Science and technology are transforming our world in ways that have not been seen in a long time, and we live in a rapidly changing world. Despite these changes, as citizens of today, we must not lose sight of the reality that these changes even cause crises that must be managed in order to place ourselves in a true working environment that allows us to survive as employees despite these changes. The main objective of this research is to find the relationship between interpersonal competences and teacher performance in a sustainable university. The methodology used was the quantitative, nonexperimental approach, as the variables will not be deliberately manipulated. In order to verify whether or not there was a relationship between these variables, 84 teachers from the Universidad Nacional Santiago Antunez de Mayolo were surveyed to evaluate the variables under study. The results obtained show a direct and significant relationship (Spearman's Rho = 0.731) between the two variables. Through this research, it was possible to determine that teachers who have developed interpersonal competences have a better performance, while in the relationships between interpersonal competences and the dimensions of teacher performance, a positive correlation was obtained.

This study aims to investigate the negative interpersonal antecedents, emotional mediators and boundary conditions of knowledge sabotage behavior.

The authors collected data from 275 Chinese employees using convenience sampling and snowball sampling across three stages. Subsequently, the authors used both hierarchical regression and bootstrap methods to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results confirmed that workplace ostracism has positive effects on employee knowledge sabotage behavior both directly and via employee anger. In addition, the authors found that employee bottom-line mentality (BLM) moderates not only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger but also the indirect effect of employee anger in this context. Employee conscientiousness moderates only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger and does not moderate the indirect effect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study not only explores the influence of workplace ostracism on employee knowledge sabotage behavior for the first time but also elucidates the underlying emotional mechanisms (anger) and boundary conditions (employee BLM and conscientiousness) by which workplace ostracism influences employee knowledge sabotage behavior, thus deepening the understanding of how knowledge sabotage emerges in organizations.

Building on the conservation of resources theory, this research explored the processes underlying the association between perceived workplace incivility and deviant behaviors. Specifically, we tested a mediating mechanism, an interpersonal conflict that has received less consideration in the workplace incivility literature. The authors also tested the organizational climate (i.e. a resource) as a moderator in the perceived workplace incivility–employees’ deviant work behavior relationship.

Time-lagged research design was followed to explain the relationship of variables. Survey data were collected at time 1 and time 2 from 220 service sector working professionals to test the proposed model.

The findings suggest that intrapersonal conflict partially mediates the workplace incivility–deviant work behavior relationship. Further, the authors found that the harmful effects of workplace incivility on employees’ deviant work behavior attenuate in the presence of organizational climate as a resource. The results shed light on the beneficial consequences of organizational climate on employees’ work behavior by attenuating workplace incivility and mitigating their deviant work behaviors.

Overall, the study contributed to understanding the mediating role of interpersonal conflict and the moderating role of organizational climate in explaining the workplace incivility–deviant work behavior relationship.

Misperceptions hinder our ability to effectively respond to health crises such as the COVID-19. We aimed to examine the dynamic influences between information exposure, information trust and misperceptions during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we focused on the relative influence of exposure to COVID-19-related information via social media versus interpersonal offline communication.

The current study conducted a two-wave national survey of US adults in May and June of 2020 with a two-week time interval. A professional polling firm recruited participants, and 911 and 679 respondents participated in the first and the second wave survey, respectively. To test proposed hypotheses, researchers conducted path analyses using AMOS 27.0.

Findings show that individuals exposed to COVID-19-related information via social media are likely to hold increased misperceptions. In contrast, exposure to COVID-19-related information offline did not elicit any effects on misperceptions. The exposure to information on social media was positively associated with trust in that information, which, in turn, contributed to an increase in misperceptions. Furthermore, when examining the effects of misperception, it was found that misperceptions increased the likelihood of individuals being exposed to and having trust in COVID-19-related information on social media. The findings provide valuable insights into the role of social media as a platform where a detrimental cycle thrives, shaping the formation of misperceptions and cultivating a heightened dependence among individuals with elevated misperceptions.

The current study significantly extends the findings of prior research by examining the differential effects of social media and interpersonal communication offline on misperception and by revealing the intricate dynamics between information exposure and misperception by focusing on the role of trust. The findings emphasize the detrimental role of social media in generating a vicious information cycle. That said, seemingly superficial discussions about health crises within a social media environment rich in misinformation can contribute to fueling a self-reinforcing loop, making it challenging to effectively counteract misperceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the agent-system model of (in)justice and negative norm of reciprocity of social exchange theory to examine the indirect impact of supervisory interactional injustice (i.e. interpersonal and informational) on employees’ target-specific extra-role work behaviours [counterproductive work behaviour directed at supervisor (CWB-S) and organisational citizenship behaviour directed at supervisor (OCB-S)] via distrust in supervisor.

The authors conducted a two-wave study, and participants (n = 401) were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk using a survey methodology. Bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) constructed in 20,000 bootstrap samples were used to test the mediation effects.

The findings indicated that interpersonal and informational injustice are positively related to employees’ distrust in supervisor. Furthermore, interpersonal and informational injustice indirectly affected CWB-S and OCB-S via distrust in supervisor.

Several limitations and future research should be discussed. First, the cross-sectional nature of this study prevented us from establishing the causal direction implied by the mediation models in this research. Second, the authors cannot rule out the potential for common method variance. These limitations can be addressed by collecting data from multiple sources (e.g. supervisor and coworkers) at different points in time or by experimental study design. Lastly, the authors did not consider contextual variables (e.g. formal policies, practices, ethical rules and cultural climate) that may influence the proposed relationships’ strengths and directions.

Even though perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice can affect employee deviant behaviours targeted at the organisation and organisational members, the present findings suggest that practitioners should be aware that perceptions of supervisory interactional injustice (i.e. interpersonal and informational) are likely be requited with employees’ extra-role work behaviours targeted at the supervisor. The present findings suggest that, via distrust in supervisor, employees are likely to engage in more CWB-S and fewer OCB-S as a result of supervisory interactional injustice. Considering the costs associated with high CWB-S and low OCB-S, supervisors should be trained in adhering to interactional justice rules. Additionally, supervisors should be mindful and practice caution when interacting with subordinates, to ensure that interactional justice norms are not violated. Lastly, supervisors can seek feedback from subordinates regarding their perceptions of supervisory interactional injustice, as these assessments will allow the supervisors to adapt their behaviours to impede subordinates’ deviant behaviours aimed towards them.

This study contributes to the literature on organisational injustice and workplace behaviour. First, most injustice research assumes that injustice is the opposite of justice; this study examines the effect of interactional injustice. Second, the authors develop a target-specific model focusing on the interactions between two key organisational stakeholders (i.e. supervisors and employees). The authors suggest that supervisor’s disrespect and untruthfulness towards the employee will eventually result in employee revenge (i.e. CWB-S) and lack of cooperation (i.e. OCB-S) towards supervisor. Finally, the authors examine the mechanism (i.e. distrust in supervisor) through which supervisory interactional injustice may ensue in employee extra-role behaviours directed at the supervisor.