Perceived organizational exploitation and employee health: An examination of processes and boundary conditions

Abstract

Recent research has argued that exploitative working relationships can be present in any context and experienced by any employee, and their forms can range from extreme to subtle. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory, we argue that, through the depletion of resources, employees' perceived organizational exploitation is likely to affect their emotions, cognition and motivation, with subsequent effects on their physical and psychological health. Moreover, we suggest that coworker support serves as a critical boundary condition to alleviate the negative effects of perceived exploitation. Specifically, we propose that inward-focused negative emotions, rumination and thwarted psychological needs are intertwined mechanisms that link perceived exploitation to health-related outcomes. Using an experiment and a multi-wave field study, we demonstrated that employees' perceptions of organizational exploitation predicted their negative emotions, rumination and thwarted psychological needs. We also found that the perception of exploitation had direct and indirect effects on employees' health. Furthermore, our findings revealed that emotional and motivational pathways mediated the relationship between workers' perceived exploitation and depressive symptoms, while cognitive and motivational pathways mediated the relationship between their perceived exploitation and somatic complaints. Finally, rather than neutralizing the negative effect of perceived exploitation, coworker support was found to have amplifying effects.