Abstract:
In recent years there is considerable attention on inclusion among researchers and
practitioners. However, exclusion takes place in different forms in organizations.
Workplace Ostracism (WO), which denotes ‘an employee’s perception of being
ignored or excluded by another employee or group of employees is a way that has
threatened the practice of inclusion in organizations. Although WO's existence in the
Sri Lankan context has been proven through some preliminary investigations, it is a
heretofore under-investigated phenomenon in Sri Lanka. In this backdrop, the
present study aimed to explore the perceived reasons and consequences of WO from
the victim’s perspective. Following the qualitative research methodology, ten semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted among professional employees
working in private and government sectors. Participants were selected purposively
based on their experiences of WO. After transcribing the interviews, we carried out
initial coding and categorizing based on the prior studies and Organizational
Behaviour (OB) models. Our findings report that the professional employees
perceive that perpetrator related reasons such as misperception, prejudice, and desire
to dominate as the reasons for the perpetrators to engage in WO. Also, organizational
related reasons such as informal cliques, weak organizational processes and
practices, competitive work setting were perceived to be the reasons for WO.
Further, our study found several psychological consequences of WO, which vary
from highly negative to low negative in nature. Our study contributed to the literature
by expanding the knowledge on the perceived reasons for WO and the consequences
of WO in a novel and collectivist context, Sri Lanka. The adverse outcomes of WO
imply to practitioners that the WO is a malicious behavior, which needs to be
mitigated to make organizations more inclusive.
