Competitive psychological climate as a double-edged sword: A moderated mediation model of organization-based self-esteem, jealousy, and organizational citizenship behaviors

Prior research is inconclusive on whether competitive climate affects employee performance positively or negatively. The current study tests a moderated-mediation model of the effect of competitive psychological climate on organizational citizenship behavior (toward co-workers and customers) through the mediation of jealousy by drawing on social comparison theory to address the contradiction in the literature. By invoking the self-consistency theory, this study also proposes that organization-based self-esteem would moderate the effect of employee jealousy (as a result of competitive psychological climate) on organizational citizenship behavior (toward co-workers and customers). Dyadic data were collected from 145 customer service employees and their supervisors in various hospitality organizations in the UAE. Our results provide empirical support for our hypotheses: Competitive climate acts as a double-edged sword in enhancing citizenship behaviors toward customers but diminishing cooperation and helping behaviors toward co-workers through employee jealousy. As expected, the current study found that organization-based self-esteem mitigates the negative effect of jealousy on citizenship behavior towards colleagues and exacerbate the positive effect of competitive climate on citizenship behavior towards customers (via jealousy). Our findings have theoretical and practical implications and recommend future research opportunities.