Task performance of hotel employees: Role of ostracism, meaningfulness, and emotional exhaustion

This study examines workplace ostracism as a negative predictor of meaningful work and task performance and investigates whether meaningful work mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and task performance. It also tests emotional exhaustion as a moderator between the association of meaningful work and task performance. Convenient sampling was used to collect cross-sectional data from 383 hotel employees in Bangladesh. The results revealed that workplace ostracism and meaningful work are negatively related. Meaningful work mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and task performance, whereas emotional exhaustion moderates the positive association between meaningful work and task performance. This study expands self-concept and conservation of resources theories, and confirms that ostracism is a negative predictor of meaningful work. It also introduces meaningful work as a mediator and exhaustion as a moderator in this relationship. Meaningful work should be increased for better task performance, whereas ostracism and exhaustion should be minimised.