Workplace interpersonal capitalization and employee well-being

Purpose Although coworkers’ workplace interpersonal capitalization occurs every day in the workplace, we know little about how it affects employees’ well-being or why and when this impact occurs. To address these questions, we theorized and tested a model that links coworkers’ capitalization to well-being outcomes via perceived relatedness and anxiety and the boundary condition of learning goal orientation. Design/methodology/approach Time-lagged survey data were collected ( N = 304) from a range of organizations in mainland China. Path modeling was used to examine the hypotheses. Findings The results indicated that coworkers’ capitalization drives an employee to experience either relatedness or anxiety, depending on the employee’s learning goal orientation. Furthermore, responses to relatedness and anxiety trigger autonomous motivation and psychological detachment, respectively. Originality/value This study contributes to the capitalization literature by comprehensively explaining the negative and positive effects of coworkers’ capitalization on employees’ well-being.