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Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of several variables on coworker perceptions of fairness regarding workplace romance (WR) management practices. Design/Methodology/Approach Data on actual real-life WRs were obtained through personal interviews with part-time and full-time employees who were also pursuing university studies (n = 100). Findings The results of the study indicate that most coworkers perceive managerial inaction regarding WRs to be fair unless (1) the WR is having a negative effect on the workplace, (2) the WR parties work in the same department, or (3) the organization has a WR policy. Managerial action was taken in only 11 of the 100 cases reported. None of the participants reported any positive effect of WRs. Implications In general, coworkers consider it fair for WRs to be accepted as a fact of organizational life and for no action to be taken unless there are negative ramifications of the WR. Contextual factors are important to coworkers who are assessing the fairness of managerial action regarding a WR, and managers can increase the chance of WR management being perceived as fair by taking these contextual factors into account when determining their actions in situations involving WR. Originality/Value Unlike a number of previous studies on WR, this research was based on real-life WRs, rather than scenarios. This study addressed a gap in the literature with respect to variables affecting coworker perceptions of fairness regarding WRs.

The purpose of the present study is twofold. First, we examined the relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance and tested the role of affective commitment foci - namely, affective coworker commitment, affective supervisor commitment, and affective organizational commitment - as parallel mediators in the relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. Second, we tested the moderating role of culture on the interrelationships between workplace romance, affective commitment foci, and employee job performance. A two-wave (3-month interval) survey data were collected from 312 paramedics - 162 and 150 from Pakistani and Chinese public-sector hospitals, respectively. The first and second waves of data collection took place in January and May 2017, respectively. Structural equation modeling (SEM), bootstrapping technique, and multigroup analysis were used to test the interrelationships between workplace romance, affective commitment foci, and employee job performance and to examine the cross-cultural differences in these interrelations. Results obtained using SEM show that workplace romance positively influences employee performance. Importantly, the study revealed that the three foci of affective commitment - namely, coworker affective commitment, supervisor affective commitment, and organizational affective commitment - as parallel mediators fully mediate the relationship between workplace romance and employee performance. Moreover, national culture moderates the indirect relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance, where workplace romance is stronger for the Chinese data sample. It is concluded that workplace romance is positively related to employee job performance and that affective commitment foci fully mediate the positive relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. Moreover, culture moderates the indirect relationship between workplace romance and employee job performance. The study contributes to theory and practice by studying an essential but largely ignored aspect of the workplace and portraying it as a constructive influence on employee job performance and their affective commitment to coworkers, supervisor, and organization.

This study advances research on workplace romance, employees’ work-related attitudes, and discretionary work behaviors by drawing on a positive psychology theory to theorize interrelations between workplace romance, job involvement, and employees’ work effort and provide empirical evidence of these interrelations. Data were collected in two waves (three months apart) from 365 supervisor-employee dyads in 64 firms from different Chinese manufacturing sectors. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), bootstrapping, and multigroup techniques. The present study found that workplace romance was positively related to employees’ work effort. Moreover, employees’ job involvement fully mediates the positive relationship between workplace romance and employees’ work effort. Importantly, by using multigroup analysis, the current research found that workplace romance types – hierarchical/lateral and licit/illicit (extramarital) moderate the indirect relationship between workplace romance and employees’ work effort. This study offers important implications for managers and policymakers of business organizations in China and elsewhere.

Purpose Extant research on workplace ostracism has investigated a victimization perspective to understand ostracism at the cost of examining the perpetrator-centric view of ostracism. This study aims to draw on the self-categorization theory and the social exchange theory to investigate the harmful effects of workplace romance in cultivating workplace ostracism from the perspective of perpetrator to combat concerns for victim blaming. This study further proposes that workplace ostracism triggered by workplace romance provokes interpersonal conflict. Besides, this study investigates the moderating role of prosocial behavior in the underlying linkages. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a multisource, time-lagged research design to collect data from employees working in the service sector organizations in Pakistan. This study analyzes 367 responses using SmartPLS (v 4.0). Findings The findings of this study reveal that workplace romance elicits workplace ostracism, which, in turn, fosters interpersonal conflict among coworkers. In addition, this study finds that ingroup prosocial behavior strengthens the associations between workplace romance and workplace ostracism, and workplace romance and interpersonal conflict, mediated by workplace ostracism such that the associations are more potent at higher levels of ingroup prosocial behavior and vice versa. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines workplace romance as the perpetrator-centric antecedent of workplace ostracism, and ingroup prosocial behavior in exaggerating the outgroup ostracism and interpersonal conflict.

Purpose We examine the bi-directional nature of role segmentation preferences— preferences to protect the home domain from work intrusions , and to protect the work domain from home intrusions —and hypothesize that the dimensions independently prompt individuals to manage their boundaries in ways that complement their preferences. Design and Methodological Approach In a series of three studies, we investigate whether segmentation preferences vary on two dimensions, how they reflect enactive and proactive boundary management, and their association with domain-specific satisfaction and performance. Findings In Study 1 (field design, n  = 314), we confirmed that segmentation preferences comprise two distinct dimensions, and individuals experience fewer intrusions into the domain they desired to protect. In Study 2 (experimental design, n  = 1253), we found that participants who prefer to protect their home domain are less inclined to accept jobs in scenarios where their significant other is employed in the same organization, and participants who prefer to protect their work domain are less inclined to initiate a romantic relationship in scenarios that involve a coworker. In Study 3 (field design, n  = 65), we found that individuals who prefer to protect their work or home domain report greater satisfaction with the preferred domain, and whereas the preference to protect the work domain is not associated with higher supervisor ratings of job performance, preference to protect the home domain is associated with higher significant-other ratings of non-work performance. Implications Understanding employees’ proclivities to blur boundaries can inform recruitment and selection of employees to anticipate organizational fit, diagnose sources of misfit, structure individualized policies to ameliorate employee strain, and decrease turnover costs. Originality/Value This synthesis provides a unique investigation of segmentation preference dimensions’ differential functioning and reinforces the validity of the role segmentation preferences concept.

Workplace relationships that transcend formal role boundaries offer benefits and challenges to organizations and relational participants. Communicative processes that form and maintain these relationships can be examined from a communication ethics perspective focused on the outcomes emerging from these relationships that define particular goods for personal and organizational life. The blended nature of these relationships makes them host to potentially competing goods tied to public and private concerns. Considering the connection of virtue approaches to communication ethics in organizational settings to the turn to positive approaches to communication and organizational theory reveals avenues for ethical reflection and action in these increasingly important relational forms.

PurposeThis study applies complexity theory to propose and empirically examine asymmetric case conditions of antecedents and outcome models of high (low) willingness-to-engage in workplace romance (WEWR). This study focuses on constructing complex antecedent conditions that accurately indicate which employees, and under what conditions, employees are high in WEWR.Design/methodology/approachUsing an experimental design, 162 employees were assigned one of nine hypothetical vignettes describing different workplace romance contexts including three discrete policies regarding workplace romances (i.e. strictly forbidden, moderate, vs no policy), two motivations for the workplace romance (i.e. job vs love), and two organizational positions of the romance (i.e. hierarchical vs lateral). Participants then reported WEWR responses. Participants also provided demographic, behavioral, and psychological work-related information. This study assesses and supports recipes (i.e. algorithms) of case and organizational structure conditions to identify cases high (low) in WEWR accurately and consistently.FindingsThe results provide clarity of which and when employees are willing vs unwilling to engage in workplace romances – and the contextualized impacts of organizational bans on WEWR. The study’s results are useful for estimating for whom specific workplace policies are effective or not by specific workplace contexts.Practical implicationsIn highlighting the role of varying antecedent conditions in predicting WEWR, this research will assist organizations and practitioners in understanding the context in which workplace romances are more likely to occur, providing insight as to when employees are likely to comply with workplace romance policies.Originality/valueThis paper is the first in the workplace romance literature to examine unique combinations of antecedent conditions on WEWR, adding nuance to the current understanding of the behavior.

PurposeDrawing on scholarships of workplace romance, LGBT at work and sexual fluidity, this present research aims to investigate the effect of female sexually fluid romantic relationships at work on their work and life.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used qualitative approach and interviewed 30 female workers who experienced sexual fluidity at work.FindingsFrom interviews with 30 female employees in Vietnam who experience fluidity in their romance, the authors find out positive and negatives effects on their psychology at work (affective/behavioral/cognitive change and mental health), work outcome (job attitudes and performance/productivity) and relations with coworkers.Originality/valueThis research discovers common and distinct features in the workplace romance of female sexually fluid employees. The research finding supports queer perspective which is exerting more salient impacts on our contemporary society and workplace.

PurposeThe goal of this study is to examine the association between managers' sexually-oriented behavior in publicly traded firms and subsequent stock market reactions. Both sexual harassment and nonharassing sexually-oriented behavior (i.e. workplace romance) are associated with negative shareholder reactions. The authors also examine factors that may alter the stock market reaction and those that may reduce the risk of lawsuit in sexual harassment cases.Design/methodology/approachInformation about incidents of sexually-oriented behavior was collected from media reports and content coded. An event study with a stock market reaction was used to measure the impact of disclosed sexually-oriented behaviors. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between incident characteristics and sexual harassment lawsuits.FindingsDisclosure of managers' sexually-oriented behavior is associated with a negative stock market reaction. Interestingly, the reaction was not more severe for sexual harassment disclosures compared to nonharassing behavior (i.e. workplace romance). Results also suggest that terminating a manager prior to disclosure of an event is negatively related to a harassment lawsuit.Originality/valueThe authors report this as the first study to focus on the stock market reaction of sexually-oriented harassing and nonharassing behavior of managers. This work complements research that documents the negative impact of sexual harassment on individuals by demonstrating these behaviors are associated with loss and risk at an organizational level.