The Impact of Sorrow of Comparison on Social Undermining with the Mediation of Inert Envy

Undesirable social comparison is one of the main reasons for social undermining behaviors in organizations. Few studies have investigated the functional mechanism of this relationship. The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of the sorrow caused by unfavorable social comparison on the social undermining of the colleague by the mediating of inert envy.

This research’s method is descriptive-survey. The statistical population of this study is contract staff of the selected units of the central campus of Kermanshah Razi University. Selected units and their staff were randomly chosen. Standard questionnaires were distributed among 147 employees of selected units using simple random sampling. Structural equation modeling and Smart PLS3 software was used for data analysis.

Findings from this study shows that the sorrow which result from unfavorable social comparison does not lead to the social undermining of the colleague, but by mediating inert envy, leads to social undermining; means individuals focuses on undesirable positions and this unfavorable feeling in individuals will become a kind of envy called inert envy that leads to the social undermining in colleagues.

In general, negative traits such as envy, the likelihood of not responding honestly, can reduce trust the results.

The Sorrow of comparison to becoming inert envy leads to the colleague social undermining. Therefore, avoiding the backgrounds of sorrow of comparison is essential to preventing social undermining behaviors in organizations.

In this study for the first time envy is considered as a multivariate feeling. In addition, this study adds to managerial research in the area of negative organizational variables such as envy and social undermining.