Ingram, Kyle E.
(2012)
Antecedents and consequences of relational ambivalence: a longitudinal and daily diary study investigation.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
Employee-manager relationships have received significant attention in the literature in
attempting to understand the development and consequences of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
relationships. Whilst much is known about these relationships independently, relatively
little is known about those relationships that are both ‘good’ and ‘bad’. This thesis uses
‘relational ambivalence’ to describe such relationships and addresses a fundamental
question in employee-manager research; can employees simultaneously like and dislike
their managers? Two separate research methodologies address this question. The first
study, employing a longitudinal survey over a six-month period, explored how
historical, individual and social-cognitive perspectives contributed to employee
relationship valuations (positive, negative, and ambivalent). This study also tested the
impact that each relationship valuation had on interpersonal and organisational
outcomes. The second study employed a daily diary method to explore how employee
relationship valuations impacted responses to manager-induced psychological contract
violations over a two-week period.
Findings indicated that relational ambivalence is a distinct relationship valuation both in
terms of its antecedents and consequences. The first study revealed that relational
ambivalence had a curvilinear relationship with both leader-member exchange and
relational schema similarity. Additionally, preoccupied attachment was positively
related to relational ambivalence, whilst oneness perceptions were negatively related to
relational ambivalence. The study examined two outcome categories: interpersonal and
organisational. The interpersonal outcomes revealed a negative relationship with affectbased and cognition-based trust, as well as relational identification; whilst the
organisational outcomes revealed that relational ambivalence was the strongest
relationship valuation linked to turnover intent. Relational ambivalence was negatively
related to OCBs directed toward the organisation, and job control negatively moderated
OCBs directed toward the manager. Finally, study two revealed that relational
ambivalence changes in intensity over time and leads to increased OCBs, decreased
forgiveness, and increased intrusive thoughts after a manager-induced psychological
contract violation. Employees offering positive valuations lowered their OCBs,
increased forgiveness, and did not experience intrusive thoughts; whilst those offering
negative valuations only lowered their OCBs. Contributions and implications of this
thesis are discussed.
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