Workplace loneliness: Relationships with abstract entities as substitutes for peer relationships

Abstract

Workplace loneliness is an epidemic in the United States and a serious problem in organizations. The solution may seem obvious: create high‐quality interpersonal relationships. Employees, however, are not guaranteed to establish such relationships for a multitude of reasons. This raises the question: are there influences that would buffer against loneliness even in the absence of high‐quality interpersonal relationships? Addressing this issue, we propose that understanding loneliness in the workplace requires looking beyond one's relationships with people to consider other key elements of work life, such as an employee's relationship with their work and the organization. We hypothesize that work centrality and organizational identification substitute for high‐quality relationships with peers (conceptualized as team–member exchange, TMX). In a survey separating predictor variables and loneliness in time, we find that TMX is negatively associated with workplace loneliness and that work centrality acts as a substitute for TMX. Organizational identification does not substitute for TMX, and this finding is discussed. This paper contributes to the nascent body of work on workplace loneliness by investigating what factors contribute to workplace loneliness and whether relationships with abstract entities can provide a bond sufficient to substitute for interpersonal relationships.