Are individualistic employees tolerant of the benefit of others? A multilevel analysis of the relationship between witnessing coworkers i-deals and malicious envy

This study focuses on a third party (coworkers) perspective of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). In more detail, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of witnessing others’ i-deals on coworker’s emotional response (malicious envy), and the moderating effect of individualistic values on that response at both individual and national level. In addition, this study examines the impact of two types of witnessing others’ i-deals which include not only the other’s i-deals that the coworker directly observes, but also the generalized others’ i-deals which is an aggregated perception as a result of frequent observation of idiosyncratic deals enjoyed by multiple others. Data were collected from 450 employees from 5 Asian countries at two points. We adopted a hierarchical linear model (HLM) because we assume two levels for both i-deals and individualism. The results show that witnessing other’s i-deals is positively related to malicious envy. In addion, individual-level individualism was found to moderate the relationship between witnessing coworkers’ i-deals and malicious envy. Interestingly, it is not individualism at the country level, but that at the individual level that moderates the relationship between witnessing i-deals and malicious envy. This study indicates that i-deals studies on coworkers’ reactions to others’ i-deals should focus more on the moderating effect of individual cultural values.