This is an Article Review on ‘Preferential Mistreatment: How Victim Status Moderates the Relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Workplace Victimization’ which endeavors to inquire whether employees are vulnerable by the harmful actions of others and to test this claim the authors employed the three indicators of social status sex, hierarchical position, and racial background to arrive at the this hypothesis

1. Atam Edward Motufoua USP: Facultyof BusinessandEconomics
BA Candidate (Politics, Management and Public Administration) Year 2013
Article Review;
The article at the center of this review titled: ‘Preferential Mistreatment: How Victim
Status Moderates the Relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Workplace
Victimization’ is a journal article published by the Institute for Operational Research and the
Management Sciences (informs). The journal article is a collaborative piece by Karl Aquino and
William H Bommer; the former is of the Department of Business, University of Delaware whilst
the latter is an academic from Georgia State University, Department of Management. This
collaborative piece endeavors to inquire whether employees are vulnerable by the harmful actions
of others and to test this claim the authors employed the three indicators of social status, sex,
hierarchical position, and racial background to arrive at the this hypothesis (Aquino and Bommer,
2003: 374).
The authors have put forward four hypotheses to test the validity of the claim at the center
of this paper. The first hypothesis as laid out by Aquino & Bommer (2003: 375) stipulates that
‘perceived victimization is negatively related with the performance of guided interpersonal
citizenship behavior’. Another alternate hypothesis are reflected in Hypothesis two which
principally states that employees in the uppermost position experience a stronger negative force of
In justifying the first hypothesis, two psychological mechanisms were employed. The first
is reciprocity a concept which Gouldner (1960: 161) emphasized is an activity which concerns
with how a person returns the favor owing to previous relations. Therefore, the authors were
convinced that an act of kindness towards another will invoke the same treatment of kindness;
whilst, a harmful act towards another party will lead to retaliation from that party to the
wrongdoer (Aquino and Bommer, 2003: 375), further arguing that citizenship is negatively
related to victimization when conceptualizing good citizenship as a social resource that benefit
others. Another mechanism relates to employees who rebuff citizenship behaviors; this according

2. Atam Edward Motufoua USP: Facultyof BusinessandEconomics
BA Candidate (Politics, Management and Public Administration) Year 2013
to Aquino and Bommer (2003: 375) makes employees highly improbable to maintain
relationships built on positive exchange. Furthermore, citing Bolino (1999: 82), the authors
contended that organizational citizenship enhances social attractiveness; hence, such behavior
ought to be negatively related to workplace victimization.
The second hypothesis test the moderating influence of social class by examining three
supposedly indicators of status- race, hierarchical arrangement and sex for which the authors
claim is an impediment to organizational behavior. According to Aquino and Bommer (2003:
376) people tend to view high and low ranking personnel’s differently; supported perhaps by
Georgesen and Harris (1998) who infer that high class employees are often perceived as more
superior and elegant than their lower status counterparts. The study implies that victimization
complaint is high in low status workers as compared to their high ranking colleagues, extending
that direct relationship in a hierarchical position temperate the relationship between organizational
citizenship and victimization (Aquino & Bommer, 2003: 376). Also, pointing out will a women or
minority group signify one's position in an organization (Pettigrew & Martin: 1987). In
summation, the arguments suggests some of the practical reasons why high status employees
may benefit more from being good citizen’s compared to those of lower rank.
In the formulation of hypothesis three, the underlying argument is that African-Americans
are widely perceived as having lower social status relative to whites (Aquino & Bommer, 2003:
377). Despite the improvement in the economic situation of African-Americans as noted by the
researchers, they continue to experience an uneven share of social burdens like low education and
poverty in relation to whites (Sidanius and Pratto 1999). Furthermore, using the status
characteristics theory, the researchers argued that the social attractiveness of African through acts
of citizenship is less likely compared to a white employee (Aquino & Bommer, 2003: 377), the
reason is simply because of the racial biases towards minority in the workplace; whereas men
experience more victimization, compared to women; when examining the affiliation between
organizational citizenship behavior and perceived victimization.
Last but not least, the fourth hypothesis proposed by the authors is based on the long held
view that women have conventionally held jobs, inferior in status, and influence in comparison to
their male counterparts (Aquino & Bommer 2003: Kantar 1977), this, therefore reinforces the

3. Atam Edward Motufoua USP: Facultyof BusinessandEconomics
BA Candidate (Politics, Management and Public Administration) Year 2013
discernment that female employees are of a lower status group and are vulnerable to victimization
than most men of their male counterparts.
In conducting this research, the methodologies employed by the authors are social surveys
and personal observations where they administer workers on-site. The test was carried out on
employees of an American manufacturing firm; the authors selected 575 employees as
respondents, however, usable data on all study variables were obtained from 425 employees
(employees who responded). In reviewing the firm’s employee roll, 418 employees were retained
for further analysis while the Hispanic workers were removed due to their insignificant number.
In all, the sample consists of 155 African-American and 263 were white, out of which 276 were
females and 142 males. Another approach was taken by the second author, who administered an
employee survey on-site at each location since the firm has four branches in the United States.
The components used for the purpose of analysis are race, gender, organizational level and
organization citizenship behavior (Aquino and Bommer, 2003: 378).
The findings were somewhat mixed to the authors; firstly, citizenship behavior was
strongly and negatively related to victimization for whites as compared to African-Americans.
However, contrary to the predictions of the authors, Aquino and Bommer (2003: 378) found that
citizenship was more strongly related to perceived victimization among employees with low
status workers as compared to those higher up in the hierarchy. In theory, citizenship according to
the said authors would show a hint of the negative reception to victimization for high as compared
to low formal ranking employees. The data collated could not reinforce this claim; adding that
there was no sign and direct relationship between formal status and victimization. Even so, it was
noted that formal status did restrain the relationship between citizenship and victimization, thus
the form of status advocated by the authors appears to matter (Aquino & Bommer, 2003: 378).
The research in some ways complements the situation in the Pacific Island States, for instance, the
mentality in many Pacific countries is that high ranking officials or executives should be accorded
the highest courtesy and respect. As a result high ranking executives experience some form of
immunity when it comes to victimization in the workplace as compared to their low ranking
counterparts. So the mentality is that those in the lower hierarchy are more vulnerable to being
influenced by the actions of others than those in the top hierarchy. It could also be said that

4. Atam Edward Motufoua USP: Facultyof BusinessandEconomics
BA Candidate (Politics, Management and Public Administration) Year 2013
female workers or workers belonging to a certain minority groups are more likely to be
victimized; while the dominant race works unscathed.
In conclusion, the four hypotheses proposed at the testing point of the author’s arguments;
do have practical implications as it illustrated that employees can defend themselves against
victimization (Aquino & Bommer, 2003: 383). As such, where practical implications are plain;
efforts needed to be made at both the individual and organizational level to guarantee that
minorities have a chance to obtain positions of authority in any organization. The authors went on
to write that, this can be attained through training and mentoring minority job contenders and the
constant utilization of affirmative action programs, intended to ensure that qualified minorities are
given the same prospect on achieving positions of prominence as their white counterparts.

5. Atam Edward Motufoua USP: Facultyof BusinessandEconomics
BA Candidate (Politics, Management and Public Administration) Year 2013
Bibliography
Aquino, K., & Bommer, W. H., 2003. Preferential mistreatment: How victim status moderates the
relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and workplace victimization.
Organization Science, 4, pp. 374–383.
Bolino, M. C. 1999. Citizenship and impression management: Good soldiers or good actors?
Academic Management Review, 24, p. 82
Georgesen, J. C & Harris, M. J., 1998. Why’s my boss always holding me down? A meta-analysis
of power effects on performance evaluations. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
2, pp. 184-195
Gouldner, A. W., 1960. The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American
Sociological Review, 25, p. 161
Pettigrew, T. F & Martin, J. 1987. Shaping the organizational context for Black American
inclusion, Journal of Sociological Issues, 43, pp. 41-78
Sidanius, J. & Pratto, F. 1999. Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and
Oppression. London: Cambridge University Press.