The double-edged pathway of entitlement and obligation: Understanding the impact of workplace ostracism on voice behaviors among public sector employees through a social exchange framework

Background While prior studies have focused on the detrimental outcomes of workplace ostracism, employee voice behavior has received limited scholarly attention. Objective Drawing on social exchange theory, this study examines the relationship between workplace ostracism and challenging and supportive voice. Specifically, this study investigates the dual mediating roles of psychological entitlement and felt obligation and examines whether forgiveness climate perceived by employees moderates these relationships. Methods Using survey data collected from 323 public service sector employees in Southwest China, this study performs latent moderated structural equation Modeling (LMS) to test the proposed hypotheses. Results The results reveal that felt obligation significantly mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and both forms of voice behavior. Psychological entitlement mediates only the relationship between ostracism and supportive voice. Furthermore, forgiveness climate significantly moderated the relationships between workplace ostracism, and both felt obligation and psychological entitlement. A high forgiveness climate weakened the conditional indirect effects of workplace ostracism on challenging voice and supportive voice through felt obligation. It also strengthened the conditional indirect effect of workplace ostracism on challenging voice through psychological entitlement. Conclusion This study advances the literature on ostracism and voice behavior and offers practical implications for public service sector organizations.