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Loneliness at Work: How it Happens and How it Affects Stress, Resilience, Behavior, and Wellbeing
Abstract   Open access

Loneliness at Work: How it Happens and How it Affects Stress, Resilience, Behavior, and Wellbeing

ZhengPeng(Matt) Wang, Madison Suzanne LaBella, Anthony Silard, Sarah Wright, Sawyer Wilkins, Chris Reina, Julie M. McCarthy, Talya N. Bauer, Berrin Erdogan, Emily D. Campion, …
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol.2025(1)
07/2025
DOI: 10.5465/AMPROC.2025.13120symposium
url
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2025.13120symposiumView
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Abstract only Loneliness has emerged as a critical issue for organizations with detrimental impacts on employee effectiveness, job attitudes, and wellbeing. With 80% of employees experiencing loneliness at work and a dearth of research on loneliness in work settings, organizational research on this topic is of critical importance to both managers and scholars. The extant literature suffers from several oversights, which this symposium addresses. First, this symposium responds to calls for research on the antecedents of loneliness at work (Firoz et al., 2021; Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018) by investigating employee perceptions, employee behaviors, and organizational factors. The papers specifically highlight the role of signals of dissimilarity, social structure, and identity. Second, the literature suffers from a lack of attention to specific psychological mechanisms explaining the relationship between loneliness on employee outcomes. The papers in this symposium show the role of stress and vulnerability. In doing so, the papers highlight that loneliness, while largely negative, may in certain contexts produce positive social outcomes. Finally, the literature has focused on loneliness only within the bounds work-related inputs and outputs. The papers in this symposium show how aspects of one’s family and community play a mitigating role in limiting the negative effects of loneliness on wellbeing and counterproductive behaviors such as withdrawal. Together, the five papers in this symposium investigate diverse groups of workers in various contexts to provide fresh and needed insights to understand how loneliness emerges in modern organizations and how it impacts stress, resilience, behavior, and overall experiences of wellbeing.

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