Roses with or without thorns? A theoretical model of workplace friendship

Abstract

Previous studies on the effects of workplace friendship on team effectiveness have yielded somewhat inconsistent findings. Despite the inconsistent findings, our understanding of why those inconsistent findings exist are still in a nascent state. Furthermore, beyond group-level task performance, it remains unclear how workplace friendship affects group-level contextual performance, such as organizational citizenship behaviors and workplace deviance behaviors. On the basis of a qualitative review of studies in the existing literature, the authors build a theoretical model highlighting the roles of three contextual factors (i.e., group-level emotional labor demands, team-based rewards, and group members' average age) in explaining how workplace friendship is related to three aspects of team effectiveness. This proposed model provides theoretical insights to facilitate future empirical studies on workplace friendship.