“Comparisons are Odious”? — Exploring the Dual Effect of Upward Social Comparison on Workplace Coping Behaviors of Temporary Agency Workers

Temporary agency workers are becoming increasingly critical as a supplementary workforce within enterprises, inevitably leading upward social comparisons with permanent employees. However, existing research pays little attention to this phenomenon, which cannot provide theoretical guidance for the management of temporary agency workers. To fill this gap, our study utilizes the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion to construct a dual-path moderated mediation model, examining how upward social comparison is associated with positive and negative behaviors through two distinct forms of envy. Through the questionnaire survey, data is collected from 882 temporary agency workers in a Chinese temporary staffing firm. The results reveal that upward social comparison is associated with both benign and malicious envy, which in turn respectively relate to informal workplace learning and social undermining behavior. Additionally, psychological availability moderates the relationship between upward social comparison and envy, such that when psychological availability is higher (vs lower), the positive effect of upward social comparison on benign envy is stronger and the positive effect of upward social comparison on malicious envy is weaker. Moreover, psychological availability further moderates the indirect effect of upward social comparison on employee behavior. When psychological availability is higher (vs lower), the positive indirect effect of upward social comparison on informal workplace learning via benign envy is stronger, whereas the positive indirect effect of upward social comparison on social undermining via malicious envy is weaker. Our study enriches the theoretical research perspective of upward social comparison and provides insights for managing temporary agency workers. Our study is the first to explore the dual behavioral choices of upward social comparison of temporary agency workers and apply the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion to social comparison. The results indicate that organizations can improve the psychological availability of temporary agency workers to stimulate learning behavior and reduce social undermining behavior to achieve a win-win situation between temporary agency workers and organizations.