Workplace Friendship is a Blessing in the Exploration of Supervisor Behavioral Integrity, Affective Commitment, and Employee Proactive Behavior – An Empirical Research from Service Industries of Pakistan

PURPOSE: Workplace friendships are typically complicated, serving various goals, imposing varying levels of expectation on the members, and representing the interaction among employees. Recent research has highlighted the multifaceted nature of friendship; however, the purpose of this study is to quantify the benefits of friendship at work. The study investigates the impact of supervisor behavioral integrity on employee proactive behavior. Moreover, it constructed a moderated mediation model based on attachment theory to examine the function of affective commitment as a mediator and workplace friendship as a moderator. METHODS: In three stages, 266 employee data from 20 Pakistani service industries were gathered (including seven banks, four educational institutes, five travel firms, and four telecom providers). Data on supervisor behavioral integrity, workplace friendship, affective commitment, employee proactive behavior, and demographics were collected between March and September 2020. FINDINGS: The findings indicated that supervisor behavioral integrity had a beneficial impact on employee proactive behavior. Affective commitment mediates the relation between supervisor behavioral integrity and employee proactive behavior. Furthermore, workplace friendship moderates the relationship between supervisor behavioral integrity and affective commitment and the indirect impact of supervisor behavioral integrity on employee proactive behavior through affective commitment. CONCLUSION: According to the findings of this study, workplace friendship is an essential informal aspect in any organization. Leadership as a formal organizational component would be greatly agitated even when employees have a low level of workplace friendship. Friendship in the workplace inspires employees to take action in order to succeed.