Representational Predicaments at Work: Their Relationship with Job Satisfaction and with How Employees Perceive the Level of Individualized Consideration by Superiors

Employees experience representational predicaments if there is perceptual congruence between themselves and their superior regarding salient aspects of the work, and if this is unfavourable to the employee. In a survey of 330 Hong Kong Chinese employees, supplemented by 8 qualitative interviews, we found that two types of representational predicament, i.e., being neglected and negative spotlighting, adversely impacted overall job satisfaction, and were associated with employee perceptions that their superiors’ had low levels of individualized consideration. Qualitative case examples illuminated the underlying processes through which representational predicaments could arsie and persist. The study identifies some practical implications for leadership training and development.