Social comparison processes in organizations

Abstract

We systematically analyze the role of social comparison processes in organizations. Specifically, we describe how social comparison processes have been used to explain six key areas of organizational inquiry: (1) organizational justice, (2) performance appraisal, (3) virtual work environments, (4) affective behavior in the workplace, (5) stress, and (6) leadership. Additionally, we describe how unique contextual factors in organizations offer new insight into two widely studied sub-processes of social comparison, acquiring social information and thinking about that information. Our analyses underscore the merit of integrating organizational phenomena and social comparison processes in future research and theory.