Working like a machine or a beast: Exploring mechanistic and animalistic dehumanization in organizations

Abstract

This research explores for the first time whether the two forms of organizational dehumaniza-tion (i.e., mechanistic and animalistic) are empirically distinct as well as their relationships with employees’ well-being (i.e., decreased job satisfaction), attitudes (i.e., increased turnover inten-tions), and behaviors (i.e., decreased in-role performance). Three cross-sectional field studies in-volving employees from various occupational domains were conducted. Results of structural equa-tion modeling showed that mechanistic and animalistic organizational dehumanization are empiri-cally distinct constructs that are differently related to outcomes. Specifically, when considering the two forms of organizational dehumanization, (1) both animalistic and mechanistic organizational dehumanization are negatively related to job satisfaction, (2) only mechanistic organizational de-humanization is positively related to turnover intentions, and (3) only animalistic organizational dehumanization is negatively related to in-role performance. Theoretical contributions to the organ-izational dehumanization literature as well as promising future research avenues are discussed.