Impact of Supervisor Phubbing on Subordinate's Performance; the Mediation Effect of Trust in Supervisor

Abstract

Technology plays a significant role in advancing human life in different ways. However, at the same time it imposes some challenges in human life, in particular, in keeping interaction with others. One of the biggest issues is that people are using their smartphones heavily, irrespective of their location. Thus, scholars started examining the consequences of addictions to the smart phones and in 2012, a team of prominent researchers introduced the concept of phubbing. The term phubbing can be defined as people are interacting with their phones instead of paying attention to others. Phubbing behavior leads to a feeling of rejection in the person who is being phubbed (Phubbee). This study focuses on examining impact of supervisor phubbing and trust on subordinate’s performance. The study was based upon positivism research philosophy, and it adopted a deductive, explanatory research approach. The researcher used the survey method as a research strategy and the nature of the study is cross sectional. To test the hypotheses, data were collected from 287 employees who are employed in a Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing Company. Moreover, hypotheses were tested with the aid of Andry F Heyes Process for SPSS v4.3. The result showed supervisors’ phubbing negatively associated with trust, and both phubbing and trust lead to poor employee performance. Common method biases, biased measures of performance and single source are limitations of the study.