Abstract:  Workplace ostracism, a negative behavior, has detrimental consequences for employees and organizations in the form of employees’ psychological states, work attitudes, work behaviors and organizational performance. Workplace ostracism has attracted attention from scholars and managers in recent years. By systematically reviewing the literature of its concept, structural features, measurements, and comparing with other types of workplace behavior and empirical researches, this study summarizes related researches home and abroad, and discusses the contingent effect of Chinese culture. Future studies should focus on enriching the definition and dimensions of workplace ostracism, expanding its research level and exploring the mechanism from the perspective of Chinese organizational context.

Key words:  ostracism, workplace ostracism, Chinese culture, mechanism