Abstract: Workplace ostracism is a common phenomenon in all kinds of organizations, and has attracted more and more scholars' attention and discussion after Ferris and other scholars proposed a reliable measurement method for workplace ostracism in 2008. Based on conservation of resource theory and self-presentation theory, this paper discusses the impact of perceived workplace ostracism by colleagues on upward ingratiation of employees and the moderating effect of superior-subordinate tacit understanding. Using MPLUS and SPSS, and with hierarchical regression method and Bootstrap, we did an empirical verification of the data collected by questionnaire from 480 knowledge workers from high-tech service industry. The results show that impact of perceived workplace ostracism by colleagues has a significant positive effect on upward ingratiation of employees, and superior-subordinate tacit understanding plays a moderating role between perceived workplace ostracism by colleagues and upward ingratiation of employees.

Key words: workplace ostracism, upward ingratiation, superior-subordinate tacit understanding, conservation of resource theory, self-presentation theory