Breaking (or making) the silence: How goal interdependence and social skill predict being ostracized

•Examines antecedents of workplace ostracism.•Goal interdependence types and social skill interact to influence whether an individual is ostracized.•Relationship conflict mediates the interactive effects of social skill with cooperative and competitive goal interdependence.

Although ostracism can have devastating consequences for employees and organizations, our understanding of what contributes to ostracism is notably limited. Drawing on and extending goal interdependence theory, we integrate the goal interdependence and social skill literatures to predict when individuals are likely to be ostracized. Across two studies we found that cooperative goal interdependence reduced, while competitive goal interdependence facilitated, being ostracized; social skill strengthened the negative impact of cooperative goal interdependence on ostracism and neutralized the positive impact of competitive goal interdependence on ostracism. In a third longitudinal study, we found that relationship conflict mediated the interactive effect of goal interdependence and social skill on being ostracized. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.