Who is deserving and who decides: Entitlement as a work-situated phenomenon

Popular press accounts and emerging research suggest that organizations increasingly face the prospect of managing employees who are highly entitled, yet relatively little research has explored entitlement in work settings. Moreover, in the limited existing research, scholars have considered entitlement through a narrow lens, primarily viewing it as a stable individual difference without consideration of the social context that surrounds the individual. The conceptualization presented here, which we label “work-situated entitlement,” depicts entitlement as a socially determined work condition that reflects a misalignment between perceptions of the individual employee and perceptions of the workgroup. Situating entitlement in the work context allows for explanation of both the processes through which work-situated entitlement develops and its emotional and behavioral effects. This model provides a broader conceptualization of entitlement and illustrates how organizations might intervene to limit its deleterious work-related consequences.