Abstract This paper integrates McClelland’s three needs theory to investigate the effect of ostracism on the employees’ work outcomes. We collected multi-wave and multi-source data to avoid common method bias problem. The analysis of 272 employee-supervisor dyads from companies in China indicated that workplace ostracism negatively affects employees’ creativity and positively promotes employees’ organizational deviance. In addition, the effect of workplace ostracism on creativity or organizational deviance is moderated by three needs. Further, the results show that employees with high need for achievement are less negatively (positively) affected by ostracism in terms of creativity (organizational deviance); employees with high need for affiliation are more negatively (positively) affected by ostracism in terms of creativity (organizational deviance); employees with high need for power are more positively affected by ostracism in terms of organizational deviance.
2016, Vol. 13 
