Diversity Climate Affords Unequal Protection Against COVID-19 Workplace Incivility for Asian Workers

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked significant anti-Asian prejudice and discrimination in North America. Integrating event system theory and selective incivility theory with research on diversity climate, we theorize that the typical protective effects of diversity climate against workplace mistreatment and discrimination may be disrupted by the pandemic. Specifically, given the particular animus directed toward the Chinese due to the discovery of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China paired with the fact that workers tend to share more personal information about themselves or may be more likely to adopt more visible displays of their ethnic identification at work when diversity climate is more positive, we predict that more positive diversity climates may not protect Chinese workers from selective incivility during the pandemic, whereas it may for Asian workers of other ethnic backgrounds. Downstream, workplace incivility attributed to prejudice due to COVID-19 should be related to a range of important work outcomes and social relations at and with work, including turnover intentions, job performance (including counterproductive work behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors), and emotional exhaustion. In a 3-wave, time-separated study of Asian workers (N = 248) in North America during the first wave of the pandemic, we found support for our predictions.