Does Spiritual Work Environment Reduce Workplace Incivility? The Mediating Role of Prosociality

Abstract

Organizational behavior researchers concur that the ever-rising growth of workplace incivility paralyzes the well-being of the organization, but how the occurrence of incivility can be scaled-down is yet to be known. To address this gap, we proposed and tested the effect of workplace spirituality on two types of workplace incivilities (experienced incivility and instigated incivility), based on the insights drawn from the conservation of resources theory and transactional model of stress. Taking intuition from the social exchange theory, we also investigated the mediating role of prosociality on the relationship between workplace spirituality and two forms of workplace incivilities. Using a time-lagged study design, we tested and replicated our model in two different field studies. Findings of both the studies revealed that workplace spirituality reduces the occurrence of experienced and instigated incivility at work. Prosociality partially mediated the relationship between spirituality and two forms of workplace incivility. Our study advances the literature on low intensity negative work behaviors and provides a solution to them in the form of workplace spirituality.