Religious beliefs as a moderator of the relationships between workplace incivility and counterproductive work behaviours

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The current work describes the relationship between workplace incivility and counterproductive work behaviours as moderated by religious-inspired ethics. Drawing from conservation of resources theory, we consider workplace incivility a type of workplace stressor draining the cognitive and psychological resources of employees that make them effective and productive. We posit that individuals’ religious beliefs and work ethics based on these beliefs provide resources to employees to counter, balance, or offset the loss of productive psychological resources. OBJECTIVE: We investigate the buffering effects of Islamic work ethics on the relationship between workplace incivility and counterproductive work behaviours. METHODS: The sample includes 251 employees working in the healthcare sector in Pakistan. Hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis was used to explore the relationships between workplace incivility, counterproductive work behaviours and Islamic work ethics. RESULTS: Our study results show that workplace incivility positively covaries with counterproductive work behaviours. However, Islamic work ethics negatively moderate this relationship. CONCLUSION: Theoretically, this study contributes by examining religious beliefs (Islamic work ethics) as a key resource that moderates the relationship between workplace incivility and counterproductive work behaviours. Furthermore, evidence regarding the different impacts of incivility on CWB-I and CWB-O in the Pakistani context agrees with the existing literature.