Supervisor incivility and employee voice: the roles of cognitive reappraisal and psychological distress

Abstract

PurposeThis work assesses the contingent role of cognitive reappraisal on the link between supervisor incivility and psychological distress and examines the mediating role of psychological distress on the link between supervisor incivility and employee voice, namely, promotive and prohibitive.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from 447 highly skilled employees of manufacturing companies. To evaluate the validity of the proposed hypotheses, the authors conducted hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping test.FindingsThe findings suggest that despite supervisor incivility, individuals with higher level of cognitive reappraisal are less likely to suffer from psychological distress, whereas individuals with a lower level of cognitive reappraisal are prone to psychological distress when individuals suffer from supervisor incivility. Moreover, the results indicate that psychological distress mediates the link between supervisor incivility and voice, namely, promotive and prohibitive.Originality/valueThis work is the first to investigate the contingency role of cognitive reappraisal on the link between supervisor incivility and psychological distress and the mediating role of psychological distress on the link between supervisor incivility and employee voice.