The relative impact of workplace incivility and bullying as a social stressor at work : The effects of workplace incivility and bullying on employees’ coping and behavior

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to measure the workplace incivility and bullying of deluxe hotel employees, and to examine whether different workplace incivility and bullying are ascribed to personal characteristics or unique culture of the workplace. The purpose of this study is to measure the workplace incivility and bullying of deluxe hotel employees and to examine whether different aspects of those behaviors can be ascribed to personal characteristics or to the unique culture of the workplace. A total of 224 usable questionnaires were collected. Structural equation analysis for the hypothesis test produced the outcome of χSUP2/SUP=637.316 (df=318), χSUP2/SUP/df=2.004, GFI=.836, NFI=.894, CFI=.942, and RMSEA=.067. Workplace incivility perceived by the employees in deluxe hotels significantly affected their avoidance coping behavior, but its impact on the employees’ confrontation coping behavior was insignificant. While workplace bullying significantly affected the employees’ confrontation coping behavior, it did not show a significant impact on the employees’ avoidance coping behavior. Among the factors that affected employees’ counterproductive work behavior, workplace incivility showed a significant impact and workplace bullying did not show a significant impact. Also, American employees more actively protected themselves in situations involving incivility or bullying by the method of confrontation coping as compared to Korean employees. This study puts stress on the necessity to expand the knowledge about workplace incivility and bullying, which are prevalent in deluxe hotels. It also provides a chance to stimulate further studies as it encourages comprehensive debates on incivility and bullying that occur in the working environment in deluxe hotels.