Abstract
Orientation: Workplace incivility holds consequences for both individuals and organisations. Managers are becoming increasingly aware of this phenomenon. Currently, there is no workplace incivility scale validated for use within the South African context. Research purpose: To investigate the reliability and validity of the adapted workplace incivility scale by Leiter and colleagues for use within South Africa. Motivation for the study: As it is currently difficult to measure workplace incivility within the South African context because of the lack of a valid and reliable scale, it is necessary to validate such a scale.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional research approach was used for the study. Convenience sampling (N = 345) was used within the South African banking industry. Specifically, the factor structure, convergent validity, discriminant validity and predictive validity were investigated in order to establish the overall validity of the scale. Main findings: The results confirmed that the scale showed a three-factor structure as bestfitting with acceptable reliability coefficients. Furthermore, discriminant validity could be shown between workplace incivility and workplace bullying, that is, supporting that these two constructs are not the same phenomenon. In terms of relationships, colleague incivility did not significantly predict any of the outcome variables and instigated incivility only being a negative predictor of job satisfaction and a borderline statistically significant negative predictor of work engagement. However, supervisor incivility predicted all the outcomes negatively. Practical/Managerial implications: Based on the results, workplace incivility should be addressed because of the harmful effects it can have, not only on employees but also on organisations. It is therefore necessary for managers to create awareness of workplace incivility in order to ensure that it does not integrate within the organisational culture and affect individual and organisational performance. Contribution/Value-add: The study contributes to the limited research available in South Africa regarding workplace incivility by providing a scale that is valid and reliable.
Highlights
Deviant behaviour within the workplace has received increased attention in recent years (Lim, Cortina & Magley, 2008), of which workplace bullying is one of the most well-known problems. Einarsen and Skogstad (1996) explain workplace bullying as systematic, repeated, persistent and continuous negative acts in which the victims present with an inferiority to defend themselves in the actual situation – and that single negative acts are not considered bullying
Actions that can be interpreted as rude, sarcastic or other perceived impolite behaviour are all examples of uncivil behaviours, which can be experienced within the work environment (Tarraf, 2012)
In terms of kurtosis, items perincivil2 (2.83) and perincivil5 (3.23) were above the set cut-off criteria. This indicated that the robust maximum likelihood estimator (MLR) was an applicable and informed choice for continuing with the SEM implementations as there was evidence of non-normality in the data
Summary
Deviant behaviour within the workplace has received increased attention in recent years (Lim, Cortina & Magley, 2008), of which workplace bullying is one of the most well-known problems. Einarsen and Skogstad (1996) explain workplace bullying as systematic, repeated, persistent and continuous negative acts in which the victims present with an inferiority to defend themselves in the actual situation – and that single negative acts are not considered bullying. Deviant behaviour within the workplace has received increased attention in recent years (Lim, Cortina & Magley, 2008), of which workplace bullying is one of the most well-known problems. A milder form of workplace deviance referred to as workplace incivility has not commanded any attention in South Africa. In contrast to workplace bullying, workplace incivility can be described as acts that are of lower intensity and frequency – either verbal or non-verbal (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). For behaviour to be classified as uncivil, the intention of the instigator to harm the victim is required to be perceived as ambiguous, that is, no clear intention to harm is perceived (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Actions that can be interpreted as rude, sarcastic or other perceived impolite behaviour are all examples of uncivil behaviours, which can be experienced within the work environment (Tarraf, 2012)
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