Workplace Incivility Research Articles

Why should i be judged? Exploring third party perceptions of workplace incivility against single working mothers

A serious problem in the workplace is incivility, which impacts especially vulnerable groups like single mothers who hold jobs and experience subtle unfair or damaging treatment. As the number of single working mothers continues to rise in today’s workforce, this study aims to clarify third-party perceptions about incivility against them at work and subsequent influences on individuals as well as the organization. Because the analysis is embedded in theories of social role expectations and organizational justice, it explores third-party observers’ perceptions (such as coworkers or supervisors) of whether incivility directed at single working mothers differs from that experienced by their comparison group—professionally equivalent peers who do not share equal caregiver responsibilities. The researchers employed a mixed-methods approach, incorporating both quantitative surveys and in-depth qualitative interviews to collect rich data from participants who represented several fields. They report their results that third-party observers are less likely to experience vicarious justification of incivility against single working mothers but may be equally unlikely or even more reluctant than in the case of other employees and furthermore find this data account for these differences. The results illustrate the intricate interplay of gender, family structure and work dynamics on workplace outcomes—all leading to lower job satisfaction rates, a high level of stress or even stagnation in career progression for single working mothers. Our findings also extend the workplace incivility literature by demonstrating ways in which single working mothers are particularly vulnerable to this form of mistreatment and a broader need for organizational policies that cultivate an inclusive, supportive environment. Implications for human resource management, organizational culture and policy based on these findings are discussed as it may provide some recommendations for handling incivility in the workplace environment.

직장 내 갑질과 이직의도와의 영향 관계에서 회복탄력성의 조절효과 연구 - 호텔 F&B 종사원을 중심으로

Objective : This study tested the moderating effect of resilience in the relationship between workplace incivility and turnover intention by targeting hotel F&B employees. Methods : This study conducted a survey using an online questionnaire from June 1 to June 30, 2024. Then, this study conducted an empirical analysis using the SPSS statistical program on a total of 252 subjects. Results : The analysis results are as follows:First, workplace incivility was found to have a significant effect on turnover intention. Second, resilience (self-regulation ability, interpersonal ability, and positivity) had a moderating effect in the relationship between workplace incivility and turnover intention. Implications : Based on these results, this study attempted to provide basic data for efficient human resource management operation in hotel companies.

The Influence of Workplace Incivility, Perceived Supervisor Support, and Job Satisfaction in Mediating Organizational Identification Has an Influence on Employee Performance in Teachers at the Yos Sudarso Karawang School

This research describes the results of the analysis which concludes that workplace incivility has a negative influence on organizational identification, while perceived supervisor support and job satisfaction show a positive influence, although not always significant. Apart from that, it was found that organizational identification has a positive and significant influence on employee performance. These findings support previous research which reports that the relationship between these variables is complex and can influence employee performance. Therefore, this research not only provides a better understanding of the factors that influence teacher performance at the Yos Sudarso Karawang school, but also highlights the importance of paying attention to organizational identification in an effort to improve individual performance in an organizational context. In addition, through clear identification of the problem, scope, problem formulation, objectives and benefits of research, this research also contributes to further understanding of important issues in education in Indonesia.

Determinants of workplace incivility and violence faced by female doctors in medical institutions.

To assess the frequency of workplace gender-based violence and incivility faced by female doctors. The analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted from June 10 to August 31, 2023, in Lahore, Pakistan, and comprised female doctors working in 1 public and 1 private medical institution in Lahore. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Workplace incivility and various demographic factors were compared. Data was analysed using SPSS 21. Of the 200 subjects, 138(69%) were from the private sector and 62(31%) were from the public sector. The majority was aged <30 years 95(47.5%). Some form of workplace violence was faced by 86(43%) doctors; psychological violence by 58(29%), verbal 56(28%), digital harassment 11(5.5%) and physical violence 2(1%). Supervisor incivility was faced by 94(47%) respondents, while 87(43.5%) faced co-worker incivility over the preceding year. Supervisor incivility was significantly higher in private institutions and those having income less than Rs100,000 per month (p<0.05). Workplace gender-based violence and incivility faced by working female doctors was found to be high. The most common forms faced were psychological and verbal violence. Supervisor incivility faced by female doctors at workplace was significantly higher in private institutions and those having monthly income less than Rs100,000.

Psychometric Properties and Measurement Equivalence of the Workplace Incivility Scale Across Cultures: Insights from Daily Diary Study.

Despite extensive research on workplace incivility, little attention has been given to its validation in culturally distinct contexts such as China and Pakistan. This study aims to bridge this gap by investigating the psychometric properties of the workplace incivility scale within these cultural frameworks. Additionally, it seeks to explore the cross-cultural measurement equivalence of the workplace incivility scale between these two diverse settings using a daily diary study design. The sample consisted of employees from service-providing organizations in China and Pakistan. Data was collected through snowball sampling, resulting in responses from 100 Chinese and 115 Pakistani employees over 10 consecutive workdays. Analysis of the daily responses, encompassing 748 from Chinese and 833 from Pakistani workers, indicated successful validation of the scale within both populations. This demonstrates the transferability of the concept of incivility to these cultural contexts. An integral aspect of this study is the consideration of potential cultural variations in workplace uncivil behavior. The validation and measurement equivalence of the scale for the core construct serves as essential infrastructure supporting such research endeavors.

You have got a nerve: examining the nexus between coworkers' cyberloafing and workplace incivility

PurposeWhile cyberloafing has emerged as a prevalent issue in numerous workplaces, research on its consequences is still underdeveloped, highlighting a need for further exploration and analysis. Drawing upon the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, this study investigates the influence of coworkers' cyberloafing on employees' workplace incivility, mediated by negative emotions and moderated by task interdependence.Design/methodology/approachIn Study 1, the hypothesized research model was tested utilizing three-wave time-lagged survey data collected from 333 employees and their coworkers. In Study 2, an additional sample of 274 employees was surveyed. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis and the bootstrap method.FindingsThe results indicated that coworkers' cyberloafing positively influenced employees' workplace incivility, with this relationship mediated by negative emotions. Additionally, task interdependence was found to positively moderate both the direct relationship between coworkers' cyberloafing and negative emotions and the indirect path from coworkers' cyberloafing to employees' workplace incivility through negative emotions.Practical implicationsThis study helps managers gain a deeper understanding of cyberloafing's effects, enabling them to manage and curb it more effectively.Originality/valuePrior research has predominantly explored the effects of cyberloafing on its implementers. However, this study innovatively shifts focus to the observer perspective, empirically demonstrating whether and how coworkers' cyberloafing affects employees' workplace incivility, enriching and expanding the existing literature.

The role of incivility aggression on decent work: A local government sector case

Background: The issue of workplace incivility is noted as being one of the factors that affect the work of public service employees. However, empirically, the problem needs to be sufficiently addressed in the South African local context. There are growing calls to ascertain how workplace incivility affects the experience and the outcome of work.Aim: This study investigates the effects of incivility aggression on decent work among local government employees in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.Methods: The study followed a quantitative research design. Primary data were collected with the help of 425 self-administered questionnaires among employees in the Eastern Cape local government.Results: The study found that experienced workplace incivility significantly influences decent work. Further, instigated workplace incivility was found to influence decent work among employees significantly.Conclusion: Through the findings of the study, an appeal is made to policy makers and practitioners to implement policies that promote necessary good working conditions, social support, interdependence and fairness to counteract incivility aggression.Contribution: The study advances the understanding of incivility aggression within an organisational setting.

Lookism, a Leak in the Career Pipeline? Career Perspective Consequences of Lookism Climate and Workplace Incivility.

Despite strides toward gender equality in the workforce, women continue to face significant challenges, including the "glass ceiling" and the "leaky pipeline", partially stemming from low occupational self-confidence. This study examined whether a climate of lookism leads to workplace mistreatment, undermining employees' perceptions of job competence and career potential, with a focus on gender differences. Using a cross-sectional design, data from 699 Italian workers (42.8% male, 56.3% female) were analyzed through multi-group structural equation modeling. The model explored relationships between lookism climate, workplace incivility, imposter syndrome, and perceived employability. The results revealed a full serial mediation for women; lookism climate was positively related to workplace incivility, which in turn was related to imposter syndrome, negatively impacting perceived employability. For men, no serial mediation was found; lookism climate was directly related to both incivility and imposter syndrome, with no significant relationship between the two. Like women, men experienced a negative relationship between imposter syndrome and perceived employability, yet this relationship was stronger for men. This study highlights that identifying and addressing workplace climates that foster subtle mistreatment can prevent larger issues like the leaky pipeline, suggesting targeted organizational-level intervention and prevention strategies can enhance job competence perceptions and career potential for both genders.

Crafting an ultrashort workplace incivility scale and determining cutoffs for varied risk levels through item response theory

Workplace incivility (WI), characterized by disrespectful or rude behavior in the workplace, is linked to poor mental health and overall well-being. The Workplace Incivility Scale (WIS) is a popular 7-item measure for assessing WI. There is a current need for an ultrashort conceptually clear version of the WIS. In addition, the cutoffs for varied at-risks of WI, requiring intervention, remains unknown. Using data from 426 employees across diverse organizations, we employed item response theory (IRT) to create an ultrashort WIS and establish cutoffs for high, moderate, low, and at-not risk of WI. Confirmatory factor analyses were utilized to validate WIS construct validity. In supporting convergent validity, WIS was correlated with workplace bullying and poor health-related quality of life. All items demonstrated adequate severity threshold parameters with very high discrimination and good reliability parameters except for item WIS7. We successfully developed an ultrashort and valid 3-item WIS, specifically comprising items WIS2–4, and identified cutoffs for varying levels of WI risk. This streamlined measure aims to reduce response burden and foster a healthier organizational culture. In essence, cutoff points streamline the classification process, allowing for quicker and more standardized identification of at-risk employees. This concise, valid, and reliable ultrashort WIS holds potential for use in intervention studies conducted by organizational and occupational health psychologists, ultimately promoting employee well-being and cultivating a positive workplace environment. The current study further advances the existing theoretical framework rooted in the social interactionist perspective by delineating WI as a distinct and independent construct.

Navigating workplace incivility: Exploring turnover intention with resilience and affective commitment as shields in Pakistan and Malaysia

Navigating workplace incivility: Exploring turnover intention with resilience and affective commitment as shields in Pakistan and Malaysia

Understanding workplace incivility in hospitality: Challenges and pathways to positive work environments

Workplace incivility in the hospitality sector is a pervasive issue with significant implications for employee well-being and organizational dynamics. This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to comprehensively examine the phenomenon of workplace incivility within the hospitality industry, focusing on its antecedents, consequences, mediators, and moderators. Through meticulous data gathering, organization, and evaluation, a total of 99 relevant articles were identified and analyzed. This review revealed that customer incivility, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, poses substantial challenges for frontline workers, leading to heightened stress levels and exacerbating existing strains. Moreover, employee-to-employee and supervisor-to-employee incivility perpetuate a cycle of hostility within service environments. While previous research has explored the impact of incivility on employee burnout and turnover, there is still a lack of research on the root reasons for rude behavior by service personnel. Additionally, the review highlights the potential of mindfulness practices in reducing the negative consequences of workplace incivility and promoting employee well-being, job satisfaction, and proactive service performance. By synthesizing existing research and identifying knowledge gaps, this SLR provides valuable insights for future research endeavors and offers pragmatic solutions for hospitality managers grappling with the challenges posed by workplace incivility.

Too Scared to Fight Back? Affective Job Insecurity as a Boundary Condition Between Workplace Incivility and Negative Mood States in Temporary Agency Workers

AbstractBlue-collar temporary agency workers may confront daily workplace incivility, based on their status as outsiders in the user company, and affective job insecurity, based on their unstable employment situation. Building on the employment-health dilemma (Kößler, F. J., Wesche, J. S., &amp; Hoppe, A. (2023). In a no-win situation: The employment–health dilemma. Applied Psychology, 72(1), 64–84) and the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion (Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press), we examine how these factors jointly shape workers’ daily affective experiences. We assume that workers with high levels of affective job insecurity feel less capable to fight back against workplace incivility. Consequently, we hypothesize that these workers are less likely to respond to daily workplace incivility with angry mood and more likely to respond with sad mood. To address our hypotheses, we conducted a daily diary study in Switzerland with 95 blue-collar temporary agency workers. As expected, affective job insecurity weakened the link between daily workplace incivility and angry mood, whereas it strengthened the link between daily workplace incivility and sad mood. In sum, our findings suggest that worries and fears related to keeping one’s job can alter how workers respond to daily workplace incivility. We discuss our findings in the context of temporary agency work.

When incivility begets incivility among hotel employees: The moderating effects of trait mindfulness and negative affect

The negative impact of workplace incivility on hospitality employees has garnered growing interest. However, most hospitality studies have focused on understanding the impact of customer incivility. Bridging this gap, this research draws on the negative reciprocity belief perspective to propose and test the positive impact of employees’ experience of incivility on their enactment of incivility, which is negatively moderated by trait mindfulness (two-way) and positively moderated by the interaction of trait mindfulness and negative affect (three-way). Two-wave data were collected from 328 hotel employees and managers in Jordan and analysed through structural equation modeling. Results indicated that experienced incivility is positively related to enacted incivility. This positive relationship was mitigated when trait mindfulness was high. Furthermore, negative affect strengthened the positive relationship between experienced and enacted incivility only when trait mindfulness was low. The study’s findings offer implications to help hospitality scholars and hotel managers reduce incivility incidents and impact.

Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions: A Scoping Review.

Workplace bullying is broadly defined as a detrimental form of negative micro-political interaction(s) incorporating a range of aggressive interpersonal behaviours. While targeted toxic behaviour based upon legally protected grounds such as ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is conceptualised as harassment, this paper positions harassment as a constituent subset of workplace bullying-distinct, but inextricably linked to the broader landscape of workplace predation and incivility. Meta-analyses of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies demonstrate a robust relationship between being bullied and compromised health, and some sectors, e.g., education, display higher than average levels of exposure, suggesting that contexts matter. The higher education sector is the focus of this scoping review. High rates of bullying have been reported in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), where many of the organisational factors that drive bullying are present. One systematic literature review has been carried out on bullying in HEIs, reviewing papers prior to 2013. Since the sector has seen considerable contextual change since that time, another review is timely. This systematic scoping review aims to identify the volume, range, nature, and characteristics of studies of workplace bullying in HEIs between 2003 and 2023, with a specific focus on how the context of HEIs contributes to the enactment and/or the response to workplace bullying. To this end, 3179 records were identified, with 140 papers charted to identify methods, institution, population, and country. Forty-seven papers were subjected to full-text review for the exploration of contextual factors. Priorities for future research lie in addressing the pernicious effects of neoliberal governance models as well as the complex and intersecting power relations that are unique to higher education.

Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Peer Relationship As Perceived By Nurses

Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Peer Relationship As Perceived By Nurses

Emotional intelligence and workplace incivility among casual dining restaurant employees in CALABARZON: Basis of a framework for turnover intention

Emotional intelligence and workplace incivility among casual dining restaurant employees in CALABARZON: Basis of a framework for turnover intention

상사의 무례함이 감정고갈을 매개로 이직의도에 미치는 영향: 자아존중감의 조건부 간접효과

This study focused on supervisor incivility and its relationship with employee turnover intention in the context of increasing issues and related research on workplace incivility globally. Based on conservation of resources theory, we proposed and tested a hypothesis regarding the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between supervisor incivility and turnover intentions. Additionally, from the perspective of self-verification theory, we proposed and tested a hypothesis about the moderating effect of self-esteem in the relationship between supervisor incivility and emotional exhaustion. A survey was conducted with employees in large and small companies for data collection and a total of 331 questionnaires were used for hypothesis testing. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to test the hypotheses, and the results supported all hypotheses. First, supervisor incivility was shown to positively reltates to employee turnover intention. Second, it was shown that supervisor incivility influenced employees’ emotional exhaustion, which in turn affected turnover intentions. Third, employee’s self-esteem was found to positively moderate the relationship between supervisor incivility and emotional exhaustion. This study verified the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effect of self-esteem. Particularly, the moderating effect of self-esteem from the perspective of self-verification theory has theoretical significance in that it help explain the results of provious studies in which the moderating effect in negative leadership situations was contrary to the hypothesis. The result showing that supervisor incivility can be more negative for employees with high self-esteem suggests the need to seriously recognize the problem of supervisor incivility and to take preventive measures in practice. In addition to theoretical and practical implications, future research issues were discussed.

Does workplace inclusion mitigate emotional exhaustion? Evidence from local government organizations

ABSTRACT Over the past few years, many local government organizations have become more concerned with employee burnout and identifying strategies to support employees. In this paper we examine inclusion as a resource that can shape emotional exhaustion and buffer against two demands, workplace incivility and COVID-19 job-related changes. With survey data collected from three local governments, we find that inclusion is associated with reduced feelings of emotional exhaustion, while incivility and negative perceptions of COVID-19 changes are associated with heightened feelings of emotional exhaustion. We also find that inclusion mitigates the effect of incivility and employees’ appraisal of COVID-19 job-related changes.

Mind over matter: mindfulness as a buffer against workplace incivility.

This study examines the relationship between co-worker incivility, emotional exhaustion, mindfulness, and turnover intention among nurses in public and private hospitals in North Cyprus. Drawing upon the Job Demand-Resources theory, the research aims to contribute to the existing literature by investigating the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effect of mindfulness on the relationship between co-worker incivility and turnover intention. Data were collected from 238 nurses through questionnaires, and structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis. The results indicate a positive association between co-worker incivility and emotional exhaustion, as well as between co-worker incivility and turnover intention. Emotional exhaustion was found to mediate the relationship between co-worker incivility and turnover intention. Furthermore, mindfulness was identified as a moderator, attenuating the negative impact of co-worker incivility on turnover intention. The findings underscore the importance of addressing workplace incivility and promoting mindfulness to mitigate turnover intentions among nurses. Practical implications include the implementation of interventions to foster a supportive work environment and enhance nurses' emotional wellbeing.

Within‐ and between‐person effects of causal attributions on relationship improvement following perceived incivility

AbstractWorkplace incivility research has grown considerably over recent decades. However, this stream of research still has not adequately explained targets' attributions for experienced incivility or their potential positive responses to incivility. The present study longitudinally investigates the relationship between attributions for workplace incivility and relationship improvement responses with data from 1871 person‐month observations. In contrast to expectations, we found targets' beliefs that their relationship with the uncivil coworker was the cause of the incivility (i.e., relational locus of causality) were negatively related to relationship improvement behaviours. The results also indicated that this negative relationship was attenuated by belief that the target had control over the cause of incivility (i.e., internal controllability) and task interdependence at the between‐person level, and by belief that the uncivil coworker had control over the cause of incivility (i.e., external controllability) at the within‐person level. Direct effects analysis indicated that internal and external controllability attributions for incivility had significant positive between‐person effects on relationship improvement efforts. Frequency of interaction and task interdependence were both significant positive predictors of relationship improvement efforts at both the between‐ and within‐person levels. Implications for research and future directions are discussed.