Multilevel relationships between organizational-level incivility,justice and intention to stay

Abstract

This study extends incivility theory and research by applying multilevel theory and analysis to explain the effect of group-level incivility on intention to remain. Previous research has shown that experiencing workplace incivility is associated with adverse individual well-being and behaviour, such as turnover intentions, but the majority of research has been at the individual level of analysis. Consequently it is unknown whether incivility is also a group-level phenomenon, and what the effects of group-level incivility are on the individual. Results from over 34,000 employees working in 179 organizations across Australia and New Zealand showed that target reports of incivility could be aggregated to the level of the organization to form a shared stressor, incivility environment, which affected employees’ intention to remain over and above their personal experience of incivility. This shared or environmental incivility also had a cross-level interaction effect on the negative relationship between individual incivility and intention to remain, highlighting the importance of context on targets of incivility. The role of interactional justice climate was also examined and the data are consistent with justice having a mediating effect on the cross-level relationship between environmental incivility and intention to remain. The findings are relevant to studies of bullying and harassment.     

Assessing the effects of responsible leadership and ethical conflict on behavioral intention

This study develops a research model that elaborates how responsible leadership and ethical conflict influence employees from the perspectives of role theory and attachment theory. Its empirical results reveal that turnover intention indirectly relates to ethical conflict and responsible leadership via the mediating mechanisms of organizational identification and organizational uncertainty. At the same time, helping intention indirectly relates to ethical conflict and responsible leadership only through organizational identification. Finally, the managerial implications for international business and research limitations based on the empirical results are discussed.     

Reducing turnover intent: supervisor and co-worker incivility and socialization-related learning

Emerging leaders are involved in a continual learning process that includes professional and personal identities that intersect and diverge. The identities are coupled with multiple roles and expectations that are embedded within work and non-work identities. This paper examines the impact of leadership development programmes on emerging leaders including the expectations and job demands that are integral to leadership work. More specifically, the paper examines the discourse between work and non-work identities and the strategies of leaders and organizations to strengthen or modify those identities. Monthly Activity Reports prepared by leadership participants were examined and used to support the findings. Additionally, environmental factors that shape the leaders' thoughts and behaviours were examined as the leaders struggled to maintain their core beliefs and work practices in a quest to become leaders or loyalists.     

Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others

In recent years a growing amount of research has been conducted in the area of workplace incivility. Whereas many studies have focused on the victims and the consequences of incivility, little attention has been paid to the perpetrators and antecedents of workplace incivility. This study aims to identify possible antecedents of workplace incivility, by investigating organizational aspects as well as the possibility that being the target of incivility from co-workers and supervisors could induce incivility. A total of 512 employees (378 women and 133 men) in the school sector in a Swedish municipality completed an online questionnaire. Overall, the results of structural equation modelling analyses showed that organizational variables were related to the perpetration of incivility. A direct relationship was found between being uncivil and organizational change, job insecurity, low social support from co-workers and high job demands. However, the strongest relationship was found between experienced incivility from co-workers and instigated incivility. This could be reflecting a climate or culture of incivility in the organization, and carry implications for future practice in interventions against workplace incivility. The results indicate the importance of focusing on the perspective of the instigator to gain knowledge about the process of workplace incivility.     

The relationships between incivility,team climate for incivility and job-related employee well-being: a multilevel analysis

Adopting a multilevel approach, this study extends the current understanding of workplace incivility by examining the cross-level associations between team climate for incivility, team size and team norms with regard to competitiveness on employees’ well-being associated with incivility at work. Using a sample of 637 employees nested in 50 work teams, the results revealed a direct negative effect of uncivil team climates on employee job-related affective well-being, over and above employees’ personal experience of uncivil behaviour. As hypothesized, competitive norms significantly moderated the negative effect of experienced incivility on affective well-being, suggesting that competitive team environments may buffer the negative consequences of workplace incivility through a team sensemaking process. Utilizing Social Comparison Theory (comparing how they are treated) and climate strength literature, this study also found team size to be a significant moderator of the incivility–well-being relationship, with members of smaller work teams experiencing more detrimental effects of uncivil acts. Together, these findings suggest that the magnitude of the negative effect of uncivil behaviour is dependent on the composition and incivility climate of work teams. The results of this study have important implications for designing individual- and team-level interventions aimed at addressing uncivil behaviour and climates in the workplace.     

Absenteeism, turnover intention and inequity in the employment relationship

In this field study a preliminary social exchange model was proposed that related perceived inequity in the employment relationship to subsequent absenteeism and turnover intention. From an equity perspective, it was hypothesized that absenteeism and turnover intention are indirectly related to perceived inequity in the exchange relationship with the organization, mediated by feelings of resentment and poor organizational commitment. By employing covariance structure modelling, the model was tested among mental health care professionals (N = 90). The results demonstrated that the relationship between perceived inequity and turnover intention was fully mediated by poor organizational commitment, which was, in turn, partially triggered by feelings of resentment that were associated with perceived inequity. In contrast, there was a strong direct link between inequity in the employment relationship and absenteeism, not mediated by resentment and poor organizational commitment. It was concluded that absenteeism and turnover intention can both be considered to be withdrawal reactions to perceived inequity, but that the two reactions differ in their underlying dynamics. The implications of these findings were discussed.     

Day-level fluctuations in stress and engagement in response to workplace incivility: A diary study

Previous research into workplace incivility, or rude and discourteous behaviour, has focused on between-person relationships. This study extends this research by using a diary design to examine the effect of experiences of incivility at work on two outcomes, stress and engagement, at a within-person level. Two potential moderators of the incivility-outcome association were also examined: the job resource of perceived supervisor support and the personal resource of core self-evaluation. Diary survey data were collected eight times over a four-week period from 130 security employees both in the field and at the corporate offices of a security firm in Australia. Data was analysed with multilevel modelling. Participants were found to have higher levels of stress on the days when they experienced more incivility, but high supervisor support reduced this effect. However, a negative relationship between incivility and daily engagement was only significant for those with low core self-evaluation. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of workplace incivility.     

Modeling corporate citizenship and turnover intention: social identity and expectancy theories

Drawing upon the expectancy theory and social identity theory, this study proposes a model that explains how perceived corporate citizenship influences turnover intention. In the proposed model, perceived economic and legal citizenships affect turnover intention indirectly via the full mediation of career development expectation, while perceived economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic citizenships impact turnover intention indirectly via the full mediation of organizational identification. The hypotheses of this study were empirically tested by conducting a survey on employees in the tourism industry. The empirical findings show that a firm’s corporate citizenship can provide a competitive advantage in retaining its employees by simultaneously boosting their career development expectation and organizational identification. Lastly, managerial implications and limitations of this study based on empirical results are presented for in-depth discussion.

     

Modeling turnover intention and job performance: the moderation of perceived benevolent climate

Review of Managerial Science - Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory and ethical climate theory, this study develops a mediation model that explains how job stress influences both job...     

Can ethical leadership inhibit workplace bullying across East and West: Exploring cross-cultural interactional justice as a mediating mechanism

While workplace bullying is recognised as a serious issue for management concern around the world, the literature on approaches to prevent and manage it in international settings is sparse. This paper advances knowledge on managing workplace bullying by reporting an investigation of how and why ethical leadership may be an effective management style to address this issue across cultures. It draws on Social Learning and Social Exchange Theories to conceptualise interactional justice as a possible mediating mechanism by which workplace bullying can be reduced in the presence of ethical leadership.The researcher surveyed 636 employees working in an equivalent job context in Australia (N = 306) and Pakistan (N = 330) to determine the cross-cultural effectiveness of ethical leadership-based framing. Through the examination of direct and indirect effects (via interactional justice) of ethical leadership on workplace bullying, the findings indicated that employee exposure to such behaviour is significantly reduced because ethical leaders foster justice at work. This study has implications for improving international management practice in regard to workplace bullying.     

Servant leadership,employer brand perception,trust in leaders and turnover intentions: a sequential mediation model

The study aimed to examine the impact of the servant leadership style on employee turnover intentions by investigating the sequential mediating effects of employer brand perception and level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. Results of the study were obtained by analysing data collected from 253 employees working in Indian organizations. The results fully support the hypotheses proposed in the study, illustrating that perceived servant leadership style is negatively associated with employee turnover intentions. Further, servant leadership-turnover intentions relationship is sequentially mediated by employer brand perception and the level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. The study also found that only the servant leadership style followed by leaders was not enough to directly influence the level of trust employees placed in their leaders. A positive and strong employer brand perception emerged as an important mechanism that helped servant leaders gain the trust of their followers. The theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed in the light of these findings.     

Supervisory coaching and performance feedback as mediators of the relationships between leadership styles,work engagement,and turnover intention

Human resource development (HRD) is key to organizational success. With some HRD roles devolving to leaders in recent years, a gap in understanding is now evident in how leaders’ leadership styles shape development-oriented behaviours that may effectively assist them in fulfilling their HRD roles, and the corresponding effects that this has on employee work engagement and turnover intention. This study compared the effects of transformational and transactional leadership styles on employee attitudes (i.e. work engagement and turnover intention) through leaders’ behaviours (i.e. supervisory coaching and performance feedback). This study used a multilevel approach (i.e. matching leaders to multiple subordinates) with 500 employees, nested in 65 workgroups from private organizations in Malaysia. As hypothesized, we found a link between transformational (but not transactional) leadership and higher levels of supervisory coaching and performance feedback, and that these job resources mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement. Furthermore, we found that work engagement mediates the relationships of both supervisory coaching and performance feedback to turnover intention. Overall, the study results reveal one way in which Asian leaders can effectively facilitate some aspects of HRD through development-focused behaviours which serve as job resources to boost work engagement and reduce turnover intention.     

Assessing the effects of ‘big brother’ in a workplace: The case of WAST

The extensive and growing use of electronic performance monitoring in organisations has resulted in considerable debate over the years. This paper focuses on workplace monitoring at the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust (WAST), a provider of emergency services for the people of Wales, in the UK. The key objectives include examining the nature of performance monitoring at its call centres and determining whether employees are micromanaged through the use of workplace surveillance. The findings cover staff (both management and non-management) perceptions, gathered through a questionnaire and interviews as well as observations made in the study areas. The findings revealed that workplace electronic monitoring is not intrinsically all good or all bad. It is value neutral and offers a win–win situation.     

Self–other agreement in empowering leadership: Relationships with leader effectiveness and subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intention

We investigated the effect of self–other agreement in empowering leadership on leader effectiveness, job satisfaction, and turnover intention using a sample of 50 Norwegian municipal leaders (46 for leader effectiveness) and 168 (158) of their subordinates. The findings indicated that considering both self and subordinate ratings of empowering leadership was useful in predicting the outcome variables. In particular, subordinates of over-estimators reported lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intention. Moreover, leaders who underestimated their leadership were perceived as more effective by their superiors. For agreement (i.e., leader's self-ratings were in agreement with subordinates' ratings) the relationship between empowering leadership and leader effectiveness was curvilinear with an inverted U shape. Agreement in ratings of empowering leadership was not found to be related to subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intention. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Optimal and dysfunctional turnover: toward an organizational level model

Dysfunctional turnover is defined here as the level that produces a divergence between the organization's optimal balance of costs associated with turnover and the costs associated with retaining employees. Under this approach, the optimal level of aggregate turnover for most organizations will be (1) greater than zero and (2) variable across organizations, contingent on particular factors influencing retention costs and quit propensities. The model presented posits that individual, organizational, and environmental attributes influence individual quit propensities of employees and, hence, expected turnover rates for the organization.     

Testing the reciprocal associations among co-worker incivility,organisational inefficiency,and work-related exhaustion: A one-year,cross-lagged study

ABSTRACT

In spite of the considerable number of studies on co-worker incivility, knowledge on this topic needs to be further enhanced. In particular, no studies have focused on the reciprocal nature of the relationship of incivility with other important aspects of working life, i.e. employee well-being and the quality of the working process. The aim of the present study was to examine the cross-lagged associations among co-worker incivility, work-related exhaustion, and organisational efficiency in a sample of healthcare workers. Based on the conservation of resource theory, we hypothesised that those three variables affect each other reciprocally over the time. Data from a two-wave study design (with a one-year time lag) were utilised, and cross-lagged structural equation models were performed. Results confirmed that incivility and efficiency affected each other reciprocally over time. On the other hand, whereas incivility positively predicted exhaustion and exhaustion at inversely predicted organisational efficiency, the opposite paths were found to be not significant. The study suggests that efficiency is crucial for understanding incivility because it operates both as its cause and as its outcome. Interventions aimed at promoting civility and respect in the workplace may help prevent co-worker incivility, work-related exhaustion, and enhance organisational efficiency.     

Anxiety, burnout and coping styles in general hospital staff exposed to workplace aggression: a cyclical model of burnout and vulnerability to aggression

Although an increasing problem, the aggression ( physical assault, threatening behaviour and verbal aggression) directed toward general hospital staff rather than staff in psychiatric institutions has not been widely investigated. The present study first compared anxiety, coping styles and burnout according to the frequency of aggressive experiences. Second, a sub-sample was examined to determine any immediate after-effects from aggressive encounters. Healthcare staff ( n = 375) across professions completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Coping Responses Inventory, which were analysed according to the type and frequency of aggression experienced within the preceding year. There were no significant differences in levels of anxiety or in coping styles. However, significant differences were determined in levels of burnout. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were significantly higher in those staff more frequently victimized suggesting that aggressive encounters might lead to an increase in burnout. Equally, the converse might be true. Therefore, a cyclical model is put forward in which we propose that elevated levels of burnout from all sources might increase vulnerability to victimization. Increases in emotional exhaustion lead directly to an increase in depersonalization as a coping mechanism, which subsequently manifests as a negative behavioural change toward patients, thus rendering staff more vulnerable to further aggression.     

Customer incivility and employee well-being: testing the moderating effects of meaning,perspective taking and transformational leadership

This study investigated factors that influence the relationship between experiencing customer incivility and the psychological well-being of employees in the service industry (N?=?215). Using the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we identified and tested three factors that may buffer employees from the negative effects of customer incivility: finding meaning in work, perspective taking, and transformational leadership of supervisors. Transformational leadership was found to moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being. Meaning and perspective taking did not moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being, but did have a positive association with employee well-being. These findings contribute to the literature on customer incivility and suggest that organization-based resources that influence both primary and secondary appraisal, such as transformational leadership, are useful in buffering the harmful employee outcomes related to customer incivility.     

Shaping emotional reactions to ethical behaviors: Proactive personality as a substitute for ethical leadership

Due to ethical lapses of leaders, interest in ethical leadership has grown, raising important questions about the responsibility of leaders in ensuring moral and ethical conduct. However, research on ethical leadership has failed to examine the active role that followers' attributes play in enhancing or minimizing the influence of ethical leadership in organizational outcomes. We applied the substitutes for leadership approach (Kerr & Jermier, 1978) to ethical leadership and predicted that proactive personality acts as substitute in the relationship between ethical leadership, workplace emotions and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Data from two distinct samples offered strong support for the hypotheses. Specifically, we found that ethical leadership was significantly and negatively related to negative workplace emotions when subordinate proactive personality was low, but not when it was high, with consequences for OCBs. These findings suggest that proactive personality constitutes an important moderator on the impact of low ethical leadership on workplace emotions, with consequences for OCBs.