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

Abstract

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.

Workplace incivility and its influence on professional quality of life among nurses from multicultural background: A cross‐sectional study

“…However, in this study, nurses’ experiences of supervisor incivility may lead to lower compassion satisfaction and increased secondary traumatic stress. Such finding is worth noting considering that supervisor incivility may have negative professional consequences affecting the care ability, patient safety and patient satisfaction (Torkelson, Holm, Bäckström, & Schad, ). This finding is in agreement with social exchange theory (Blau, ), which states that workers who feel abused by their supervisor result in negative attitudes towards work leading to negative work performance.…”

“…Torkelson et al. () postulated that the higher the supervisor incivility in the work setting, the greater exhaustion will be among workers to complete the task productively. According to Akhtar et al.…”

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

“…Several studies demonstrated that incivility also has the potential to spiral into increasingly deviant behaviours that may undermine the social climate in the organisation. For example, Torkelson, Holm, Bäckström, and Schad (2016) found an association between experienced incivility from co-workers and instigated incivility. This and similar studies have provided evidence for the Andersson and Pearson model (1999) which describe workplace incivility, through a social exchange perspective, as social interactions in the form of a spiral of reciprocal interpersonal conflicts.…”

Incivility and Dysfunction in the Library Workplace: Perceptions and Feedback from the Field

“…With respect to the frequency of uncivil acts, a number of studies (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001;Holm, Torkelson, & Backstrom, 2015;Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2000;Reio & Sanders-Reio, 2011;Torkelson, 2016) point to the prevalence of incivility in the workplace. The 2016 Civility in America Survey of 1,126 adults study lends additional evidence to this perception indicating that 34% of Americans have experienced workplace incivility in their current or previous job.…”