Mind your language! how and when victims of email incivility from colleagues experience work-life conflict and emotional exhaustion

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of email for work-related matters. Although it represents a convenient way to communicate, it can expose workers to the risk of being victims of rude email communications. This two-sample study investigates whether email incivility is related to work-life conflict and emotional exhaustion, directly and indirectly through techno-invasion. In the second study, we replicate the findings in a different country and extend our findings by additionally examining the moderating role of resilience. A total of 199 Italian (Study 1) and 330 British (Study 2) workers completed online questionnaires. In both countries, employees who reported email incivility from colleagues were more likely to experience work-life conflict and emotional exhaustion both directly and indirectly through techno-invasion. In Study 2, resilience moderated the association between email incivility and techno-invasion. When confronted with email incivility, workers who scored low and moderate on resilience were more likely to experience techno-invasion and then work-life conflict and emotional exhaustion, unlike workers high in resilience, for whom the indirect effect was nonsignificant. Our findings suggest that organizations should put in place ‘‘netiquette’’ codes to provide their employees with rules about writing emails in a civil tone. Moreover, workers could benefit from psychological resilience training in addition to training on email management.