The indirect relations of workplace incivility with emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self‐blame: The moderating roles of observed incivility and trait emotional control

Abstract

Summary Drawing from the social cognitive theory of self‐regulation, we develop a model linking experienced incivility to emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self‐blame, with observed incivility experienced by coworkers as a first‐stage moderator and trait emotional control as a second‐stage moderator. We contend that employees will experience self‐blame if they perceive themselves to be distinct targets of incivility (i.e., observed incivility experienced by others is low). Self‐blame can potentially trigger prosocial responses for improving the situation, but self‐blaming targets rarely respond in a prosocial manner because rational attempts to do so are thwarted by deleterious negative emotions accompanying self‐blame. We argue that trait emotional control provides resources for managing these negative emotions to unleash a bright side of self‐blame, such that the relation of self‐blame with prosocial responses (i.e., being supportive to coworkers) will be more positive and the relation of self‐blame with emotional exhaustion will be less positive for individuals with high (vs. low) trait emotional control. Multiwave data collected from a sample of 220 police officers largely support our hypotheses, indicating that the indirect relation of experienced incivility with supportive behaviors via self‐blame is strongest at lower levels of observed incivility and higher levels of emotional control.

The Impact of Perceived Organizational Politics and Workplace Incivility on Emotional Exhaustion: A Study of Middle Level Employees in the Apparel Sector, Western Province, Sri Lanka

“…The current study shows that there is a positive impact of perceived organizational politics on emotional exhaustion. Moreover, Workplace incivility significantly affects emotional exhaustion (Alola et al, 2020;Hur et al, 2016;Karatepe et al, 2019;Peng et al, 2016;Rahim & Cosby, 2016;Tong et al, 2019). The mediation adds novelty for this study as workplace incivility was a mediator of perceived organizational politics on emotional exhaustion.…”

“…A study conducted by Makhdoom et al (2017) expounded that there is a significant impact of perceived organizational politics on the workplace incivility of high school teachers at private and government schools. Furthermore, there were previous studies conducted and investigated that workplace incivility significantly affects emotional exhaustion (Alola et al, 2020;Hur et al, 2016;Karatepe et al, 2019;Peng et al, 2016;Rahim & Cosby, 2016;Tong et al, 2019). However, there is a lack of studies on this area in the apparel sector.…”

“…Emotional exhaustion is an effect on different factors like sexualization of the work environment (Bui, Pinto, & Srivastava, 2019), long term customer relationships development (Lee & Huang, 2020), Machiavellian leadership (Stradovnik & Stare, 2018), emotion regulation (reappraisal & suppression) (Lee & Jang, 2019), task-level job demand (Laila & Hanif, 2017), turnover intention (Kyei-Poku, 2019;Park, 2019), work intensity and life satisfaction (Boekhorst, Singh, & Burke 2017), workplace incivility (Alola, Avci, & Ozturen, 2020;Karatepe, Kim, & Lee, 2019;Tong, Chong, & Johnson, 2019), and perceived organizational politics (Makhdoom, Mehmood, & Atta, 2017;Naseer, Raja, & Donia, 2016). Extant literature revealed that the effect of perceived organizational politics and workplace incivility is significant on exhaustion comparative to other predictors.…”

Analyzing the effects of incivility beyond workplaces

“…This relationship is especially stronger for those employees who tend to be high in neuroticism vis-à-vis those who are low in neuroticism. Also noteworthy to the purpose of the current study was an investigation focusing on police officers in China, which drew on the social cognitive theory of self‐regulation (Tong et al , 2019). Findings identified that experienced incivility may generate supportive behaviors from targets by means of self‐blame.…”

Workers’ Observation of Uncivil Leadership: Is Tolerance for Workplace Incivility a Gendered Issue?

“…It can be the starting point in fostering more oppressive forms of aggression in organizations [12]. However, few studies have empirically examined the role of observers, despite their positive role in reacting to manifestations of and intervening in incivility [13][14][15][16] rather than blaming the victim or doing nothing [17]. To date, we still do not know what makes observers detect and react to uncivil behaviors.…”