The Importance of Normative Civility Expectations for the Employee Experience: A Time-Lagged Analysis

Previous research regarding the influence of normative workplace civility expectations on psychological health outcomes has often been cross-sectional and analyzed at only an individuallevel. Furthermore, there is little knowledge of how these normative expectations may act to reduce the impact of experienced incivility. This study extends the research by conducting a daily diary study that examines longitudinal psychological health outcomes of experienced incivility using a multi-level framework. The additional focus of the study involves identifying the separate influence of supervisor civility expectations vs. workgroup civility expectations, which we test as both direct-effect predictors of daily experienced incivility. We also test these normative expectations as cross-level moderators between daily experienced incivility, and the following day stress and exhaustion. The data for this study were collected fourteen times over a two-week period from 136 healthcare employees across 18 correctional facilities. Findings support the hypothesized normative influences on individual incivility experiences; however, only supervisor civility expectations buffer the relationship between experienced incivility and exhaustion. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future organizational interventions aimed at reducing uncivil behaviors and improving psychological health outcomes as a result of such experienced behaviors. MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH TO INCIVILITY 1 Workplace interpersonal mistreatment has grown to be a popular construct of interest for researchers and practitioners alike over the past decade. Particular research focus has revolved around the concept of workplace incivility, which acts as a mild form of negative behavior that occurs more frequently than more overt actions (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001). Andersson and Pearson (1999) define incivility as a “low intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect”. Despite the minor behavioral feature of incivility, the resulting outcomes can be grave. Such consequences involve effects on employee psychological well-being, intentions to quit, stress, and burnout (Caza & Cortina, 2007; Kern & Grandey, 2009; Lim & Cortina, 2005; Reio & Ghosh, 2009; Zhou, Yan, Che, & Meier, 2015). Counteracting incivility is a difficult task. Claiming to a human resources representative or more senior leader that your colleague, supervisor, or subordinate is being uncivil can possibly lead to retaliation among the workgroup members should there be any actions taken to reduce the uncivil behavior. An employee may also feel as though the claim will be completely ignored because it is deemed as unimportant due to the lack of the severity of the behavior. Instead of taking such a traditional and frankly ineffective approach, scientists posit that organizational incivility behaviors can be addressed on a day-by-day basis through building strong cohesive teams that set firm normative expectations for what is considered to be civil behavior, while actively discouraging any behaviors that may be considered to be uncivil (Lim, Cortina, & Magley, 2008). Taking actions to strengthen a strong climate of civility works as a first line of defense to fend off potential developments of incivility (Walsh, Magley, Reeves, Davies-Schrils, Marmet, & Gallus, 2012). Despite a growing interest in organizational civility behavior, the assessment of workplace norms regarding incivility have only recently come to pass (Griffin, 2010; Lim et al., MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH TO INCIVILITY 2 2008; Walsh et al., 2012). Tolerance for workgroup incivility behavior comes from two main sources, the leader of the workgroup or the members themselves. We identify leadership tolerance of workgroup incivility as supervisor civility expectations (SCE), whereas the workgroup member tolerance of uncivil behavior is regarded as workgroup civility expectations (WCE). The understanding of how both normative variables influence actual experienced workplace incivility have yet to be analyzed past simple individual-level analyses (Laschinger & Read, 2016). Even further still, the understanding regarding how experiences of incivility influence stress and strain has yet to be fully realized. There is still no scientific support to confirm if daily experienced incivility can have a lingering influence on following day outcomes or if these outcomes can be mitigated due to the perception that the supervisor or workgroup will address these incivility behaviors to ensure that they do not occur in the future. Furthermore, longitudinal support for the causal order of stress and exhaustion has yet to be firmly supported due to frequent assessments using only cross-sectional data (Garrosa, Moreno-Jiménez, Rodríguez-Muñoz, & Rodríguez-Carvajal, 2011; Laschinger et al., 2016). These lingering gaps in the research literature must be addressed to properly identify effective organizational intervention strategies aimed at improving workplace civility. Three major research questions emerge for us to answer within the current paper: Can previous findings concerning civility norms, experienced incivility, and the stress-strain relationship be replicated with a multi-level longitudinal approach? Do SCE and WCE similarly reduce daily experienced incivility? Finally, can these normative expectations also reduce employee stress and the resulting exhaustion once they have experienced workplace incivility? The present study aims to contribute to the existing research by applying multilevel theory and analysis to answer these questions. First, we provide further evidence for the argument that experienced incivility can MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH TO INCIVILITY 3 have a lasting effect on stress and exhaustion using a time-lagged study design. We also address the cross-level direct effects of WCE and SCE as workgroup-level constructs on daily experienced incivility. Finally, we identify if these workgroup normative variables moderate the relationship between experienced incivility and the following day stress and exhaustion. We hope to provide stronger foundations for current theories on civility from our findings with the intention of guiding organizational efforts towards more efficient applications that are designed to improve employee civility behavior. Incivility & the Stress-Strain Relationship Workplace incivility is the violation of norms for respect that are present within an organization (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2000). Incivility differs from other related constructs within the organizational literature in that it contains subtler, less intense behavior. The subtlety of uncivil acts can often be difficult to identify from a third-person perspective making it challenging to conclude if a behavior is negative to the point of being unacceptable, let alone identify if there is truly any intention to harm from the accused (Pearson et al., 2000). Examples of this type of behavior include denigration of a fellow employee’s work, spreading false rumors about a colleague, socially isolating an individual within a workgroup, and making insulting comments. Experiences of incivility often lead to negative influences on employee health outcomes (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001; Griffin, 2010). Lim et al. (2008) previously identified that experienced incivility leads to lower levels of employee job satisfaction and mental health. These negative influences can be amplified if the individual who is the victim of uncivil behavior identifies with their perpetrator (Montgomery, Kane, & Vance, 2004). Recent findings indicate that incivility unsurprisingly predicts both stress and burnout (Laschinger et al., MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH TO INCIVILITY 4 2016; Oyeleye, Hanson, O’Connor, & Dunn, 2013). The concept of a stressor inducing cognitive stress, which in turn causes strain is based on Transactional Stress Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987). The theory dictates that stressors, in this instance an uncivil experience, leads to a cognitive appraisal of either challenge, hindrance, or threat. Should the perception be more negative and the individual not perceive themselves to have the resources and coping abilities to combat such stressors, then strain ensues. Explicit causal analyses of this stress-strain relationship remain lacking despite numerous studies supporting the negative outcomes associated with experiencing workplace incivility (Cortina et al., 2001; Oyeleye et al., 2013; Roberts, Scherer, & Bowyer, 2011). Unfortunately, most research within the psychological and nursing literature is cross-sectional in nature, providing little support for the causal nature of these relationships. The work conducted by Beattie et al. (2014) provides longitudinal support for the influence of incivility on stress yet remains the only study to do so. Similar to the results provided by Beattie et al. (2014), we anticipate that the experiences of workplace incivility will result in increased general stress. Similarly to previous research (Marco & Suls, 1993), we anticipate that the stress will leak over from the experience to the morning of the next workday. Stress behaves as an acute state-like variable that is malleable due to the constant experience of stressors and resources available to counteract such stressors (Lazarus et al., 1987). The perception of experienced incivility is expected to act as a stressor for the victim and cause a trickle over of negative influence into following day stress. Providing a time lag for this stressor-stress relationship will aid in providing causal support for the relationship between the two constructs. Hypothesis 1a. Daily experienced incivility will positively predict beginning of following day general stress. MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH TO INCIVILITY 5 Similar to hypothesis 1a, we anticipate that perceptions of experienced incivility will lead to an incr