Lack of reciprocity, narcissism, anger, and instigated workplace incivility: A moderated mediation model

Abstract

The goal of the present research was to examine antecedents of uncivil behaviour towards coworkers and supervisors. Based on Spector's model (e.g., Spector & Fox, 2005a), we investigated the role of work characteristics (lack of reciprocity in the relationship with one's organization), personality (narcissism), and work-related anger simultaneously. We predicted that anger mediates the relationship between lack of reciprocity and incivility, and that this mediation is particularly strong among narcissistic employees (moderated mediation). As predicted, in our sample of 197 employees, anger—at least partially—mediated the relationship between lack of reciprocity and incivility. Moreover, this indirect effect was stronger among narcissists. Results further showed that narcissism moderated the first part (lack of reciprocity → anger) but not the second part (anger → incivility) of the mediation chain. Examining both mediation and moderation in a unified framework shed light on the issue of where in the process moderation occurs, thus deepening our understanding of the interplay between work characteristics and personality. In addition to anger, our results suggest mediating processes that do not require strong affect may be characteristic especially for uncivil behaviour as compared to more intense forms of counterproductive behaviour.

Keywords:

• Counterproductive work behaviour
• Lack of reciprocity
• Mediation
• Moderation
• Narcissism
• Workplace incivility

Acknowledgments

Laurenz L. Meier is now at the University of South Florida, Tampa. We thank Sven Gross, Viviane Gisler, and Colm O'Mahony for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article and Sophie Brennecke, Chiara Castiglione, Rahel Helfenberger, Sabrina Krebs, Farah Kuster, Diana Pereira, and Jan Schmutz for their help during data collection.

Notes

¹Fox, Spector, and Miles (2001) investigated both effects within the same study, but they conducted separate analyses to test mediation and moderation. New analytic techniques (moderated mediation framework; Edwards & Lambert, 2006), however, allow testing the two effects simultaneously.

²The present conceptualization of lack of reciprocity does not match completely that of the classic work in sociology (e.g., Gouldner, 1960). Rather, we use a more broadened conceptualization following the recent work of Schaufeli (e.g., 2006).

³As noted earlier, main effects of lack of reciprocity (Hypothesis 1) and narcissism (Hypothesis 3) on incivility were tested with additional regression analyses (see Table 2).

⁴As indirect effects involve product terms and because product terms are not normally distributed, the significance tests of product terms have a high Type I error rate. Therefore, we followed current recommendations by bootstrapping 5000 samples and using the bootstrapped estimates to construct bias-corrected confidence intervals for the tests of the indirect effects, the total effects, and the differences in these effects (see Edwards & Lambert, 2007; Shrout & Bolger, 2002). For directional hypotheses, 90% confidence intervals are appropriate.