The relationships between incivility, team climate for incivility and job-related employee well-being: a multilevel analysis

ABSTRACT

Adopting a multilevel approach, this study extends the current understanding of workplace incivility by examining the cross-level associations between team climate for incivility, team size and team norms with regard to competitiveness on employees’ well-being associated with incivility at work. Using a sample of 637 employees nested in 50 work teams, the results revealed a direct negative effect of uncivil team climates on employee job-related affective well-being, over and above employees’ personal experience of uncivil behaviour. As hypothesized, competitive norms significantly moderated the negative effect of experienced incivility on affective well-being, suggesting that competitive team environments may buffer the negative consequences of workplace incivility through a team sensemaking process. Utilizing Social Comparison Theory (comparing how they are treated) and climate strength literature, this study also found team size to be a significant moderator of the incivility–well-being relationship, with members of smaller work teams experiencing more detrimental effects of uncivil acts. Together, these findings suggest that the magnitude of the negative effect of uncivil behaviour is dependent on the composition and incivility climate of work teams. The results of this study have important implications for designing individual- and team-level interventions aimed at addressing uncivil behaviour and climates in the workplace.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational culture
• organizational climate
• multi-level analysis
• health outcomes
• well-being
• incivility