Organizational Change and Workplace Incivility: Mediated by Stress, Moderated by Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

Modern organizations continuously undergo change processes. The focus of the organizations remains on the macro level, but the micro level (i.e., employee’s perspective) is neglected. Using the conservation of resource theory (COR), this study examines the association between organizational change and workplace incivility. This study also proposes mediating and moderating mechanisms of stress and emotional exhaustion. The data were collected from 262 respondents working in public sector organizations in Pakistan using a time-lagged technique. The results proved that change significantly impacts workplace incivility. Moreover, stress mediates their relationship and emotional exhaustion moderates it. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion also moderates the stress–incivility relationship. Public sector organizations must focus on well-planned, inclusive, and adequately managed change processes to achieve the desired outcome; otherwise, adverse behaviors, including incivility, manifest. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the organizational change and incivility relationship has not been explored in the past. Additionally, their relationship with stress and emotional exhaustion also requires empirical investigation. This study also adds to the literature on the conservation of resource theory.

Does workplace incivility affect the satisfaction of employees? Evidence from small and medium enterprises

“…Workplace incivility can emanate from a number of factors/sources like from supervisor and co-workers to customers (Deni et al, 2023;Hamid et al, 2021;Xiao et al, 2023). More importantly, it has been found that incivility in the workplace has negative influence on people who witness uncivil behaviour directly (Raza et al, 2023;Razzaq et al, 2023). Furthermore, as observed by Andersson and Pearson Tit-for-Tat paradigm of workplace incivility, isolated instances of uncivil behaviour or attitude can result to employees' satisfaction (Raza et al, 2023;Razzaq et al, 2023).…”

“…Workplace incivilities are of different kinds including those that are started by co-workers, customers, other customers ' customers, supervisors and management, online incivilities, etc. (Al-Hawari, Shaker, & Samina, 2020;Bacile, Wolter, Allen, & Xu, 2018;Boukis, Koritos, Daunt, & Papastathopoulos, 2020;Raza, Imran, Rosak-Szyrocka, Vasa, & Hadi, 2023). Pu, Ji, and Sang (2021) and Ribut, Dian, and Tantri (2020) affirmed that incivility in the workplace significantly influence the satisfaction of employees.…”

“…The literature indicates that incivility in the workplace can be categorized into experienced, instigated and witnessed incivilities. Experienced-incivility is likened to supervisors' incivility while witnessed-incivility and instigated-incivility connotes uncivil workplace behaviour among employees (Bani-Melhem, Quratulain, & Al-Hawari, 2020;Chen & Wang, 2019;Hamid, Ismaiil, Azam, & Muhamad, 2021;Raza et al, 2023).…”

“…In the HRM literature, employees-related outcomes (such as satisfaction, performance, intention to stay, productivity, etc) have been extensively documented (Deni et al, 2023;Egberi & Olufolahan, 2021;Raza et al, 2023). According to Chen and Wang (2019) and Dahri et al (2020), employees' satisfaction is a pleasant emotional state generated by evaluating the employee job role.…”

Understanding, Measuring, and Ameliorating Workplace Violence in Healthcare: A Canadian Systematic Framework to Address a Global Healthcare Phenomenon

“…A validated tool can reduce resource waste [48], which is crucial for assessing the viability of a WPV initiative. Additionally, continuous project monitoring is necessary to maintain employee engagement and commitment, factors that can be in uenced by burnout [49,50]. The Boston Consulting Group has developed an e cacious four-element model known as Duration, Integrity, Commitment and Effort (DICE), [48,51].…”