Managers are a crucial source of social stressors in the workplace. Managers can positively and negatively influence employees’ attitudes and behaviors because of their formal power and their physical proximity to employees (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010). Whereas most managers would want to treat their employees well, the reality suggests that this is often not the case. Managers are often faulted for ignoring employees’ views and opinions, doubting employees’ judgment, and treating employees without dignity and respect. Such incivility violates norms of interactional justice that are the standards for respectful treatment in the workplace (Bies, 2001). Indeed, empirical evidence consistently indicates that managerial incivility has strong adverse effects across attitudinal and behavioral outcomes (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010).
In this present study, I investigate the impact of managerial incivility on public employees’ turnover intentions, task performance and destructive behaviors. Drawing on the literature on occupational contexts and social status, I propose that the adverse effect of managers’ incivility will be more pronounced among those in a higher status occupational group (professional vs. clerical groups). Research indicates that people use status-relevant information to make inferences about the extent to which they are held in high regard by others (Blader & Tyler, 2009) and thus being treated unfairly by the manager may cause higher-status employees to perceive a more entrenched loss of social esteem. Drawing on social exchange theory, I further propose that this moderation effect will be mediated by the subordinate’s perceptions that their contributions are not valued the manager. Based on a sample of 401 municipal and district workers in 83 work units in Thailand, the multi-level analyses provide support for the proposed mediated moderation model. Professional employees are more adversely affected by supervisory incivility such that they are more likely to think about leaving, lower their performance and engage in destructive behavior. The effects were found even after controlling for other sources of incivility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
References
Bies, R. J. (2001). Interactional (in)justice: The sacred and the profane. In J. Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in Organizational Justice (pp. 89 – 118). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Blader, S. L., & Tyler, T. R. (2009). Testing and extending the group engagement model: linkages between social identity, procedural justice, economic outcomes, and extrarole behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 445.
Hershcovis, M. S., & Barling, J. (2010). Towards a multi-foci approach to workplace aggression: A meta-analytic review of outcomes from different perpetrators. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(1), 24-44.
