Societal transformations driven by globalization, immigration, and other cultural changes have brought increased attention to managing diversity in public sector organizations (Choi & Rainey, 2014; Pitts, 2012). To reduce incidences of harassment and discrimination, governments in various countries have enacted anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws. With these efforts, overt forms of harassment and discrimination have reduced, but prejudices persist in subtle ways in organizations (Brief, Dietz, Cohen, Pugh, & Vaslow, 2000). In this study, we focus on one such particular type of mistreatment: workplace incivility, which refers to “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violations of norms of workplace mutual respect” (Andersson & Pearson, 1999: 457). Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous and show a general lack of regards of others. It is closely related to the idea of “psychological aggression” (Cortina et al. 2013).
We analyze the reported experiences of public and non-profit sector workers in Pakistan to determine who is likely to be a target of workplace incivility and whether there are any organizational or job factors that intensify or reduce these incidents. Specifically, we are interested in whether ethical leadership, a cultivatable skill, can reduce workplace incivility directed at women.
The data come from a survey of 741 public and nonprofit sector employees in Pakistan participating in a five-year USAID program focusing on institutional capacity building. Initial results using OLS regression show that women are more likely to experience workplace incivility and this result appears stronger when a woman has an unethical manager. Two organizational characteristics, power or influence measured by personal control and ethical supervisors, reduce reported experiences of incivility.
This paper fits within the objectives of the Dynamics of Diverse Workforces panel. Our analysis is unique because it focuses on workplace incivility in Pakistan, a context differing in many ways from the Western workplaces studied almost exclusively to date. Thus this work offers a considerable contribution as, to the best of our knowledge, there are no extant studies assessing workplace civility and leadership in a majority Muslim country.
References
Andersson, L.M., Pearson, C.M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace. Academy of Management Review 24(3), 452-471.
Brief, A. P., Dietz, J., Cohen, R. R., Pugh, S. D., & Vaslow, J. B. (2000). Just doing business: Modern racism and obedience to authority as explanations for employment discrimination. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81(1), 72-97.
Choi, S., Rainey, H.G. (2014). Organizational fairness and diversity management in public organizations: Does fairness matter in managing diversity? Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(4), 307-331.
Cortina, L.M., Kabat-Farr, D., Leskinen, E.A., Huerta, M., Magley, V.J. (2013). Selective incivility as modern discrimination in organizations: Evidence and impact. Journal of Management 39(6), 1579-1605.
Pitts, D. (2012). Diversity, Representation, and Performance: Evidence about Race and Ethnicity in Public Organizations. Journal Public Administration Research and Theory, 15 (4): 615-631.
