The spillover effects of coworker, supervisor, and outsider workplace incivility on work‐to‐family conflict: A weekly diary design

• Author: Laurenz L. Meier,Paul E. Spector,Zhiqing E. Zhou
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2401
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The spillover effects of coworker, supervisor, and outsider

workplace incivility on work‐to‐family conflict: A weekly diary

design

Zhiqing E. Zhou

1

|Laurenz L. Meier

2

|Paul E. Spector

3

1

Baruch College and The Graduate Center,

City University of New York, New York City,

New York, U.S.A.

2

Department of Psychology, University of

Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

3

Department of Psychology, University of

South Florida, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Zhiqing E. Zhou, Department of Psychology,

Baruch College, City University of New York,

New York City, NY.

Email: zhiqing.zhou@baruch.cuny.edu.

Funding information

National Institute for Occupational Safety and

Health

Summary

This study used an experience sampling design to examine the spillover effects of

experienced workplace incivility from organizational insiders (coworkers and supervi-

sors, respectively) and organizational outsiders (patients and their visitors) on targets'

work‐to‐family conflict and to test the mediating effect of burnout and the moderat-

ing effect of display rules. Data collected over five consecutive weeks from 84 full‐

time nurses showed that within individuals, weekly experiences of coworker incivility

and outsider incivility were positively related to weekly experience of work‐to‐family

conflict, and burnout mediated these relationships while controlling for initial level of

burnout before participants started a week's work. In addition, display rules, defined

as the extent to which individuals perceive they are expected to display desired pos-

itive emotions and suppress negative emotions at work, moderated the relationship

between outsider incivility and burnout; specifically, the positive relationship

between weekly outsider incivility and burnout was stronger for individuals who per-

ceived a higher level of display rules. Our findings contribute to the literature by dem-

onstrating the mediating effect of burnout and the moderating effect of perceived

display rules in the relationship between workplace incivility from multiple sources

and work‐to‐family conflict from a resource perspective.

KEYWORDS

burnout, conservation of resources, display rules, workplace incivility, work‐to‐family conflict

1|INTRODUCTION

Workplace incivility refers to rude and uncivil behaviors characterized

by low intensity, ambiguous intent to harm, and violation of workplace

norms for mutual respect (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). The accumu-

lated evidence suggests that workplace incivility is alarmingly common

in the workplace (Schilpzand, De Pater, & Erez, 2016). For example,

Porath and Pearson (2013) reported that among thousands of partici-

pants in their studies over 14 years, 98% had reported being victims of

workplace incivility and about 50% had experienced it on a weekly

basis. In addition to its high prevalence, workplace incivility has been

found to have detrimental effects on employee job attitudes, health

and well‐being, performance, and behaviors (for reviews, see Cortina,

Kabat‐Farr, Magley, & Nelson, 2017; Schilpzand et al., 2016). In addi-

tion to the negative effects of workplace incivility on individuals'

work‐and health‐related outcomes, Schilpzand et al. (2016) suggest

that effects of workplace incivility can spill over to targets' nonwork

lives.

One important nonwork outcome of workplace incivility that has

been examined is work‐to‐family conflict (Ferguson, 2012; Lim &

Lee, 2011). Work‐to‐family conflict has been shown to have detrimen-

tal effects on employee outcomes in both work and nonwork domains

(Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering, & Semmer, 2011), indicating the

importance of exploring its potential antecedents to understand how

Received: 24 December 2017 Revised: 9 April 2019 Accepted: 26 June 2019

DOI: 10.1002/job.2401

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pon

1000

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:1000–1012.