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Workplace incivility is a common deviant behavior happening in organizational contexts, and it can have serious negative consequences such as decreasing employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and increasing their turnover intentions. This study aims to test the argument that emotional exhaustion and acceptability of workplace incivility can act as mediators in this relationship between incivility and OCB and turnover intentions. Moreover, the assumption that employees’ political skill can act as a buffer on job strain caused by incivility displayed by both coworkers and supervisors was tested.

In total, 703 South Korean employees recruited online completed a self-assessment on their political skill first and then they were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: either recalled a co-worker or a supervisor who had previously displayed uncivil behaviors toward them.

The stronger the employees’ experience of incivility, the lower their OCB-O and the higher their turnover intentions. These relationships were mediated by acceptability of incivility and emotional exhaustions. Interestingly, results also supported the moderating role of political skill on the relationship between incivility and turnover intentions mediated by acceptability, with higher politically skilled employees being more likely to accept incivility when compared to lower politically skilled employees.

Using a between-subjects design, the findings expand the current knowledge regarding the negative impacts of workplace incivility. Specifically, they showed that acceptability is an important mechanism to understand the impact of workplace incivility on OCB and turnover intention.

Antecedents and influences of workplace incivility have recently been studied in many areas of research but there is still a lack of consideration for the impact of culture. Theoretical considerations for the present research are based on the cultural dimensions of power distance and tightness/looseness because the collective levels of power distance are similar between Korea and Spain, but the collective levels of tightness/looseness are different between the two countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether individuals’ occupational position affects their normative reactions to incivility differently.

Participant (victim)’s (those who react to uncivil behaviors) social power (low vs high) and perpetrator’s (those who exhibit uncivil behaviors) social power (low vs high) were experimentally manipulated; all participants were randomly assigned to one of four perpetrator × victim conditions in relation to hierarchical positions (Ntot = 467).

The results suggest that the level of social and personal acceptability was greater either among Koreans than Spanish at a collective level or among people who endorsed higher power distance and tightness values. All in all, the findings highlight cultural influences on the importance of social hierarchy as a factor that can impact the people’s normative reactions to incivility.

The findings broaden our understanding of the psychology of employees in relation to incivility, by simultaneously considering the influences of culture (power distance and tightness/looseness) and social power.

Antecedents and outcomes of workplace deviance have been studied over the past few decades but there is still a lack of research from an organizational climate, witness and cultural point of view. Theoretical considerations for the present research are based on the social cognitive theory perspective where the authors expect employees's involvement in workplace destructive deviance would depend on their organizational climate perception, witness behavior and cultural orientation.

A total of 987 participants from India (N = 404) and USA (N = 583) completed an online questionnaire, and multi-group structural equation modeling analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized model.

Across cultural groups, higher collectivism is associated with lower engagement in workplace deviance. Furthermore, employees' higher intervening witness behavior is associated with lower destructive deviant behaviors when employees showed higher endorsement of collectivism in India (not USA). However, employees' higher self-serving witness behavior is associated with higher destructive deviant behaviors. Interestingly, employees with higher endorsement of individualism associated with organizational climate are more likely to engage in destructive deviance.

The main originality of this study is to further increase the understanding of the relationship between organizational climate, witness behavior (self-serving and intervening behavior) and workplace deviance (organizational and interpersonal destructive deviance) considering the role of employees' cultural orientation (individualism vs collectivism).

This study aims to examine the role of deviant status (lower vs higher rank) and organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) on individuals’ responses to workplace deviance.

Two studies (N = 472) were designed to examine the role of deviant status and organizational structure in responses to workplace deviance. Study 1 (N = 272) manipulated deviant status and organizational structure. Study 2 (N = 200) also manipulated deviant status but focused on participants’ subjective evaluations of the organizational structure of their workplace.

Study 1 found that participants reported lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and higher turnover intentions when they imagined being confronted with deviant behaviors displayed by a manager (vs by a subordinate), regardless of the type of organizational structure. Study 2 extended this finding by showing that the indirect effect of organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) on turnover intention via job satisfaction and organizational commitment was moderated by deviant status: when the deviant’s status was higher, working in a vertical (vs horizontal) organization was associated with decreased job satisfaction and commitment, which, in turn, was associated with a higher level of turnover intentions.

The findings broaden our understanding of how individuals respond to deviance at the workplace, by simultaneously considering the effects of organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) and deviant status (upward vs downward directions of deviance).