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This study aims to examine the effects of coworker incivility on employees' behaviors using a moderated mediation model that conceptualizes coworker exchange (CWX) as a mediator and servant leadership as a moderator.

The data were collected using a multi-temporal research design. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 1,272 participants using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), hierarchical regression analysis and moderated path analysis. In addition, supervisor incivility was added as a control variable to partial out the potential influence on employees' behaviors.

The results of CFA ensured that all measures had discriminant and convergent validity. In addition, the results of hierarchical regression analysis and moderated path analysis indicated that CWX mediates the relationship between coworker incivility and employees' behaviors. Furthermore, servant leadership exacerbates the negative relationship between coworker incivility and CWX.

Leaders and practitioners should invest in communication training programs for developing employees' communication skills to avoid incivility. In addition to viewing incivility as inappropriate behavior, leaders and practitioners should understand the meaning beyond those incivilities.

This study utilized incivility spiral theory to examine how coworker incivility affects employees' behaviors. The mediated path analysis found that CWX mediates the relationship between these variables, which has been ignored by previous research. Furthermore, this study introduced servant leadership as a moderator to account for the “when” in incivility spiral theory, i.e. what kind of social context facilitates or inhibits the influence of coworker incivility on CWX.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to unlock how and why abusive supervision influences employees’ day-to-day behaviors. Thus, the present study proposes that employees who are continuously faced with a supervisor’s hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior might obstruct their willingness to exhibit two different kinds of extra-role behaviors [i.e. organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and voice] because sustained abusive behavior might hinder employees from their tasks and result in disengagement. Abused employees are more likely to disengage from their current tasks, and this is likely to in turn result in lower OCB and voice.

The data were collected from a Taiwan mid-sized high-tech manufacturing company. The present study adopted a within-person approach (a daily-basis research design) and collected data from 60 front-line employees over 10 working days. Although all variables were self-rated, common method variance is minor. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure discriminant and convergent validity, and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The results of CFA ensure the measures have discriminant and convergent validity, while the results of HLM analysis showed that work engagement fully mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision and the two kinds of extra-role behaviors. The bootstrapping results also support the full mediation effect of work engagement.

The present study used the job demands-resources model to examine how abusive supervision influences employees’ OCB and voice and found that work engagement is one possible mechanism between these two types of extra-role behavior. Specifically, a daily research design discovered that in a given working day, once a leader exhibits abusive supervision behavior, compared with any given day without abusive behaviors, employees will find it difficult to focus on their current tasks (i.e. through exhibiting decreased work engagement), which will in turn influence their willingness to exhibit OCB and voice on that particular day. Thus, both researchers and managers should focus on the daily interactions between leaders and employees because it is impossible to achieve organization success in one day, but rather such success is the aggregate result of both leaders’ and employees’ daily efforts.

Based on the job demands-resources model, the present study proposes viewing abusive supervision as one type of job demand causing employees' emotional exhaustion, which results in psychological withdrawal behavior. In addition, job crafting can be viewed as a means to acquire job resources, and it buffers the influence of abusive supervision on employees' emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the present study also proposes the moderating effect of job crafting on abusive supervision and psychological withdrawal behavior will be mediated by emotional exhaustion.

Considering the issue of common method variance, data were not only collected in a multi-temporal research design but also tested by Harman's one-factor test. In addition, a series of confirmatory factor analyses was conducted to ensure the discriminant validity of measures. The moderated mediation hypotheses were tested on a sample of 267 participants.

The process model analysis showed that emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and psychological withdrawal behavior. Moreover, job crafting buffers the detrimental effect of abusive supervision on emotional exhaustion, and the less exhausted employees exhibit less psychological withdrawal behavior than those exhausted.

This study proposed a moderated mediation model to examine how and when abusive supervision leads to more employees' psychological withdrawal behaviors, and found that emotional exhaustion is one potential mechanism and job crafting is one potential moderator. Specifically, it was revealed that employees view abusive supervision as a kind of social and organizational aspect of job demands which will exacerbate emotional exhaustion, and, in turn, lead to more psychological withdrawal behavior. However, when employees view themselves as job crafter, they can adopt various job crafting behaviors to decrease the emotional exhaustion, and thus less psychological withdrawal behavior.