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Journal of Business and Psychology
Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology 5/2021

15-09-2020 | Original Paper

Willingness to Recommend: Does Workplace Incivility Actually Play a Role?

Authors: Benjamin M. Walsh, Dana Kabat-Farr, Russell A. Matthews, Benjamin D. Schulte

Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology | Issue 5/2021

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Abstract

To prevent workplace incivility, scholars encourage organizations to use reference checks to help eliminate uncivil applicants. However, under certain conditions, reference providers may be willing to recommend their rude colleagues for employment. We test this possibility by studying willingness to recommend, which captures a willingness to serve as a professional reference for a colleague. Based on signaling theory, we hypothesized that colleague incivility is negatively related to willingness to recommend, but this relationship is moderated by colleague in-role performance and job-level factors. In study 1, multilevel modeling of multisource data revealed that colleague incivility negatively related to willingness to recommend, but troublingly, this relationship was weaker among colleagues who were high rather than low performers, regardless of job-level moderators. In study 2, we tested whether organizations can intervene and encourage potential reference providers to pay greater attention to incivility. Regression results showed that providers placed greater weight on their colleague’s incivility in relation to willingness to recommend when signals were sent that the hiring organization was unwilling to sacrifice civility for top performance. Our research helps illuminate when incivility instigators are likely to be recommended for employment and demonstrates a way to maximize the use of reference checks for incivility prevention.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
We also collected citizenship performance (Williams & Anderson, 1991), but CFAs showed respondents did not differentiate well between in-role performance and OCBO. Thus, we focus on in-role performance, which when combined with incivility aligns well with the notion of the “brilliant jerk” (Netflix, 2019, para. 16).
 
2
O*NET version 23.2 included 1110 job titles, but work context data were available for 967 of these job titles.
 
3
Interpretation of hypotheses was the same when excluding social exchange from tested models. Model 3 showed that incivility negatively related to willingness to recommend (supervisor γ20 = − .31, p < .001; coworker γ20 = − .51, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 1. Model 4 supported Hypothesis 2 as the interaction with in-role performance remained significant (supervisor γ30 = .16, p = .020; coworker γ30 = .17, p = .035), and in the predicted form. Likewise, no support was observed for Hypothesis 3a as Model 6a showed that frequency of contact with others did not moderate the effect of incivility (supervisor γ21 = .02, p = .913; coworker γ21 = .18, p = .420). Hypothesis 3b also remained unsupported in Model 6b (supervisor γ21 = − .03, p = .719; coworker γ21 = .04, p = .666).
 
4
Interpretation of hypotheses varied only with respect to Hypothesis 4 when excluding social exchange from tested models. In the intent to treat analysis, the three-way interaction term again had no effect (b = − .14, p = .179), so we looked to Model 2. However, the manipulation did not significantly change the influence of incivility (b = − .12, p = .151), so Hypothesis 4 was not supported with social exchange excluded. The manipulation still changed the influence of in-role performance (b = − .23, p = .011) as it had when social exchange was included. In the passers analysis, the three-way interaction term remained statistically significant (b = − .29, p = .024). Results in this subsample remained consistent with Hypothesis 5 such that the two-way interaction between incivility and in-role performance observed in study 1 held in the control condition, but not in the value civility condition. In the control condition, the slopes again differed significantly from each other (t[595] = 2.39, p = .017) and consistent with study 1 results such that the influence of incivility was weaker when in-role performance was high (simple slope = − .22, p = .017) than when in-role performance was low (simple slope = − .43, p < .001). Likewise, in the value civility condition the slopes again did not differ significantly (t[595] = − 1.09, p = .276), such that incivility negatively related to willingness to recommend at strong and comparable levels when in-role performance was high (simple slope = − .53, p < .001) and low (simple slope = − .37, p < .001).
 
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Metadata
Title
Willingness to Recommend: Does Workplace Incivility Actually Play a Role?
Authors
Benjamin M. Walsh
Dana Kabat-Farr
Russell A. Matthews
Benjamin D. Schulte
Publication date
15-09-2020
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of Business and Psychology / Issue 5/2021
Print ISSN: 0889-3268
Electronic ISSN: 1573-353X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-020-09710-7

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