Supervision Incivility and Employee Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Chang-E Liu, Shengxian Yu, Yahui Chen and Wei He
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Chang-E Liu: Mobile E-Business Collaborative Innovation Center of Hunan Province, Key Laboratory of Hunan Province for Mobile Business Intelligence, College of Business Administration, Hunan University of Technology and Business, Changsha 410205, China
Shengxian Yu: College of Business Administration, Hunan University of Technology and Business, Changsha 410205, China
Yahui Chen: School of Business and Tourism Management, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
Wei He: Scott College of Business, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Much of the supervision incivility research has focused on the supervisor-subordinate dyad when examining the effects of supervision incivility on employee outcomes. Our study examines a trickle-down effect of supervision incivility across three hierarchical levels, i.e., from the department leader (middle manager), through group leader (supervisor), and to group members (employees), and how it affects group psychological safety. Drawing on a sample of 346 employees and 78 group leaders in 78 work groups, our research found a negative relationship between department leader incivility and group psychological safety, and that this negative relationship was mediated by group leader incivility and moderated by group leader attribution for performance-promotion or injury-initiation motives. We further discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Keywords: employee psychological safety; supervision incivility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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