An exploration of managers' awareness and reaction to workplace incivility: A grounded theory study

Twenty-four managers from three organizations in the Washington, DC area participated in the research study to explore manager's awareness of and reaction to the phenomenon of workplace incivility. Incivility, as a contemporary phenomenon, is prevalent within the modern workplace and is bad for business. Managers are an organizations' first line of defense in the face of the contemporary threat. Managers do not possess equal understanding of the definition and scope of workplace incivility, nor do they have a common frame of reference for understanding its impact upon organizational productivity or the organization's climate. The research study employed a qualitative grounded theory method approach to explore managers' awareness of and reaction to the contemporary phenomenon of workplace incivility. The participants answered eight open-ended questions regarding personal awareness of and reaction to workplace incivility. Managers' awareness of the phenomenon of workplace incivility served as the unit of analysis during the data collection process. The study concluded with new theory, which suggests that managers' self-awareness is a contributing factor toward recognizing, moderating, and mitigating the antecedents and consequences of workplace incivility. Furthermore, managers' levels of interpersonal awareness frame and moderate the prevalence and consequences of workplace incivility within the organization. Managers may contribute to workplace incivility through suboptimum levels of self-awareness and interpersonal awareness or may cause the deviant behaviors to spiral and escalate. Managers profess to embrace the underlying principle of the Golden Rule within the work environment, but may not be aware of the gap between personal intentions and desired outcomes.