How do Coworkers' Helping Behaviors Reduce Workplace Incivility:The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and the Moderating Role of Moral Identity

Abstract

Abstract:

As a minor deviant behavior, workplace incivility is an advanced topic in the field of organizational behavior. Although some scholars have begun to explore the mechanism of workplace incivility, little attention was paid to the inhibiting factors of workplace incivility. Drawing on social cognition theory, we propose a moderated mediation model, whichconcludes that coworkers' helping behaviors negatively relate to workplace incivility; moral disengagement mediates the relationship between coworkers' helping behaviors and the employees' workplace incivility; the relationship between coworkers' helping behaviors and employees moral disengagement, as well as the indirect relationship between coworkers' helping behavior and employees' workplace incivility, are much weaker when moral identity is high than low. Based on a two-phase survey of 343 employee-colleague paired samples, the empirical findings support our hypothesis model. Not only do these findings effectively expand the domain of workplace incivility, but also enrich our understanding of the bystander effect of incivility.

Key words: workplace incivility, moral disengagement, moral identity, coworkers' helping behavior

Zhan Xiaojun, Chen Ying, Luo Wenhao, Guo Yirong. How do Coworkers' Helping Behaviors Reduce Workplace Incivility:The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and the Moderating Role of Moral Identity[J]. , 2019, 31(4): 117-127.

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