How Does Rudeness Poison Groups? The Bottom-up Evolution of Workplace Incivility

Studies find that the effects of incivility are often short-lived as individuals “get over it”. They ignore the potential for incivility to poison groups over the longer term, harming others beyond targets, perpetrators and bystanders. Many current incivility studies have adopted a top-down, short-term and dyadic approach, delving into how higher-level factors contribute to the perpetration of uncivil behaviours and individuals’ responses to them. There remains a notable gap in understanding the holistic dynamics of workplace incivility, in particular from a bottom-up perspective, i.e., how individual behaviours and interpersonal interactions can develop and aggregate into a group climate that perpetrates workplace incivility over time.

While the psychological impact of an uncivil event is typically temporary for individuals, its norm-breaking, respect-violating, and sometimes covert nature suggest that its effects on groups may be more profound than initially apparent. Associated with the spreading and progressing nature of incivility, its consequences may persist long after easily measured individual-level psychological reactions have faded. However, the underlying mechanisms of this seemingly counterintuitive effect—where individuals quickly recover, but groups are adversely affected—require closer examination.

Existing studies of contamination, or the viral spread of incivility, have identified three spreading mechanisms when individuals actively engage in incivility transmission: the incivility spiral, the contagion effect of incivility and the word-of-mouth mechanism (e.g., gossip). However, these studies have omitted the passive spread of incivility; over the long term, even tolerance and avoidance can trigger incivility transmission, through signalled psychological withdrawal and disengagement, to teams. How impacts can spread beyond incivility itself to other forms of behaviour and team climates is also unknown. In addition, while leadership styles and personalities of direct or line managers have been widely recognised as key factors influencing team climates, their actual day-to-day performance in managing workplace disputes like incivility is largely neglected.

This exploratory mixed-methods study qualitatively examines how seemingly minor acts of incivility can shape and poison groups. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 47 participants from 13 New Zealand public sector organisations and NGOs, it reveals how incivility leads to behavioural responses such as talking to peers (often gossip), trying to put up with it, revenge and reporting to line managers and human resources departments (HRDs). In turn, the present study shows how these behaviours lead to team members taking sides and splitting the team into factions, the shunning of victims and tension within the team. Ineffective “soft” manager and human resources interventions (providing emotional support but not addressing the problem) increase unhealthy competition and turnover.

A key finding is that when line managers and HRD interventions are ineffective and inconsistent in addressing incivility, this signals acceptance of unfairness and mistreatment. This, in turn, fosters unhealthy, competitive environments and increases team members’ intentions to quit. The normalisation of these behaviours strengthens the impact of incivility on individuals.

Quantitative examination shows how ineffective, inconsistent line managers allow workplace incivility to spread, while effective line managers buffer against its proliferation. Quantitative data are primarily collected in China to ensure that the results are cross-culturally generalisable. To minimise common method biases, a time-lagged survey design is used across two distinct time periods. The study first presents a scale describing employee-assessed managerial performance in addressing minor workplace disputes based on the well-known ability, opportunity and motivation framework. Managerial consistency across individuals and over time is added as a new dimension. The scale is then cross-validated in the US.

Using structural equation modelling and mediation analysis, results reveal a negative association between line manager performance and both employee-observed incivility and incivility climates. In addition, line managers’ performance has indirect negative impacts on individual and group outcomes associated with incivility, including teamwork interdependence, organisational citizenship behaviours and work engagement.

By adopting a mixed-methods and bottom-up perspective, this study offers insights into the complex evolution of incivility involving multiple behaviours, actors and theories beyond the traditional approach. It then identifies a novel passive spread mechanism that goes beyond the traditionally recognised active spreading mechanisms. The findings also underscore the importance of managerial interventions in addressing workplace incivility at both the individual and group levels. The study advances incivility literature by showing the critical role of line managers who may inadvertently foster poisonous team climates.

Theoretical implications include the complex dynamics of incivility and the establishment of an integrated, multilevel theoretical framework to understand it. At the individual level, affective event theory and conservation of resources theory merit consideration as explanations for the immediate emotions, motivation for avoiding resource loss and behavioural responses to incivility, but these theories cannot adequately explain the temporal changes of these effects. Social information processing theory explains the time individuals need for making sense of incivility. Adaptation theory provides an explanation that most people recover from stress caused by incivility over time. However, these theories overlook the fact that, even if victims have surmounted the experience, incivility can still spread contagiously beyond witnesses, targets and perpetrators.

Consequently, social- and group-level theories are needed to unpack the intricate process of transmitting individual experiences to teams and their climates. Social learning, social exchange and social identity perspectives collectively help to explain the spreading mechanisms of incivility from individuals to groups, through to gossip, revenge, withdrawal and alliance-building. Group-level theories such as collective sensemaking and transactive memory explain how, over time, through daily interactions, shared patterns of thought develop.

This study also extends the ability, opportunity and motivation framework by introducing the new dimension of leader consistency. Practical implications include incivilities’ hidden costs, the need for effective managerial action against it and managers’ common failure to take action. This study highlights the imperative of managers’ awareness and skills in resolving low-intensity workplace conflicts. Human resources activities, such as recruitment and selection, training and development, and performance appraisal, should reflect this critical capability.