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Champions need an iron will: How employees use their dispositional self-control to overcome workplace incivility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2021

Dirk De Clercq Open the ORCID record for Dirk De Clercq [Opens in a new window]  and
Imanol Belausteguigoitia
Dirk De Clercq*
Affiliation:
Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, OntarioL2S 3A1, Canada
Imanol Belausteguigoitia
Affiliation:
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Santa Teresa Campus, Mexico City, Mexico
*
Author for correspondence: Dirk De Clercq, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper investigates how employees' experience of workplace incivility may steer them away from idea championing, with a special focus on the mediating role of their desire to quit their jobs and the moderating role of their dispositional self-control. Data collected from employees who work in a large retail organization reveal that an important reason that exposure to rude workplace behaviors reduces employees' propensity to champion innovative ideas is that they make concrete plans to leave. This mediating effect is mitigated when employees are equipped with high levels of self-control though. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints desires to seek alternative employment as a critical factor by which irritations about resource-draining incivility may escalate into a reluctance to add to organizational effectiveness through dedicated championing efforts. It also indicates how this escalation can be avoided, namely, by ensuring employees have access to pertinent personal resources.

Keywords

Conservation of resources theorydispositional self-controlidea championingquitting intentionsworkplace incivility
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , First View , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2021

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