The perceptional triangle of incivility, politics, and democracy: The role of supportiveness

Abstract

Bringing democracy to the workplace has gained researchers’ attention during the last few years. In addition to its proorganizational outcomes, democratization at the workplace also helps to eradicate organizational negativities. The present study investigates these claims by empirically examining the relationship between organizational democracy, perception of politics, and workplace incivility. A sample of 300 full-time employees working in fifteen different banks in the district of Gujrat Pakistan was obtained. The structural equation modeling technique was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicated that workplace democracy is negatively associated with the perception of organizational politics and workplace incivility. Nevertheless, when there is organizational democracy with a supportive environment, it further reduces its incivility and politics. The study provides empirical evidence to managers and organizational decision makers in developing democratic workplaces to promote participative culture and eradicate organizational negativities. More studies on democratic practices with different contexts and factors are discussed and proposed for future studies.

Introduction

Twentieth-century organizations seek to learn new and alternative ways of operating and managing affairs compatible with growth and development.¹ One alternative form of management is to bring democratic practices to the workplace.² Over the past fifteen years (since the 2003 conference of the Academy of Management in Seattle with the theme of democracy in knowledge economic), investigations on organizational democracy (OD) have intensified.³ To date, most democracy researchers have tried to address the understanding of deployment of organizational practices or conditions preventing democratization in the workplace.⁴ A recent review⁵ debate on workplace democracy to date is inconclusive, confirming that OD needs further investigations especially from empirical narratives. According to Literature⁶, democracy at the workplace is commonly associated with its systems, processes, and related institutions including the ability to strike, worker-controlled businesses, employee representation at the board level, health and safety representatives, negotiations, information and consultation, workplace meetings, autonomy, comanagement, the presence of trade unions, collective bargaining, direct participation, financial participation, and a host of other things. All these processes are closely related to how the historical and cultural contexts of each country have shaped the relationships between capital and labor. In a nutshell, workplace democracy tools seek to increase workers' control over capital, resulting in more democratic enterprises with group decision making. Therefore, it suggests that managers’ and shareholders’ scope of action will be limited and that the democratization of labor cannot be effectively pursued without a redistribution of power in favor of workers, enforced by the law and/or enforceable agreements. If this doesn't happen, the organizational disturbances are created resulting in violence, stress, and incivility.⁷

Incivility includes disrespecting and disregarding others, using humiliating language, gossiping, or threatening coworkers. In a broader and more generic context, incivility stands for violating mutual respect,⁸ causing emotional harm, and a sense of injustice among and between employees.⁹ These incivilities resulted in the erosion of dignity for thousands of people, ultimately raising the likelihood of reduced performance. Thus, workplace incivility (WI) management is essential for employee well-being and workplace improvement.¹⁰

Unlike democracy and incivility, perception of organizational politics has been extensively researched to demonstrate its detrimental effects on the individual, team, and organizational outcomes,¹¹ including negative feelings about the job, loss of strategic power and credibility, decreased job performance, guilty feelings, and stress.¹² Studies have different opinions about its outcomes; however, adverse effects are highlighted more. It is strongly linked with justice and fairness, increasing or decreasing employee satisfaction levels.¹³

Organizational negativities have always been a source of stress to managers. Over the decades, industrial researchers have searched for the ideas that not only promote its effectiveness but also prosper their employee's health. The idea of this study was to build, propose, and support the democracy narrative, which is now gaining momentum. The literature widely claims its benefits and outcomes toward organizations but same remain either untested or neglected.¹⁴ Thus, the purpose/idea of this study was to provide some evidences to literature on empirical outcomes of this yearly old construct. Based on arguments, the present study has been undertaken with some specific objectives, including (1) to build empirical evidence for its proemployee benefits using literature evidence, (2) to investigate the relationship of OD with negatively argued organizational constructs, that is, incivility and politics, (3) to investigate the role on supportive workplace environment between democracy, incivility, and politics, and (4) to provide arguments to industrial managers regarding promotion of democratic environment in their operations to minimize the associated adverse outcomes, for example, incivility and organizational politics.

Literature review and hypotheses development

Organizational democracy

The evolution of democracy as a construct was not new nor straightforward. The concept of democracy within the state is not new. In fact, it is as old as human history and took centuries to get to the point it is today. From politics to economies and then to organizations made this concept completely different from the earliest version of Plato's and Aristotle.¹⁵ The ideas of managing economies with democratic principles raised the essence of creating the same level of participation and involvement in corporations and workplaces.¹⁶ According to Nadesan and Cheney,¹⁷ OD is essential in theoretical and practical domains. Still, it can entail political, social, and economic dimensions of business and organizational life that have not yet been answered. According to Nadesan and Cheney,¹⁸ a comprehensive and accurate comparison between democratic and traditional firms to assess profitability and other features as well. They also added survey-based research in traditional management companies to examine whether employees are willing to choose an alternate system. Due to globalization, technological advancement, and emerging labor movements, it is necessary to abandon the old management practices of the industrial age¹⁹ and adopt new business models that are more engaged, responsive, efficient, and innovative to succeed in this new age.²⁰ Battilana et al.²¹ proposed that more and more organizations should follow the democratic model because it can better integrate and represent different and competing practices in decision making than hierarchical models. Harrison and Freeman²² asserted the potential benefits of bringing democratic practices to organizations and giving employees freedom.

Workplace incivility

WI is a sign of disrespect and disregard for others. In the words of Laschinger et al.,²³ incivility in the workplace means displaying uncivilized, discourteous, and rude attitudes and behaviors. Evidence of positive linear relationships between counterproductive behavior and incivility was found.²⁴ In addition, it was also suggested that incivility is associated with higher stress levels, anger, low retention, and burnout.²⁵ It's a kind of low-level social stressor that can impair an employee's psychological well-being,²⁶ suggesting negative correlations with psychological, occupational, and organizational outcomes and several physical health issues. This negativity may also lead to stress, crime, emotional exhaustion, and seclusion,²⁷ thus reducing employee creativity, satisfaction, and overall performance.²⁸ Another study by Reio and Trudel²⁹ showed that incivility in organizations results in less commitment, more employee turnover, and, ultimately, poor contextual performances. Several pieces of evidence declared that the supervisor or manager could not be the only source of incivility. Various other stakeholders, including customers, subordinates, and peers, may act/misbehave, increasing employee anxiety, nervousness, sadness, and depression.³⁰

Additionally, coworker's incivility includes nasty comments, abusive conversations, dirty looks, disrespectful attitude, and so on. Rosen et al.³¹ stated that purposeful noncivil behavior might result in iniquitousness, perception of loss, and bias. To a lesser extent, the same is correct for a coworker's incivility as it disturbs the worker's daily life but does not interfere with their career. But in both cases, employees suffer from negative and harmful consequences.³² Both coworkers' and supervisors' incivility were accounted for this work, as they both tend to influence noncivil behavior in most organizational settings.³³

Perception of organizational politics

Ferris et al.³⁴ were the earliest explaining politics and in the last three decades it has received immense intentions from researchers from both applied and basic perspectives.³⁵ Tang and colleagues³⁶ shared the politics in organization is an evaluation of the extent to which political tactics, such as coalition building and backstabbing, exist in the work environment. These responses created political behavior among employees resulting in an overall decrease in performance. Elbanna³⁷ considers politics in organizations a source for gaining benefits through misuse of power and taking illegitimate benefits, including timing fluctuations, agenda control negotiations and bargaining, abuse of resources, promotions, and information manipulation. Employees form coalitions groups to support their preferences and remain powerful over others and to influence critical organizational affairs.³⁸ It was argued that politics in the organization extensively deal with employees' stake, especially those who came under direct consequences, either materially or reputational. Although employee politics is usual in organizations mainly in south Asian countries, a realistic picture of its effects may forestall its harmful impacts. Organizational politics arises from the workforce's different interests and ideas, as every organization possesses its features.³⁹ It lies in the eyes of the beholder. Perception of organizational politics also involves attributions to the self-serving behavioral intentions of members of the organization and other people's mental feelings about these behaviors.⁴⁰ These and many other studies suggest that politics should be considered a subjective evaluation rather than an objective fact.⁴¹ It plays an essential role in impacting the key organizational policies and processes, altering several work-related attitudes and behaviors.

Perceived organizational support

Amah and Okafor⁴² defined the perception of organizational support as “employees' perception that the organization values their contribution.” A high-level perception of organizational support can be created by the organizational environment, leadership style, and coworkers' attitude. It relates to firm's readiness to increased reward-related work efforts and to confirm socioemotional needs.⁴³ The literature widely supports that managerial support perceptions affect employee job performance, including work attitudes.⁴⁴ It not only improves the commitment level of the employees but also reduces the turnover intentions and stressful environment.⁴⁵ A supportive environment creates a sense of satisfaction in employees' minds, motivating them to remain committed and loyal. Therefore, the mentioned employees feel obliged to make a more discretionary effort for the organization's benefit like motivation and collaborations.⁴⁶ In other words, the perception of organizational support is the relationship of social exchange between the employer and the employee. Scholars have identified the perception of organizational support as an essential construct due to its practical and significant impact on the level of employee's commitment,⁴⁷ turnover intentions,⁴⁸ deviant behavior,⁴⁹ and change of readiness and trust.⁵⁰ Shantz et al.⁵¹ found that organizational support moderates the relationship between employee engagement and intentions to leave the organization because the perception of organizational support increases employees’ morale to stay in the organization. The literature has also justified that organizational support's perception also strengthens the social exchange processes that provide the basis for knowledge exchange.⁵²

Organizational democracy and workplace incivility

Democratization in the workplace is considered a source of building mutual trust, freedom, and respect. Its dynamic structure will help eradicate incivilities, for example, demeaning, derogatory, and violent interactions.⁵³ It will also help develop or promote a sense of self-absolution and achievement among workers.⁵⁴ As workplaces exhibit ongoing development to remain stable and constructive over time, normative violations may erode the potential to change. Democracy in the workplace creates civic norms by bringing about the principles of justice, fairness, and accountability.⁵⁵

Though OD has numerous positive influences in the workplace, its significant impact on the individual's well-being and participative control remains influential. In such organizations information is shared, and everyone is treated fairly with equal rights, sovereignty, and respect.⁵⁶ The effects of normative violations create a sense of decreased violent interactions and shared injustice.⁵⁷ Chen⁵⁸ claimed that OD makes employees more responsible for their work and tasks as they take ownership of the work, thus reducing the probability of misconduct. Han and Garg⁵⁹ stated that when workers in democratic organizations perceive the democratic environment, they associate themselves with higher personal powers that limit them to remain positive and behave civilly with peers, subordinates, and supervisors. Thus, instigating democratization promotes goal orientation by identifying and enhancing the employee's self-esteem and self-worth.⁶⁰ Based on the previous discussion, it is proposed that the adoption/implementation of democratic practices in the workplace can lead to reduced WI, which narrates the first hypothesis of the study.

H₁: Organizational democracy is negatively related to workplace incivility.

Organizational democracy and perception of organizational politics

Carr and Mellizo⁶¹ claimed that democratization in the workplace is a mode of governance in which the people involved in the organization's performance govern its affairs. The basic principle in this governance is to ensure harmful practices and perceptions that deteriorate the constructive workplace environment. Organizational politics refers to the unnecessary use of organizational resources.⁶² Specific accountability mechanisms in democratic institutions denote eradicating these illegitimate power or resources usage. Hence, both OD and organizational politics are inversely related. Dahl⁶³ suggested that democratization in the workplace can transform employees into becoming more politically aware. They can feel negative vibes appearing against them or their organizations. Rousseau and River⁶⁴ explored the literature to find how organizational politics enact democratic practices and reduce their likelihood.

The introduction of democratization in the workplaces increases employees' decision making and participation,⁶⁵ making them more responsible and autonomous. These responsible employees don't interfere or don't use unfair means to gain substantial benefits that go behind the talent. Butcher and Clarke⁶⁶ explained how these responsible mindsets reinforce democratic practices across organizational boundaries. Accordingly, in this context, OD should be translated into a means by which a better quality of life and a restricting opportunity for unfair material benefits got achieved. Based on the literature, the second hypothesis of the study is developed and narrated as follows:

H₂: Organizational democracy is negatively related to the perception of organizational politics.

Organizational democracy and perception of organizational support

Heller⁶⁷ argued that employees perceive a structurally supportive work environment if democratic practices are fully present in organizational systems. Currently, practitioners and academics⁶⁸ consider supporting workplaces as a source of competitive advantage and ongoing success achieved through alternative management practices.⁶⁹ Main principles of democracy, including participation, justice, and equality, lead to the perception among employees that the organization provides a platform for their simultaneous functioning and progress. Weber et al.'s⁷⁰ recent meta-analysis claims that democratization in the workplace creates and contributes to an egalitarian, supportive, respectful, and cooperative environment between and among leaders and coworkers. However, very few studies had empirically confirmed this relationship between democratic principles and the supportive environment.⁷¹ In short, the perception of democratic practices helps build supportiveness among employees. Accordingly, the third hypothesis of this study is presented as follows:

H₃: Organizational democracy is positively related to the perception of organizational support.

Perception of organizational support, perception of organizational politics and workplace incivility

Cropanzano et al.⁷² considered organizational support and political perceptions the opposite end of the single continuum. They also believe them as essential constructs that describe the attributes of the social marketplace. Most of the data on support and politics predict individual evaluations of their work instead of going at the organizational level. Studies have narrated that the organization's supportive environment helps eradicate the adverse impacts of undergoing mistreatment.⁷³ The feeling of being supported by organizations eradicates the adverse well-being outcomes associated with organizations' violent behavior targets.⁷⁴ A study conducted by Schat and Kelloway⁷⁵ showed employees working in a supportive environment enjoy greater psychological well-being and less stress resulting in deceased physical health problems than those who did not. Based on this evidence, we developed the following hypotheses.

H₄a: Perception of organizational support is negatively related to workplace incivility.

H₄b: Perception of organizational support is negatively related to the perception of organizational politics.

Perception of organizational support as a mediator

Recent literature has shown the utility of conceptualizing the perception of organizational support as a mediator among and between several dependent and independent variables.⁷⁶ Allen et al.⁷⁷ found support as a mediator between turnover and organizational politics. Lips-Wiersma and Hall⁷⁸ showed that individual career development increases in a supportive organization. Wang et al.⁷⁹ claimed that today's employees work in more complicated work settings; hence they need a supportive environment to perform their job duties better. Eisenberger et al.⁸⁰ found that the perception of organizational support mediates positively between procedural justice and supervisory support with a commitment to reducing turnover intention. Under the theory of organizational support, recognizing and investing in employees results in improved organizational care and appreciation along with long-term professional and personal growth.⁸¹ Based on the evidence, the following hypotheses arise.

H₅a: Perception of organizational support mediates the relationship between workplace incivility and OD.

H₅b: Perception of organizational support mediates the relationship between perception of politics and OD.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework.

Methodology

This study follows a positivism philosophy with an explanatory research design. A nonprobability purposive sampling technique was used, and 500 self-administered questionnaires were distributed to employees working in fifteen different banks (including commercial, specialized, and Islamic) of Pakistan located in district Gujrat. Out of 500 invited respondents, 300 usable questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 60 percent. Most of the rejected questionnaires were either not properly filled or half filled. Also, there were some questionnaires that remain completely unfilled. Due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, strict Standard operating procedures were followed before visiting any branch. Formal approval was sought from each bank's regional/zonal office in the sample locations. Owing to this fact, the majority of questionnaires were collected through emails and postal services. In some cases, questionnaires were also collected through personal visits. Due to the predominantly male population, 69 percent of respondents were male, while 31 percent were female. Of these, almost 80 percent of the respondents had minimum bachelor's qualifications, confirming that they had enough knowledge to understand the questions they were responding. The sample had an average of three to five years’ experience and a maximum of twenty-four years’ experience. Besides, 58 percent of respondents served at different designations, including cash officers and general banking officers, and 42 percent were senior managers, branch managers, and area managers.

The measures

Except for other cases mentioned here and following studies, employees answered questions about OD, perception of organizational politics, and perception of organizational supports using the 7-point Likert scale in the range of 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. For OD, measures suggested by Ahmed and Ahmed⁸² in their recent studies were adopted. Eisenberger et al.⁸³ developed the scale with eight items, and the political perceptions of the measures developed by Ferris and Kacmar⁸⁴ were used for the perception of organizational support ten items adopted. For WI, ten-item measures developed by⁸⁵ were used. Scoring was done on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = once or twice a year to 5 = every day.

Results

Descriptive and correlation matrix

Table 1 shows the measures' descriptive and construct validity (discriminant and convergent). Convergent validity was assessed using average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR). The values for CR range from 0.91 to 0.89 while the values for AVE range from 0.84 to 0.71, respectively, which are significantly higher than the threshold criterion.⁸⁶ Similarly, discriminant validity was confirmed from diagonal values (square root of AVE) above the preceding ones. Hence, the results show the reliability adequacy, that is, convergent and discriminant.⁸⁷

Table 1. Correlation matrix.

Note: OD = organizational democracy, POS = perception of organizational support, POP = perception of organizational politics, WI = workplace incivility.

Confirmatory factor analysis

A series of confirmatory factor analyses were performed to examine the construct distinctiveness of OD, support, organizational politics, and WI. The baseline model 1 in Table 2 was a four-factor model, including the perception of OD, perception of organizational support, WI, and perception of organizational politics. All three other models include two, three, and single factors to compare the model fitness. As shown in Table 2, the four-factor baseline model fits the data well (χ2/df = 1.98, CFI = 0.934, GFI = 0.944, TLI = 0.933, RMR = 0.054, RMSEA = 0.065). We then compared the results with alternative models. All other alternative models exhibited a weaker fit than the baseline models. Thus, the four-factor model hypothesized was the most appropriate representing factor structure of items. Finally, we developed an additional model to compare with the baseline model to check the common method's potential variance as all the rating sources were the same.⁸⁸ As evident in Table 2, the one-factor model had a poor model fit with all items loaded on a single factor.

Table 2. Model fit indices.

Hypotheses testing

The structural equation modeling method was used to test the proposed hypotheses, and their significance got tested using the critical ratio and p-value. Table 3 shows the results of direct effects between the investigated variables. Accordingly, OD has the significant relationship with the organizational support (β = 0.309, p < 0.01) and a negative relationship with the politics perception and WI (β = –0.211, p < 0.05; β = –0.019, p < 0.05) respectively. The results confirm our first three hypotheses of the study, that is, H1, H2, and H3. Furthermore, perception of organizational support showed negative relationships with the perception of organizational politics and WI (β = –0.237, p < 0.05; β = –0.011, p < 0.05), confirming H4 (a) and (b).

Table 3. Hypotheses confirmation.

*** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.05.

Table 4 represents the indirect relationships between OD, support, politics, and WI. As evident, support between OD and the perception of organizational politics was also found because the upper and lower bounds didn't contain zero,⁸⁹ confirming the mediation between the two. Similarly, the results also support the mediating relationship between OD, organizational support, and WI.

Table 4. Indirect effect.

Discussion and conclusion

The agenda for considering democratization at workplace is not new neither unknown. Though it's popularity or existence is not much common in organizational investigators, yet in few years’ major developments on this construct occurred. A recent meta-analysis by Geckil⁹⁰ shared some useful insights on its conceptual, theoretical, and practical understandings. The present was conducted based on historical evidence from literature about OD, which has long been claimed for its positive effects on the individual and institutional levels. However, previous empirical evidence on OD⁹¹ advocates its impact on positive outcome variables such as justice, satisfaction, commitment, and so forth, but the study with negatively perceived variables remains limited. Prima facie, the study will be an important addition to support earlier claims of democratic practices and strongly suggest that democratization at the workplace would facilitate developing more civilized workplace environments.

The findings of this study are neither surprising nor new and are also consistent with earlier studies. A similar type of results was obtained by Ahmed et al.⁹² while investigating the impact of workplace democracy on organizational commitment. Turabik and Baskan⁹³ establish a negative and weak relationship between democracy at the workplace and the frequency of encountering political behaviors. Han and Garg ⁹⁴ explored the relationship between psychological capital and OD, sharing that creating democracy at the workplace offers substantial benefits for HR practitioners and management. They further added that building democratic culture means promoting harmony and reducing negatives at workplaces. The results indicated that though democratization in the workplace makes the workplace nonpolitical and more civilized, this relationship is even stronger if combined with a supportive work environment. According to Feldgberg and Glenn,⁹⁵ democracy at the workplace transforms organizations' performance based on a more equitable distribution of power. People interact, share their problems and ideas, gain support, and interact for overall gain.⁹⁶ It also helps them have a vital insight into complex organizational processes and structures, which improves their ability to make long-term decisions more accurately.

Participation rights, freedom at work, self-determination, and professional justice are basic human aspirations at workplaces. Yet, the majority of employees suffer from alienation at their work under capitalistic regimes. Improved insights also facilitate bringing employees closer together, thus eradicating differences or grievances personally, rather than making problems for top management.⁹⁷ Therefore, because of this fairness in the system, employees respect others' rights and reward, ultimately creating a peaceful workplace. The present study advocates implementing democratic practices in the workplace because this type of practice could be one of the ways to minimize organizational politics and incivility. A core finding of this study was the role of a supportive culture in the workplace. With democracy, employees who perceive an organization as supportive may feel less harmful. This attenuation in negative perceptions may result in a healthier workplace and overall employee well-being. As argued by Battilana et al.,⁹⁸ despite the increasing number of organizations (social or corporative) engaging in hybrid organizing or pursuing the triple bottom line, the ultimate model that is a better fit seems to be a democratic one. It is the best time to widely advocate these democratic models in organizations so as to polish and nurture the participative and representative workplaces.

Implications of the study, limitations, and future avenues

The present study will be a worthy addition to the literature on management, human resource, and organizational behavior in global and national contexts. In Asian countries like Pakistan, where achieving democracy at the organizational or political level is a dream, this study will provide evidence of the importance of implementing democracy in the workplace, which later brings democracy to societies. Moreover, it will also motivate the behavioral and management researchers to focus their investigations on this crucial organizational construct that can remove institutional negativity. In addition to its theoretical contributions, the study also found the work environment created by managers or top management to develop a nonpolitical and civilized workplace. As per results, in bank branches where managers involve their subordinates in branch affairs and decision making, they negatively affect political behavior and incivility.

Limitations and future avenues

Although the study purports many contributions, it also has several limitations. First, generalizability, that is, the study was only conducted on small samples from a few bank branches. Hence, it's recommended that future researchers work with a large sample selection from other industries. Secondly, quantitative research methods were only employed. In the future, a more detailed analysis can be performed using a qualitative approach or both research methods. Third, this study deployed only two outcome variables. Researchers can use other important organizational and employee outcome variables to find empirical evidence with OD in future studies. Finally, insufficient evidence is available to force organizational managers and decision makers to adopt this phenomenon.