Employee Perceptions of Managerial Civility: Development and Validation of a Measurement Scale

Abstract

The impact of managerial incivility in the workplace has received theoretical attention but, due to the absence of a reliable measure, the empirical study of the construct has remained under-explored. Following a framework suggested by Hinkin (1998), I developed and validated a measure of employee perceptions of managerial incivility. Three independent samples were employed at various stages in the scale development process.

In the first stage, after a careful review of the literature, I determined that an inductive approach to item generation was warranted to be certain of content validity. A convenience sample of working college students was used to generate work-related critical incidents of managerial exchanges in which the subordinate (student) perceived the manager’s behavior to represent a rude or uncivil act. From these critical incidents, 116 identifiable behaviors were extracted. The 50 most often mentioned items were selected for inclusion in a data collection instrument.

In the second stage, another convenience sample of working college students was recruited, and the instrument developed in stage one was administered to them. Using exploratory factor analysis, the data yielded a four-factor solution, representing the perceptions of managerial incivility construct. Each factor demonstrated desirable internal consistency and reliability. In the third stage, the supervised staff of a local hospital was enlisted to participate in the administration of an instrument designed to collect information on the managerial incivility factors and work-related outcomes. Using the data collected in this stage, I examined the convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the measure by exploring its relationships with relevant criteria such as perceptions of interactional justice, turnover intentions, withdrawal behaviors, performance appraisal, and negative affect.

I found sufficient support for convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity for the four-factor measure of managerial incivility. The results of this study provide a means to extend the research and to gauge the actual impact of managerial incivility, as well as provide developmental feedback to managers.