Assessing the role of social support in tackling workplace incivility: a systematic review

Abstract

Workplace Incivility is an irritable blemish of modern organizations that has attracted considerable scholarly attention owing to its incongruity in the knowledge workforce, and its catastrophic organizational outcomes. The conservation of resources theory, affective events theory, and Job-demands resource model reinforce the role of social support in attenuating the instances and consequences of workplace incivility. The primary objective of this systematic review was to meticulously scrutinize the multifaceted impacts of social support on the prevalence of workplace incivility and the ensuing ramifications thereof. A total of 37 studies were retrieved from the Scopus, Web of Sciences, Embase, Taylor & Francis online and ProQuest databases, which met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A narrative synthesis was conducted due to the heterogeneity of the studies concerning the populations, as well as the antecedents and outcomes of workplace incivility evaluated. Evidence from these studies show mixed results for both the buffering and reverse buffering effects of social support. This review reveals research gaps, such as the interaction of various individual and workplace environmental factors that influence the effects of social support on workplace incivility and suggests directions for future research.

Keywords

• Workplace incivility
• social support
• workplace deviance
• job demands resource model
• workplace mistreatment
• human resource management