Relationship between Workplace Incivility, Job Attitudes and Muslim Religiosity Personality among Trade Union Members

Abstract

In reality, workplace incivility has its fair share of attention in organizational research dealing with its causes and effect relationships. In Islam, incivility equates the negative character (akhlak) of ridiculing others. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate relationship between the experience of workplace incivility and job attitudes as well as the moderating effect of Muslim religiosity personality, which is measured by Muslim Religiosity-Personality Inventory (MRPI), on the relationships. In other words, this study plans to analyze whether Muslim employees, who possess religiosity personality would be able to endure workplace incivility experiences. Basically, literature by Al-Ghazali, Al-Attas and Al-Raiya on Islamic personality serve as the main foundation of the study. In addition, the works of Baron and Neuman (1998), Andersson & Pearson (1999) and Schilpzand, et. al (2014) were reviewed and a research framework was developed. The quantitative survey consisted of five sections used to measure the experience of workplace incivility, job attitudes, religiosity personality and demographics. A sample of 163 Malaysian Muslim bank workers completed the survey. Four main variables have been analyzed and their descriptive analyses are as the following. Scores for Workplace Incivility variable (M=3.34, SD=.27); Job Satisfaction variable (M=1.79, SD=.65); Organizational Commitment variable (M=2.74, SD=.34) and Muslim Religiosity Personality (M=3.60, SD=.42). As for the Pearson’s Correlation test, the result indicates that Workplace Incivility variable has inverse correlations with both job attitude variables (Job Satisfaction, R=-.611, p=.01; Organizational Commitment, R=.731,p=.01). Meanwhile, the overall model was significant, R2 = .401, F(3, 159) = 24.06, p= .01. Tests to see if the data met the assumption of collinearity indicate that multicollinearity was not a concern (Job Satisfaction, Tolerance = .96, VIF = 1.01; Organizational Commitment, Tolerance = .72, VIF = 1.39, Muslim Religiosity Personality, Tolerance =.72, VIF =1.39). Conclusively, the results of this study demonstrate a negative relationship between the experience of workplace incivility and the job attitude variables. Furthermore, this study shows the moderating effect of an individual religiosity personality trait on the relationship between the experience of workplace incivility and the job attitudes. Consequently, implications of the research include further contribution to workplace incivility theoretical aspects, Muslim religiosity personality research, managerial decision making and employer - union interventions for workplace incivility.

Keywords

• Workplace incivility
• employment relations
• Muslim religiosity personality
• trade union
• Quantitative