How Supervisor Incivility Affects Employee Work Effort Through Emotional and Cognitive Processes

Purpose: This study investigates the contingent role of cognitive reappraisal in the relationship between supervisor incivility and depressed mood and examines the role of depressed mood in explaining the association between supervisor incivility and work effort. Design/methodology/approach: We collected data from 713 highly skilled employees of manufacturing companies located in Republic of Korea. We discarded 190 questionnaires from the analysis because they were incomplete; the remaining 523 questionnaires were used in the analyses. To evaluate the validity of proposed hypotheses, we conducted hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping test. Findings: The results suggest that supervisor incivility engenders depressed mood, which eventually decreases individuals’ work effort. Moreover, the findings indicate that even when exposed to supervisor incivility, individuals who use the cognitive reappraisal approach are less likely to experience depressed mood. Research limitations/implications: This study emphasizes addressing supervisor incivility to reduce employee depressed mood and improve work effort through strategies like zero-tolerance policies, anonymous reporting, two-way feedback, and emotional resilience training. However, it is limited by its focus on cognitive reappraisal, reliance on self-reported data, and data collected from a single country, which may affect generalizability. Originality/value: This study is the first to examine the boundary condition role of cognitive reappraisal in the link between supervisor incivility and depressed mood and the mediating role of depressed mood in the relationship between supervisor incivility and employee work effort. The findings of this study can enable organizations to better understand situations in which supervisor incivility does not impact depressed mood and when it does. Furthermore, this work provides knowledge on why individuals spend less effort in their jobs when they suffer from incivility from supervisors.