Research Insights: Uncivil wars

Workplace incivility—belittling or excluding others, passing disparaging remarks, mocking, sarcasm, slights, and rudeness—impacts employee well being. Long has been the subject of academic study, and much is known of the adverse effects of such behavior. However, less is known about incivility in the virtual workplace, where interactions take place online. With remote work becoming more commonplace, especially post-COVID, greater attention is needed to understand the nature and impacts of cyber incivility.

Edwin Torres Areizaga, Associate Professor and Chair, Saunders College Department of International Hospitality and Service Innovation, recently completed a study of virtual incivility among hospitality workers. He co-authored an article, “Incivility meets remote work: A typology of cyber incivility behaviors,” published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. 

To ascertain those behaviors considered uncivil by hospitality employees engaged in remote work, Torres and his collaborators surveyed 257 informants with open-ended questions using Prolific, and used MAXQDA Plus to conduct content analysis of the Informants’ accounts. using MAXQDA Plus. 

The findings indicate that acts of incivility are performed in multiple ways and the authors categorize all the codes into broader categories and present a conceptual model explaining how workplace incivility occurs in the remote work environment. 

The resulting typology of cyber incivility behaviors will be of use to organizations as they assess their internal communication policies to assure their virtual workplace is free of these disruptive behaviors. Further, companies can educate workers in appropriate cyber-etiquette and promote a sense of community in the virtual workplace.

View paper in the International Journal of Hospitality Management (April 2024), Incivility meets remote work: A typology of cyber incivility behaviors.