Introduction and objectives: Today, hardly in higher institutions, employees perform their duties and responsibilities without asking for some kind of encouragement from managers, colleagues, and students. In addition, the occurrence of deviant behavior in the workplace is common among many academic and non-academic employees of higher institutions. These behaviors negate the code of conduct in the university. In addition, cases of poor work attitude, absenteeism, tardiness, bullying, gender discrimination, aggression, and anti-social behavior have also been reported among the employees of higher institutions in Iran. The concept of civility in the workplace has been widely discussed in the related scientific literature. Some researchers see civility as the opposite of incivility, while others allow people to interpret the term in their way. In addition, there is heterogeneity in how civility is measured, with some studies using civility scales and others using tools to measure incivility. This lack of consensus makes it challenging to determine the exact meaning of civility in the workplace and the most effective way to measure it. Therefore, more research is needed to develop a clear and agreed-upon definition and measurement tool for this critical concept. In this regard, civility in the workplace plays an important role in promoting the welfare of employees, improving organizational results, and reducing deviant behaviors in the workplace. The present research shows that a set of mild civilities, such as respect, smile, love, civility, intimacy, cordiality, kindness, and civility can encourage employees' participation (joyfulness, dedication, and attraction) and as a result deviant behavior discourages employees in the workplace. Therefore, taking into account the gap in the current research literature, it is clear that less research has addressed work participation with a mediating role in the relationship between politeness in the workplace and deviant behavior in the workplace. Thus, the current research aims to investigate the effect of civility in the user environment of deviant behavior in the workplace among the employees of Isfahan Islamic Azad University (Khorasgan branch) and to determine the mediating role of work participation in this regard.
Method: The research method is practical in terms of the purpose and terms of the method of data collection, it is descriptive of the correlation type, the statistical population of this research is 660 employees working in Isfahan Islamic Azad University (Khorasgan), and using Cochran's formula, 242 people were selected as a sample size. The sample people were selected using a stratified sampling method according to the volume. The research tool was the politeness questionnaire in the work environment by Ojali et al. (2021), the deviant behaviors questionnaire in the workplace by Penney, L. M., & Spector, P. E. (2005), and the work participation questionnaire by Saks, A. M., & Gruman, J. A. (2014). To determine and check content validity, the questionnaires were reviewed using the opinions of professors and experts before implementation. To check the formal validity of the aforementioned questionnaires, 10 people from the statistical population of the study completed it and after conceptual editing of some questions, the measurement tool was given formal validity. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that all the fit indices of the questions were above 0.9 and this indicates the acceptability of the items. Therefore the reliability of the questionnaires with Cronbach's alpha method was 0.88 and .090 and 0.92 were estimated and data analysis was done using structural equation modeling.
Results: The findings showed that civility in the work environment has a negative relationship with deviant behaviors in the work environment, whose influence coefficient was 0.66, and work participation hurts deviant behaviors in the work environment, whose influence coefficient was 0.44, and also civility in the work environment work participation has a positive effect, the coefficient of which was 0.55. Moreover, the results showed that the lower limit of the confidence interval for work participation, as a mediating variable between civility in the work environment and deviant behavior in the work environment was (0.0990) and its upper limit was (0.0110). The confidence level for this confidence interval was 95 and the number of bootstrap resampling method was 5000. Considering that zero is outside this confidence interval, this relationship is a significant mediator; therefore, work participation plays a role as a mediating variable in the relationship between civility in the workplace and deviant behavior in the workplace.
Discussion and Conclusions: The present study was conducted to determine the effect of civility in the user environment of deviant behaviors in the workplace through work participation in Isfahan Islamic Azad University (Khorasgan branch). The findings showed that civility in the work environment has an inverse and significant effect on deviant behavior in the work environment. The results of the present study with the findings of Jafari et al. (2020); Soo and Arslan (2023); Abdullah et al. (2021), Zahid and Nauman (2023) and Ojali et al. (2021) have a direct alignment in examining the relationship between politeness in the workplace and deviant behavior in the workplace. The current research has important implications for intervention strategies aimed at reducing deviant behavior in the workplace. The findings of the current research showed that creating and maintaining decency is a complex process that includes personal, work, and social factors that interact with each other. Therefore, interventions should not only target individual employees but also include groups and organizations. While some personality traits or orientations may help employees manage workplace stress, the analysis of the current research shows that an organizational culture that values civility is more effective in encouraging such behavior among employees. Therefore, it is important to assess organizational cultures and identify those that are more likely to tolerate impolite and aggressive behavior and to intervene to promote civility. Intervention programs should be comprehensive and open to innovative methods, including conscious speech. This research showed that civility predicts positive outcomes for employees and can be increased through various programs. Masculinity versus femininity, i.e., organizations that value masculinity may prioritize competitiveness over consensus and show less cooperation and concern for the well-being of others. On the other hand, organizations that value femininity may be more consensual, humble, and cooperative and promote stronger cultural norms of civility in a less hierarchical, male-dominated, or competitive environment. In addition, there may be differences in workplace civil behavior among employees of different national cultures due to differences in implicit norms for expressing differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures. In today's diverse workplace, understanding these differences can improve communication and increase cooperation between employees. Finally, empirical research should examine the potential impact of leaders' responses to employees' uncivil behavior, as these responses are observed by co-workers and may affect long-term outcomes, such as perceptions of organizational justice. In summary, this study emphasizes that promoting civility at work can lead to healthier organizations and happier workers (Di Fabio et al., 2016) while preventing the wastage of human capital.
Acknowledgment: I would like to thank the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Studies in Religion, Spirituality & Management, and the participants in the study.
Conflict of Interests: There is no conflict of interest in this research.
Keywords
Civility in the workplace Deviant behavior in the workplace Work participation Social exchange theory