297 / 2024-04-24 10:51:55

Exploring the relationship between supervisors who have experienced workplace incivility and newcomer organizational socialization: Evidence from the engineers

Engineer,Workplace incivility,Mentoring,Newcomer organizational socialization,Reciprocity beliefs,Social exchange theory

This study constructed a dual-stage moderated mediation model to examine how and when supervisors who have experienced workplace incivility affect newcomer organizational socialization outcomes. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study hypothesized that supervisors who have experienced workplace incivility influenced newcomer organizational socialization outcomes via supervisory mentoring. Moreover, we also examined the moderating roles of supervisors’ negative reciprocity beliefs and newcomers’ positive reciprocity beliefs. To test these hypotheses, we took engineers as the research objects. This is mainly considering the key role of new engineers’ professional knowledge and skills in the innovation of new products in enterprises. Thus, we collected multi-source data from 166 supervisor–new engineer dyads from a large Chinese pharmacy chain company using a time-lagged research design. Our findings demonstrated that the effects of supervisors who have experienced workplace incivility on newcomer organizational socialization outcomes were mediated by supervisory mentoring, while supervisors’ negative reciprocity beliefs and newcomers’ positive reciprocity beliefs served as boundary conditions. In addition, when both supervisors’ negative reciprocity beliefs and newcomers’ positive reciprocity beliefs were relatively high, the conditional indirect effect of supervisors who have experienced workplace incivility on newcomer organizational socialization outcomes was significantly stronger.

Important implications for engineers and their managers are also discussed.