The Impact of Family Incivility on Organizational Citizenship Behavior through Negative Rumination

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD in Management, Faculty Member Department of Management, University of Applied Sciences and Technology – Drijeno Art and Culture Center, Farrokhshahr, Iran

2 BA Student in Cultural Management, University of Applied Sciences and Technology – Drijeno Art and Culture Center, Farrokhshahr, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction and Objectives: Workforce well-being is a critical component of any successful organization. Employees who are healthy and content are more likely to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Family incivility, as a significant variable, may adversely affect employees' psychological well-being and, consequently, influence various organizational behaviors, including OCBs. However, this relationship has received limited attention from researchers. Furthermore, prior studies have seldom explored the direct link between family incivility and OCB, with quantitative research only marginally addressing related factors. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate a conceptual model based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. An additional objective is to examine the relationship between family incivility and OCB, with negative rumination as a mediating variable.
Employees from universities in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province were selected as the study sample due to their exposure to excessive workloads, student interactions, and long working hours. Consequently, when subjected to family incivility, they are less likely to engage in OCB. Few studies have investigated these three factors within a unified conceptual model in this regional context. This research addresses this gap and contributes to the existing literature. Nevertheless, the conditional effects of various resources in the context of family incivility remain underexplored. Therefore, this study poses the following research questions:
1. How does family incivility affect employees' OCB?
2. How does family incivility influence negative rumination?
3. How does negative rumination affect employees' OCB?
4. Does negative rumination mediate the relationship between family incivility and OCB?
Method: The study population consisted of 2,255 employees from universities in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province. Using Cochran’s formula, a sample of 600 participants was selected through stratified random sampling. The research instruments included:
* The Family Incivility Scale (Lim & Tai, 2014)
* The Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (Fox et al., 2012)
* The Negative Rumination Scale (Frone, 2015)
Prior to distribution, the questionnaires were assessed for validity and reliability. Content validity was confirmed through expert reviews, while face validity was established by administering the questionnaires to 10 individuals from the target population. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that all fit indices exceeded 0.9, confirming the acceptability of the items. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for reliability were 0.90, 0.92, and 0.90, respectively. Data analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Results: The findings revealed that family incivility negatively impacts OCB (β = -0.66), with negative rumination mediating this relationship. Bootstrap analysis (5,000 resamples, 95% CI) confirmed the significance of the mediation effect (lower limit = 0.0925, upper limit = 0.0125). Since zero was outside this confidence interval, the mediation was statistically significant.
Discussion and Conclusion: Drawing on COR theory, this study examined the effect of family incivility on OCB, mediated by negative rumination. All hypotheses were supported. The results indicate that family incivility negatively correlates with OCB through increased negative rumination. The inverse relationship between family incivility and OCB (Hypothesis 1) suggests that adverse family experiences diminish employees' discretionary efforts at work, reducing OCB. These findings align with prior research on family incivility and work outcomes (Bai et al., 2016; De Clercq et al., 2018; Naeem et al., 2020).
Family incivility depletes psychological resources, impairing workplace performance and increasing emotional exhaustion, thereby inhibiting OCB (Quinn et al., 2012). Additionally, heightened incivility disrupts interpersonal harmony, reducing situational resources critical for discretionary behaviors (Rasik Jelačić, 2022).
The positive association between family incivility and negative rumination (Hypothesis 2) and the negative link between rumination and OCB (Hypothesis 3) offer new insights into how resource-draining family experiences affect employees' psychological states and work outcomes. The mediating role of negative rumination (Hypothesis 4) is particularly significant, corroborating prior studies (Du et al., 2018; Jiang et al., 2020) on the interplay of negative emotions and psychological states in family incivility and work-related consequences.
By identifying negative rumination as a mediator, this study establishes an employee-level pathway linking family incivility and OCB. The findings suggest that mitigating negative rumination about off-work incivility may reduce its detrimental effects.
Acknowledgments: The authors extend their gratitude to the editor of the Journal of Religion, Spirituality, and Management and all contributors to this research.
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Keywords

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