I have two distinct streams of research that I believe flow into the realm of positive organizing. The first focuses on workplace civility. My aim is to investigate and understand civility in organizational settings. An important area of my research is focused on the importance of workplace civility in creating an environment that fosters resilience, restoration, and strength. Within this broad frame, I am focusing on two specific questions: First, I seek to understand and illustrate the role of civility in creating an environment of organizational resilience and restoration. Secondly, I am interested in investigating the acts of “positive deviance” in the face of incivility, which interrupts the negative spiral of incivility. The second stream of research that I have just recently become involved with is an ongoing project undertaken by a group of researchers (Dutton, Heaphy, Morgan, Quinn, and Sprietzer) focused on a process they call the "Reflected Best Self Assessment." Over the past several months, these researchers have found that asking MBA students to create a collective composite of “best self” sketches from a variety of other individuals has a dramatic positive effect. Currently, the project is expanding as new research opportunities have arisen as a result of encouraging results of the first study. However, since I have only recently become a part of this lab group, this statement will focus on my civility research.

What is the impact of civility?

Over the past several months, I have been researching the detrimental and dynamic impact of workplace incivility on organizations, groups, and individual members. The underlying assumption of all of my work is that civility is vital for positive organizational life, and in its absence, incivility will breed contempt, negative affect, and aggressive behavior, which will consequently corrode the culture of the organization.
Incivility has been defined as “low intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of [institutional] norms for mutual respect" (Andersson & Pearson, 1999, p. 457). When taken in isolation, a single rude remark or threatening glare may not pose a serious threat to an individual’s occupational well-being or psychological health. However, persistent acts of incivility can accumulate over time to be psychologically stressful and potentially debilitating (Cortina et al, 2001; Andersson and Pearson, 1999; Pearson et al., 2000). Moreover, Pearson and her colleagues have suggested a tit-for-tat model of incivility in which individuals respond to perceived acts of incivility first with negative affect, and subsequently respond behaviorally by becoming a perpetrator of incivility, thereby creating a spiraling pattern of incivility within the organization.

In contrast to this research focused on the “dark side” of interpersonal behavior, or incivility, my research is aimed at capturing the positive side of interpersonal behavior, civility, in organizational settings. Just as incivility has been noted to have a spiraling negative effect on affect, cognitions, and behavior, I predict that a civility will have a positive cascading affect on the organization. If institutional norms for mutual respect are consistently met or exceeded, it is likely that the respectful and courteous interpersonal interactions would prevail, thereby affecting the emotions, cognitions and behavior of other organizational members.

How can the cycle of incivility be interrupted?

To approach this question, my research focuses on uncovering those individual members and/or collective organizations that react with positive deviance in the face of incivility. That is, rather than reacting in ways that sustain the negative spiral of incivility, the individual or organizational unit would respond to an uncivil experience in a manner that would interrupt the corruptive cycle. To study this, I am involved in two projects. In the first, I am working with Professor Lilia Cortina to uncover the affective or cognitive components which components that mediate the impact of experienced incivility on the recipient’s affective state, perception of the organization, and behavioral reaction to the experience. We believe that by first understanding the process by which incivility affects outcomes, we will be able to identify the key elements required for resilience and extraordinary performance in the face of incivility.

A second study, currently in its planning stage with Jane Dutton, will complement the previously discussed research by using qualitative methods to uncover how individuals not only cope with, but react against pervasive incivility within their organization. We are building theoretical arguments for this question by focusing on literature on strength-building elements in organizations such as compassion, forgiveness, dignity, respectful encounters, positive affect, and virtue.