Supervisor incivility and dual cognitive pathways: a conservation of resources perspective on work withdrawal and engagement

초록

This study examines how frontline hospitality employees cognitively respond to daily supervisor incivility and how these cognitive responses are associated with same-day work withdrawal and work engagement. Integrating conservation of resources theory with work-related rumination research, we apply two established dimensions of work-related rumina- tion—affective-related rumination and problem-solving pondering—to the context of daily supervisor incivility. Using a 10-day experience sampling design with restaurant employees in South Korea, we examined whether supervisor incivility was associated with two functionally distinct forms of same-day work-related cognition. Results showed that on days when employees experienced higher supervisor incivility, they reported greater affective-related rumination, which was positively associated with work withdrawal. Supervisor incivility was also positively associated with problem-solving pondering, which was positively associated with work engagement. Metacognitive awareness attenuated the association between supervisor incivility and affective-related rumination, whereas workplace curiosity strengthened the associa- tion between supervisor incivility and problem-solving pondering. The findings suggest that daily supervisor incivility is associated with both emotionally negative and solution-focused cognitive responses within the same workday. Rather than introducing a new cognitive mechanism or directly testing resource change, this study contributes by showing how established forms of work-related rumination can be differentiated and examined together as within-person responses to supervisor incivility in frontline hospitality work. Implications are discussed for managing supervisor incivility and sup- porting employee functioning in service settings.

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