The Effect of Workplace Incivility on Creativity with Mediator Variables of Emotional Exhaustion and Intrinsic Motivation

Employee creativity is one of the most important factors for the success of organizations and sustaining their competitive advantage. The incivility of coworkers is one of the factors threatening the creativity of employees which affects the creativity of employees through reduced internal motivation and increased burnout. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of workplace incivility on creativity with mediator variable of emotional exhaustion and intrinsic motivation.

The statistical population studied consisted of 1300 employees of Iran Khodro Company in Ahvaz city. The sample size is 279 people who were selected through random sampling according to the Cochran formula. To collect the data, the Cortina, Magley, Williams, Langhout's Incivility Questionnaires (2001), the Maslach & Jackson's Emotional Exhaustion Questionnaire (1981), the Randsip's Creativity Questionnaire (1979) and the Intrinsic Motivation Questionnaire of McAuley, Duncan, Tammen (1989) were used. Data were analyzed statistically through descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (path analysis) using SPSS 23 and LISREL 8.8 software.

 Participants in this study completed the questionnaires with satisfaction and knowledge.

The results showed that the incivility of colleagues with path coefficients of -0.41, 0.85 and -0.6 and t-statistic, above 1.96, respectively, had a significant impact on employee creativity, emotional burnout and intrinsic motivation. The mediating role of emotional burnout and intrinsic motivation variables were also confirmed.

Incivility of employees will increase job burnout and decrease intrinsic motivation and thus reduce employee creativity. Therefore, it is recommended that administrators must pay special attention to abolish incivility behaviors in the organization.