How Workplace Incivility Drives Work Alienation: An Explanatory Model

Abstract

Work Alienation remains a contentions topic for scholars and academicians throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Therefore, this paper focuses on determining the contemporary antecedents of work alienation by examining how subtle adverse workplace experiences, such as incivility, influence the feeling of alienation. Additionally, the paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of organizational cynicism on the relationship between workplace incivility and work alienation. Drawing on the frameworks of Affective Events Theory (AET) and Social Exchange Theory (SET), the study also explores these relationships. The sample for the study was collected from the employees of the IT sector. A total of 334 responses were analysed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) through AMOS software. The results revealed a significant positive association between uncivil behavior and work alienation. Furthermore, organizational cynicism—measured across cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions—partially mediated the relationship between the two variables. The findings will be of interest to organisational behavior scholars, human resource practitioners, and policymakers, offering both theoretical and practical insights into contemporary work culture and the mechanisms by which work disengagement is created within an organizational setting.