RUDE, "'UNCIVIL," OR "'DISRESPECTFUL" TREATMENT IN THE WORKPLACE What's in a Name?

Management researchers have paid an increasing amount of attention to antisocial behaviors (ASBs), or negative interpersonal treatment in the workplace, due in part to increased national concern in the United States regarding why employee acts of violence seem to be on the rise. In this chapter, we note the need for management researchers to accumulate knowledge regarding ASBs (of supervisors as well as employees) in the workplace, and emphasize that such knowledge accumulation will be promoted if behavioral researchers (from management, psychology, or other related fields) recognize the similarities underlying a variety of construct names used to describe "rude," "uncivil," or "disrespectful" treatment. We present preliminary data that demonstrates that the variety of names given to ASBs in the workplace share much in common empirically as well as theoretically, and that their differences pertain to whether construct operationalizations regard actions that are top-down versus bottom-up, and negative (e.g., harmful) or positive (e.g., helpful) to recipients. The implications we discuss include the importance of not treating construct names as casually as "what's in a name?" would suggest that we do; and hence the importance of researchers challenging constructs that are allegedly "new" by asking how they differ empirically as well as theoretically from already-existing names for a similar behavior.