Facts

Contact person:
Kristoffer Holm
Financer:
  • Afa Insurance
Responsible at MaU:
Kristoffer Holm
Project members at MaU:
Time frame:
01 November 2021 - 31 October 2024
Faculty/department:
Research environment :
Research subject:

About the project

Workplace incivility refers to negative acts that are perceived as rude and discourteous, in breach of norms for respect in the workplace. For instance, coworkers intentionally or unintentionally giving condescending remarks, socially excluding others, or engaging in rude behaviour. Workplace incivility is common and at risk of spreading in the workplace, ultimately becoming established in the workplace culture. This could result in negative consequences such as illness, exhaustion, or escalation into more severe harassment over time. Despite this, there is a lack of systematic methods to reduce and prevent workplace incivility in a Swedish context.

Purpose

The project aims to develop and implement an intervention to promote civility in organizations, by working with the social climate. The project also aims to investigate how the organizational and social work environment is affected by such an intervention.

Implementation

The intervention will be conducted as a series of workshops with workgroups over the course of about six months. The intervention will be based on a model from North America, and the intervention groups will be compared to control groups during the study period. Questionnaires will be administered to participants before, after, and six months following the intervention. Interviews will also be conducted with participants in the intervention.

Expected results

The knowledge derived from the project is expected to result in guidelines for how organizations can use evidence-based methods to improve the social work environment, which could contribute to the prevention of illness and workplace harassment in the Swedish labour market.