Are you envious of me? employees’ envy attribution and behavioural responses to coworkers’ incivility

In recent years, research on workplace envy has expanded beyond its traditional focus on the envious to also study the experiences of the envied. However, as most studies have focused on the consequences of perceiving oneself as envied, empirical insights into why individuals form this perception remain limited. Guided by relational attribution theory and envy attribution model, we examine why the perception of being envied at work can result from experienced incivility, and why this relationship is strengthened by employee proactivity standing. Furthermore, we propose that envied employees are likely to respond by engaging in political behaviour and withdrawing from interpersonal helping. In Study 1, a two-wave survey of full-time employees, experienced incivility was positively associated with the perception of being envied. In Study 2, a three-wave survey of employees and their supervisors, experienced incivility was positively associated with the perception of being envied, particularly when employee proactivity standing was high, which in turn was positively related to political behaviour and negatively related to interpersonal helping. Our findings contribute to the envy literature, and we discuss their theoretical and practical implications.