New Graduate Nurses’ Incivility Experiences: The Roles of Workplace Empowerment, Nursing Leadership and Areas of Worklife

AIMS: To determine what extent are workplace empowerment, New Graduate Nurses’ (NGN) perceptions of nurse leaders, trust in management, and areas of worklife predict coworker incivility experiences? BACKGROUND: NGNs’ perceptions of nursing leaderships’ control over workload contribute to coworker incivility experiences were tested. The relationship between workplace empowerment, authentic leadership, and areas of work life (workload control and fair resource allocation) to coworker incivility experiences were examined. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of Starting Out, national survey, Time 1 dataset. Select factors of workplace empowerment, authentic leadership, areas of worklife, trust in management and NGNs’ co- worker incivility experiences were situated within an ecological approach. Multiple linear regression was used to test whether a negative relationship of workplace empowerment, areas of worklife and authentic leadership to NGNs co-worker incivility experiences and important new findings were discovered. RESULTS: First, NGNs’ perceptions of workplace empowerment predict coworker incivility experiences when controlling for authentic leadership and trust in management. Second, NGNs’ perceptions of areas of worklife predict coworker incivility experiences when controlling for authentic leadership, trust in management, and workplace empowerment. Third, NGNs’ perceptions of authentic leadership do not predict coworker incivility experiences when controlling for workplace empowerment and trust in management. Finally, NGNs’ perceptions of authentic leadership do predict coworker incivility experiences when trust in management and workplace empowerment are not controlled. CONCLUSIONS: NGNs’ perceptions of authentic leadership would benefit from workplace empowerment of the nurse leader in workplace environments to mitigate coworker incivility experiences.