Coping with workplace incivility in the foodservice industry

Abstract The purpose of the study was to explore employees’ appraisals and coping responses to workplace incivility in the foodservice industry. Five group interviews with foodservice workers were conducted. 13 different types of experienced or witnessed incivility were identified. Positive-benign, irrelevant, and negative appraisals were found, as well as four major coping themes. These were active, passive, and proactive coping as well as reappraisal, encompassing twelve forms of coping behaviors. Additionally, workplace incivility was described as a daily stressor which can be expressed as a part of the workplace culture in the foodservice industry.


Introduction
Workplace incivility, which can be exhibited by coworkers or supervisors, is an area that increasingly has drawn research attention the past decades (Cortina, Kabat-Farr, Magley, & Nelson, 2017). It is defined as low intensity rude behavior, with an ambiguous intent and that is in breach of norms for respect in the workplace (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). To date, several studies have explored effects of workplace incivility, and its associations with various negative outcomes such as lower well-being (Torkelson, Holm, & Bäckström, 2016), lower job satisfaction (Holm, Torkelson, & Bäckström, 2015), and increased levels of exhaustion (Sliter, Jex, Wolford, & McInnerney, 2010), (for a review, see Schilpzand, de Pater, & Erez, 2016). In recent years, research has also begun to explore how workplace incivility impacts employees within the hospitality industry, where it has been related to outcomes such as lower job performance (Arasli, Hejraty Namin, & Abubakar, 2018;Cho, Bonn, Han, & Lee, 2016), lower job satisfaction, higher turnover intentions (Chen & Wang, 2019), burnout (Cho et al., 2016;Kim & Qu, 2019;Nitzsche, Ribeiro, & Laneiro, 2018), and negative emotions as well as increased incivility toward both employees and customers (Kim & Qu, 2019;Torres, van Niekerk, & Orlowski, 2017). Workplace incivility has been described as at risk of becoming established in the workplace culture if left unattended (Andersson & Pearson, 1999;Leiter, 2019;Leiter, Peck, & Gumuchian, 2015). Similarly, in the foodservice industry, which is comprised of employees working in kitchens and restaurants, workplace mistreatment has been described as embedded in the workplace culture (Robinson, 2008). In a recent study exploring workplace bullying within the foodservice industry, support was also found for the notion that adverse social behaviors are an accepted cultural norm in the sector, that employees may expect from the social structure of the culinary occupation (Smith, Kitterlin-Lynch, Pierre, & Moreo, 2021). Consequently, employees in workplaces with a high degree of incivility would need to have effective coping responses, in order to avoid the detrimental consequences associated with incivility. However, despite a growing body of literature, little is still known about how individuals cope with incivility, specifically so within the context of the foodservice industry.
Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to explore appraisals and coping responses to workplace incivility in the foodservice industry. By employing Lazarus and Folkman (1984) transactional model of stress and coping as a guiding framework, the current study will use group interviews to explore foodservice employees' views of how workplace incivility is expressed within the context of kitchen and restaurant-work, together with their reports of how they appraise and cope with uncivil workplace behaviors. Specifically, the three research questions the present study explore are: 1. which types of workplace incivility have foodservice workers experienced or witnessed; 2. how is workplace incivility appraised by employees in the foodservice industry; 3. how do foodservice workers cope with workplace incivility.

Workplace mistreatment in kitchens and restaurants
Kitchens and restaurants as workplaces have been characterized by a particularly tough and aggressive social climate (Johns & Menzel, 1999). Empirical studies have shown that there are high levels of stress among chefs, as well as a high occurrence of bullying and threats (Mathisen, Einarsen, & Mykletun, 2008;Murray-Gibbons & Gibbons, 2007;Smith et al., 2021). Workplace deviance has even been called "an intrinsic occupational idiosyncrasy" in the sector (Robinson, 2008, p. 403). Factors that have been pointed out as underlying the specific culture in kitchens and restaurants are long working hours, high work pressure, high temperatures, and socialization processes such as schooling new chefs by scolding them when mistakes are made (Bloisi & Hoel, 2008). Deviance has also been addressed as both a cause and an outcome of occupational culture in the sector (Robinson, 2008).
Although recent studies have focused on workplace bullying in the foodservice sector (Smith et al., 2021), it has been pointed out that high intensity aggression generally is a less common phenomenon than workplace incivility (Leiter, 2019). Incivility, on the other hand, has been described as a pervasive work environment issue, that due to its low intensity can be broadly discovered (Leiter, 2019). Considering the culture described in previous research concerning kitchen and restaurant work (e.g., Bloisi & Hoel, 2008;Robinson, 2008), it is possible that incivility is a specific challenge in this industry. For instance, in a study of 2871 employees in the hospitality industry in Sweden (Holm et al., 2015), the levels of reported experienced and witnessed incivility were relatively high, compared to the levels of incivility reported in a sample aimed to mirror the Swedish working population (Torkelson et al., 2016). This suggests that incivility may be a notable issue in hospitality work. The study reported that supervisor incivility was associated with higher levels of perceived job demands, lower job control, and lower social support, which in turn was associated with negative outcomes, such as low job satisfaction, well-being, higher levels of sleeping troubles, and turnover intentions for the employees (Holm et al., 2015). In light of these results, it is possible that workplace incivility is both a prevalent and detrimental workplace stressor in the hospitality industry, which in turn may place particular demands on employees in this sector to develop successful coping mechanisms to avoid strain. Therefore, the present study aims to conduct a contextualized analysis of experienced and witnessed workplace incivility, appraisals, and coping responses in relation to this type of low intensity mistreatment within the foodservice industry.

The transactional model of stress and coping
Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress and coping focuses on the individual's response to stressors via a process of cognitive appraisal (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The appraisal process entails a primary appraisal, defined as a judgment of whether an encounter is irrelevant, positive-benign or stressful. If appraised as irrelevant, it will not evoke any particular response in the individual. If positive-benign, the outcome of an event is appraised as positive for the individuals' well-being. With stressful appraisals, however, events are seen as either harmful, threatening, or challenging. This happens when harm is anticipated, or has already occurred (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). If the situation is appraised as stressful, this is followed by a secondary appraisal, a judgment of whether something might or can be done. In other words, if a coping strategy can be employed effectively, and an evaluation of the consequences of employing that strategy. This determines the individuals coping response in relation to the stressor. Coping is in this case defined as "the process through which the individual manages the demands of the person-environment relationship that are appraised as stressful and the emotions they generate" (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 19), and can be manifested either in a problem focused, or emotion focused way.
A dynamic process-model of stress and coping was premiered by Lazarus and Folkman in comparison to earlier more state-oriented models. They argued that a process-focused model is a more apt way of describing how an individual, via thoughts and actions, interact with their context (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The model has since been widely used in stress research to explain and understand individuals' coping responses to various stressors (Goh, Sawang, & Oei, 2010). The model is therefore a relevant framework for understanding individuals' responses to workplace stressors and how they attempt to use their resources in order to alleviate stress, and reduce the future risk of strain.

Workplace incivility as a stressor
Workplace incivility has been conceptualized as a stressor in organizations . Cortina, Magley, Williams, and Langhout (2001) argued that low intensity negative behaviors in the workplace can be considered as 'daily hassles. ' Daily hassles are minor irritating or distressful everyday life events, that are appraised as stressful, and thus taxes the individuals' resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In support of this, witnessing workplace incivility has been found to covary with higher reports of stress symptoms (Holm, Torkelson, & Bäckström, 2019), and experiencing incivility has been related to other strain-related outcomes such as burnout (Loh & Loi, 2018) and emotional exhaustion (Laschinger, Leiter, Day, & Gilin, 2009). In addition to this, Griffin (2010) showed that workplace incivility can be perceived as a group level stressor in an organization, carrying a vicarious impact on the workgroup and organization, beyond variance explained at the individual level. These findings are consistent with Leiter et al. (2015) suggestion, that workplace incivility can become established in the workplace culture and they argue that workplace incivility is a problem that permeates the workplace, and manifests as a shared environmental stressor. Despite the low intensity, daily hassles may be even more detrimental to well-being than more infrequent, major stressors (DeLongis, Coyne, Dakof, Folkman, & Lazarus, 1982). The reason for this could be due to frequent taxing exposure, and difficulty to develop functional coping strategies to such frequent encounters (Cortina et al., 2001). The issue of daily hassles may be specifically relevant in the foodservice industry, when considering the descriptions of this sector as laden with a particularly harsh and aggressive culture (Robinson, 2008), where uncivil behaviors may be exhibited with a high frequency. Consequently, it can be particularly important to identify how, and in what way, individuals in the foodservice industry cope with this stressor.

Coping with workplace incivility
A few studies have investigated how individuals cope with experienced or witnessed incivility at work in other occupational groups. For instance, a cross-sectional study by Cortina and Magley (2009) identified coping profiles to experienced incivility through cluster analysis in three samples, consisting of university employees, attorneys, and court employees in the United States. The coping responses were posed in relation to a recent critical uncivil incident that the participants felt had bothered them the most. Five clusters were identified; support seekers (relying on social networks), detachers (no specific type of coping), minimizers (downplaying the severity and avoiding confrontation), prosocial conflict avoiders (avoiding conflict and seeking support), and assertive conflict avoiders (somewhat more prone to confrontation) (Cortina & Magley, 2009). Their study also sought to investigate determinants of appraisals to the uncivil incident, yet it was limited to exploring negative (stressful) appraisals, by using negative emotions as indicators of appraisal.
Although their study demonstrated the utility of using the transactional model of stress and coping to understand employees' responses to incivility, it was limited to the types of coping measured in existing instruments. The coping instrument consisted of 12 items, which could mean that there are forms of coping with incivility that were not covered in their study. Furthermore, the critical incident technique focused on a single uncivil event that had bothered the participant the most, which to some degree may run the risk of confounding the low intensity nature of workplace incivility by putting emphasis on more severe transgressions. Cortina and Magley (2009) therefore recommended that future studies could use qualitative methods in order to identify appraisals and coping strategies specific to incivility.
Other studies on diverse populations have only focused on specific forms of coping, such as confrontation and avoidance in response to experienced incivility (Hershcovis, Cameron, Gervais, & Bozeman, 2018;Porath, Overbeck, & Pearson, 2008), or confrontation, avoidance or offering social support in response to witnessed incivility (Hershcovis et al., 2017). A study by Welbourne, Gangadharan, and Esparza (2016) explored whether coping styles moderated the relationship between experienced incivility and negative outcomes. However, their study was also limited to a few forms of coping, such as active coping, avoidance coping, emotional support seeking and religious coping. It is therefore possible that there are forms of coping with incivility that to date remain unexplored.
Interestingly, a recent Nigerian study found that gossiping about other coworkers with a supervisor buffered the negative impact of customer incivility on work engagement in the hospitality industry (Ugwu, Onyishi, Anozie, & Ugwu, 2022). This suggests that some forms of uncivil behaviors that otherwise may be perceived as negative, in fact could have a positive impact on reducing employee strain. However, these responses were in relation to the negative impact of customer incivility, and no study to date has addressed how individuals employed in the foodservice industry cope with a low intensity stressor such as incivility when it is displayed by other colleagues or supervisors. Consequently, it would be an important contribution to explore foodservice workers' appraisals and coping response to a low intensity stressor such as workplace incivility, in order to gain further understanding of the social work environment for foodservice workers and the impact it has on their own behavior.

Participants
A total of 5 group interviews were carried out, consisting of N = 12 (8 female, 4 male) individuals. Group sizes varied between 2 to 3 participants per interview. Participants' age ranged from 19 to 60, with a mean age of 43.83 (SD = 13.55). Of the participants, 5 reported working as chefs, one reported working as a chef/waitress, 1 waitress, 1 head chef, 1 waitress/ head waitress, 1 sommelier, 1 'garde manger' , and one did not report occupational title. The average tenure at the current place of employment was 18.36 months (SD = 14.24), although all participants reported having lengthy experience in the industry (ranging from 2 to 44 years).
Participants were recruited in a variety of ways. Information about the study was sent out to employees in foodservice occupations by two Swedish unions, one organizing hospitality workers, and one organizing municipal and regional employees. The study information was also posted on a website advertising research studies to students and the general public. In an additional step, local restaurants were also directly contacted and informed about the study, and the possibility to participate. The inclusion criteria were work experience in the foodservice industry, and ≥ 18 years of age. Individuals interested in participating in the study contacted the research team, and were subsequently booked for a group interview.

Procedure
Participants were invited in groups of 2-3, and interviews were held at a university in southern Sweden. In one of the cases, the interview was held in a conference room at the place of occupation for two of the study participants. Most participants were not familiar with each other prior to the interviews, as they independently had contacted the research team about participation. However, in one of the groups, two participants were colleagues with each other. By conducting group interviews, foodservice workers' experiences and appraisals of uncivil situations, as well as their coping responses to the uncivil situations were explored. A group interview design in organizational research is appropriate when exploring social and relational phenomena, as it allows for the exploration of shared social practices (Steyaert & Bouwen, 2004). In this case, social practices are expressions of workplace incivility and coping responses that emerge. A small group size has been recommended when approaching potentially sensitive topics (Finch, Lewis, & Turley, 2014), such as workplace mistreatment. For instance, individuals have been found to be more prone to disclose and discuss potentially sensitive information in a group setting, rather than in individual interviews (Guest, Namey, Taylor, Eley, & McKenna, 2017), making group interviews a suitable method to explore participants' uncivil experiences.
Initially at each interview occasion, participants were given information about the study, and completed a brief questionnaire answering demographic questions, concerning age, gender, type of occupation, and length of employment at the current workplace (tenure). The interviews were semi-structured. They followed an overarching interview protocol employing critical incidents and follow-up questions.

Interview protocol
In the interviews a critical incidence technique was used. This type of technique has been successfully used in previous studies exploring stress and coping (Länsisalmi, Peiró, & Kivimäki, 2000;O'Driscoll & Cooper, 1996;Torkelson, Muhonen, & Peiró, 2007). The participants were at the start of the interview, prior to being asked to describe critical incidents, presented with a definition of workplace incivility (e.g., Andersson & Pearson, 1999), in order to assure that they were describing situations they perceived to be low intensity rude behaviors, rather than other kinds of mistreatment. Participants were then asked to describe whether they had experience of-or had witnessed-a particular uncivil situation in their workplace. Upon reply, they were asked to describe what happened in the situation, how they felt and thought about what had happened, and finally their coping response. The participants were also asked to describe other similar events that they could recall, and the same line of follow-up questions were posed concerning thoughts, feelings and coping responses. This approach is consistent with the methodological suggestions made by Lazarus and Folkman when outlining their transactional model framework: "what can be done to assess coping is to have people reconstruct recent stressful encounters and describe what they thought, felt and did" (Lazarus & Folkman,p. 318).
As a basis for the uncivil situations, seven items from Cortina et al. (2001) Workplace Incivility Scale were used to give the participants examples of which to elaborate from. All seven behaviors represented in the scale were presented at each group interview. The full scale can be obtained in Cortina et al. (2001) but a sample item was "have you been in a situation where any of your coworkers or supervisors… put you down or was condescending to you?" and "…paid little attention to your statement or showed little interest in your opinion?". Based on these, participants were asked if they could recall experiencing or witnessing someone else being subjected to such an event and asked to elaborate on this accordingly. After describing the incident, they were asked to describe how they perceived the situation, and how they had reacted in response to it.
The group interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim, which generated a text material that was used as the basis for analysis. The group interviews lasted on average 75 minutes. Group interviews were held until saturation was met. This was judged based on the theoretical model of stress and coping that was used as the guiding framework. Saunders et al. (2018) have suggested that a study's theoretical position and analytical framework should be used to operationalize saturation. In this case, previous literature on coping behaviors guided the understanding of when the material appeared to be saturated, and new themes of coping responses no longer emerged.

Ethical considerations
Participants were informed that all participation was voluntary, that they were free to withdraw at any point, and that the recordings and transcripts of the interviews would be treated confidentially by the research team. The study protocol was approved by the regional ethical review board (dnr 2017/1038).

Analysis
The data were subjected to thematic analysis (Parker, 2005), in order to identify (1) which types of workplace incivility that the foodservice workers had experienced or witnessed, (2) their appraisals of the uncivil situations, and (3) their coping responses to the uncivil interactions. This typology of major themes was guided by the framework for appraisal and coping derived from Lazarus and Folkman (1984) model. Within each major theme, several sub-themes were then identified, encompassing types of uncivil behaviors, appraisals and coping responses similar to each other. The data coding was conducted in several steps, starting with a general, initial coding of the major themes, followed by subsequent detailed coding. To assist in the coding procedure, the software NVivo v. 11 was used to analyze the text.
Data were analyzed by the first and second author separately, and then compared and discussed. In general, there was a high level of agreement among the coders. Any discrepancies were resolved through discussion between the coders, as suggested by Schilling (2006). The present study found that the coping responses used by the employees for either experienced or witnessed incivility to a large extent overlapped. For instance, the same type of response (such as confronting or avoiding an instigator) were reported both when the respondent was a target, or saw someone else be targeted. It only differed in relation to who the response was directed toward, such as offering social support to someone else (in case of witnessed incivility), rather than seeking it for oneself (in case of experienced incivility). Yet, the behaviors remained within the same general theme of coping. Coping responses to both experienced and witnessed incivility were therefore combined in the analysis.

Descriptions of experienced and witnessed workplace incivility
Workplace incivility was described by the participants in a number of different ways. For instance, there were reports of both experienced incivility from coworkers and supervisors, witnessed incidents of incivility among other coworkers, and also reports of a more general culture of incivility in the workplace. See Table 1 for an overview of the different types of workplace incivility that the participants had experienced or witnessed, and sample quotes exemplifying each type. Examples were given of incivility from both coworkers and managers. A large range of behaviors were also described by the participants, including subtle transgressions, such as sarcastic comments with a negative tone and social exclusion, but also overt behaviors, such as yelling or scolding someone in front of others, or openly giving demeaning comments. Although some of these may be conceived as behaviors with quite a high intensity, it was described as a common occurrence, and appeared to be a normalized part of the work environment in the foodservice industry. Normalization of these behaviors could possibly explain why the participants described this as incivility, rather than defining it as more severe type of workplace mistreatment.
There appeared to be a large amount of familiarity of workplace incivility among the participants throughout all of the five group interviews. Although the focus was on negative behaviors, the mood in the interviews was generally light and upbeat. The descriptions were in some cases even humorous, and recognition among other group members could spark laughter at occasions. Other incidents were described less positively, but in general this appeared to reflect the low intensity nature of workplace incivility. The participants, although most not acquainted with each other, Where he also withheld information about the menu that he changed in the middle of service" (interview 4, participant 1) others publicly displaying frustration or irritation "in front of the guests, in the hotel i was working at, the manager went out and yelled at the staff in the middle of the breakfast." (interview 5, participant 1) Having the personal sphere violated "i felt that the questions were too personal, even if it was just something like 'do you think he is cute?' it was completely irrelevant to the job." (interview 3, participant 1) inappropriate jokes that pass the line "it was too crude sometimes. from joke to professional. the contrast was too big." (interview 5, participant 1) not receiving praise or positive feedback "never! never, have i heard that i've done a good job." (interview 2, participant 1) receiving more straining work tasks than others "there was one woman who had quite a lot of excess weight. she didn't get a lot of new interesting assignments, she mostly had to wash the dishes." (interview 3, participant 2) supervisors frowning when using worker rights "[…] but even there i could get some negativity when i stayed home, 'look, is he home with a sick child again?'" (interview 5, participant 1) and working in different places and roles, all appeared to have quite a consistent narrative of how it was to work in kitchens and restaurants. The descriptions of incivility given during the interviews were often strikingly similar to each other, which prompted the participants to agree with each other, or add their own experiences to the initially described incident. An aspect that emerged during the interviews was that of workplace culture. In all of the five group interviews, workplace incivility was described as an everyday occurrence in kitchen and restaurant work, and as a part of the workplace culture.
"I think you can feel these negative, or as you say, low intensity behaviors every day. Every day, actually." (Interview 1, participant 2) "[…] it's a part of everyday life that you experience". (Interview 2, participant 2) "Oh yes! I don't remember exactly-but it's an everyday jargon in restaurants. Now perhaps it has improved, but then it was [worse]. You were a sissy if you couldn't take all the madness that was directed towards you. In a way. It is a very harsh tone". (Interview 3, participant 2) "It is hard to find one [example]. I don't know if you feel the same (name of participant 1) [but] there may be a sort of culture of such behaviors constantly in restaurants. So, it might be hard to find one thing that sticks out". (Interview 4, participant 2) "But [these behaviors] are constantly reoccurring. And as I said, they are everywhere." (Interview 5, participant 2) One participant described the complexity of social interaction by illustrating how there could be a jargon of humorous joking on each other's expense, that suddenly could pass the line and become hurtful. A boundary that was hard to distinguish at times. "It is a bit hard to know, because it is like this: there is a jargon that is like 'asshole' , and then there are sort of demeaning words towards women, that occur quite often. But I've seen it disappear recently. It's very common to hear that 'she is so and so. That person is in a special way' . It is hard to know what is meant to be a joke and what is purely 'you damn asshole' sort of. 'Idiot' , and 'asshole' and so. " (Interview 4, participant 2) "So, [it is hard to know] when it is not a joke anymore?" (Interviewer) "Yes, it's a delicate balance". (Interview 4, participant 1) "It really is". (Interview 4, participant 2) The accounts of workplace culture also included descriptions of how the behavior could spread between the coworkers, and lead to others falling in line with the uncivilized jargon.
"It's a bit contagious this behavior, the bad behavior. I absolutely dislike it, because I think everyone should contribute to a good work environment." (Interview 2, participant 1) The participants described a social process of workplace incivility, that entailed sudden changes in ongoing interactions, which could turn from friendly and even hospitable, to negative, frustrating and distressing. These situations could also foster defensive comments or behavior, that in turn may have been perceived as rude and discourteous by the counterpart. The uncivil encounters were embedded into the everyday socialization in the workplace, and considered a part of the social work environment, that could suddenly emerge. In other words, workplace incivility was expressed as a daily stressor related to social interaction, embedded in the workplace, that could come from either coworkers, managers or the participants themselves.

Appraisals
In terms of primary cognitive appraisals, the uncivil situations were mostly described as leading to negative emotions, such as frustration, anger and fear, indicating that they for the most part were considered to be stressful. Descriptions relating to both subcategories of harm/loss and threat-appraisals were provided by the participants. These ranged in intensity from milder forms of annoyance or frustration, to appraisals reflecting stronger valence, such as feeling hurt or sad.
"I mean, I think it is irritating that the boss is not being listened to. That the department manager is not being listened to by those higher up. That annoys me!" (Interview 1, participant 2) "When my boss tells me 'damn, you don't understand anything, you are so damn stupid' I get hurt. Then I get sad, of course." (Interview 2, participant 2) "But… you just felt a bad atmosphere every time they yelled at each other." (Interview 3, participant 1) "Then she steps in and starts correcting you in front of the guest. 'No, you should pour like this, you should do like this' . And that is terribly frustrating." (Interview 4, participant 2) However, although some mentions of challenge-appraisals also occurred during the interviews, they were likely more related to a temporary increase in job demands, rather than the uncivil event itself. A challenge appraisal was evidenced when one respondent described her coping response to a situation where she had been criticized for not having sufficiently neatly cut lettuce: "So I just chopped it, and then I came out with the lettuce that was chopped almost as if it were finely grated, and I showed it 'here!' *laughter*… I tried to bite the bullet and act so they would shut up for a while". (Interview 3, participant 2) Some uncivil events were also described as not arousing any particular feeling or thought, suggesting that these were appraised as irrelevant to the participants' well-being. Among those appraised as positive-benign, participants mostly discussed events that, although stressful at the time, assisted them in resolving a problem, or improving their quality of work for the future.
"I couldn't keep up. I did my best, but then he came in and started frying in private clothes and stuff, and yelled at me." (Interview 5, participant 1) "Okay, so he went in and tried to take over?" (Interviewer) "He went in and tried to take over, but I was grateful for that, because we got the stuff out." (Interview 5, participant 1) When it comes to secondary appraisals, this was mostly discussed when participants described why they chose not to intervene when witnessing a particular uncivil event. Being a novice, or not wishing to conflict with managers, was the primarily reported reason for not intervening, when participants made an evaluation if they could act:

Coping responses
In total, 12 different forms of coping responses toward workplace incivility were identified. These were categorized into four general themes, active coping, passive coping, proactive coping, and reappraisal. The themes and coping behaviors are displayed in Table 2. Coping responses took various forms, such as active behaviors like confronting the perpetrator, seeking or offering social support to others and engaging in prosocial behaviors, as well as reporting incidents to supervisors, owners of the restaurants, the union or safety representatives. "I've told the supervisors, because that's the only way." (Interview 4, participant 1) Confronting the perpetrator could mean actively asserting oneself, attempting to discuss the incident in private with the perpetrator, or yelling at them. One participant described his coping response to a supervisor that acted aggressively in stressful situations: "So I took it a little negatively, and then I told him -he had also been working as a chef before -I told him 'this isn't okay' . And then I noticed a pattern that he went after the same people more often. Many of them didn't speak up either." (Interview 5, participant 1) However, there were also more passive forms of coping, such as avoiding the perpetrator or the uncivil situation, and ignoring the behavior, among others. The avoidance behaviors also spanned from adapting to the perpetrator's criticism, to even leaving the workplace in protest.
"Yes, it is, horrible. And we had a big meeting, after which I, he and another person resigned immediately because we thought the situation was…". (Interview 4, participant 2) "You all resigned?" (Interviewer) "Yes, we actually did." (Interview 4, participant 2) One participant described her coping response to a situation where her manager had spread rumors that her coworkers thought that she was not good enough at her job.
"I asked him and continued, 'aha, okay, yes, I understand, I will do my best. And I will try to talk to them to see if we can get along better' I said. " (Interview 3, participant 1) Another theme that emerged was the use of humor. This could entail joking to reduce the tension of an uncomfortable situation or laughing together with the perpetrator to avoid confrontation. There were also some descriptions given of joining in the uncivilized behavior in order to avoid being targeted by it, as a type of proactive coping.
"The difficult part, and now I'm speaking personally, it's when you are involved in it, and when you're in it. Then you just don't want to be the one who ends up being the black sheep. Then you can actually join in with it a little bit." (Interview 4, participant 2) That coping with workplace incivility was a process became particularly evident in relation to positively reframing or rationalization strategies. Note. in the present study, social support was categorized as a form of active coping, as the respondents reported actively seeking or offering support.
With these, the participants dealt with the situation by minimizing it, reappraising its valence, and putting a positive spin on it.
"But then it took a few years, and then I understood the point, why they were acting like this. It was a way to teach me, and they didn't know any other way, because that's how they've been taught." (Interview 1, participant 3) In these cases, the uncivil events were rationalized and reattributed, leaving room for them to continue to be reproduced in the workplace culture. In the cases of confronting the perpetrator, this could occasionally itself be considered uncivil, and lead to conflict escalations. Coping responses could therefore at times contribute to the subsequent occurrence of more incivility in the workplace.

Discussion
The results from the present study demonstrate that workplace incivility can be conceptualized as a daily stressor in the occupational life of foodservice workers, consistent with Cortina et al. (2001) theorizing of daily hassles. The results indicated that workplace incivility was expressed in the form of a culture in the workplace in many of the participants' accounts. In this way, incivility was exchanged between coworkers and managers, and could be embedded into the everyday jargon in the workplace, that simultaneously both affected and were a part of the workplace culture. This is consistent with the descriptions of a culture particularly prone to workplace mistreatment in kitchen and restaurant work, as pointed out by Robinson (2008), and Johns and Menzel (1999).
As for appraisals, Cortina and Magley (2009) proposed that mildly negative appraisals should be a defining characteristic of workplace incivility. In the present study, most reports of appraisals were indeed negative, consistent with their suggestion. There were some incidents that were also appraised as irrelevant, challenging or positive-benign. However, it is possible that these appraisals also are a consequence of coping or reappraisals, in order to reduce the tension of an uncivil incident. This suggests that there may be ongoing transactions between workplace incivility (the stressor), the appraisal, and the coping response. According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984) model, the paths in the coping process are not one-directional, but constant interactions between the person and situation. It is therefore important to view coping as an on-going process, rather than a fixed outcome of a stressor. Of additional importance, many of the strategies described by the participants were to confront the perpetrator of incivility. At times, these confrontations could be of equal caliber (i.e., yelling when yelled at), or in other ways retaliatory. Some participants even acknowledged that they themselves had been rude toward the perpetrator. In this way, the coping response may have given way for an increase of incivility in the situation. Thereby, the coping process may have been both constructive and destructive, and potentially a part of sustaining and influencing the workplace culture further in the foodservice industry.
When considering the workplace culture, it is important to note that coping is not merely directed at sole uncivil incidents. Rather, participants also need to cope with the uncivil culture itself. This is illustrated by the use of proactive coping responses (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997), such as joining in when someone else is being blamed, in order to reduce the risk of oneself becoming the target. Problematically, joining in with the uncivil jargon could contribute to the future existence of an uncivil culture in the workplace. The more passively oriented coping strategies, on the other hand, can contribute to the maintenance of a destructive workplace culture in the sense that they do not provide any resistance to the culture. Instead, negative behaviors may be silently accepted and allowed to pass, which could legitimize their continuance in the workplace. This is consistent with Robinson's (2008) suggestion, that deviant behaviors are both a cause and an outcome of a destructive workplace culture.
In relation to the five coping profiles identified by Cortina and Magley (2009), the present study found that a similar pattern of coping responses emerged from interviews with foodservice workers. However, a few other strategies also surfaced. Among these, one strategy that may be particularly specific to workplace incivility, was joining in with the incivility. This strategy may not be as easily applied in the case of other stressors, where engaging in redirecting the stressor toward others is not an option. Additionally, coping responses such as hinting at unacceptable behavior, overcompensating by doing the work of a colleague who would not listen, and showing an increased prosocial attitude toward others that have been targeted as a means of social support, were themes that appeared to be specific to the particular type of stressor that workplace incivility constitutes. These findings respond to the call of Cortina and Magley (2009), who stressed the importance of identifying coping strategies that are specific to workplace incivility.

Conclusions
The purpose of the study was to explore appraisals and coping responses to workplace incivility in the foodservice industry. The first research question of the present study concerned which types of workplace incivility that foodservice workers have experienced or witnessed. Through the participants' accounts, thirteen types of experienced or witnessed workplace incivility were identified. The results also suggested that workplace incivility can be conceptualized as a daily stressor that was described by the participants as pervasive in the foodservice worker culture.
The second research question concerned how workplace incivility is appraised by employees in the foodservice industry. Although varied appraisals emerged, the different types of workplace incivility were primarily described as stressful.
The final research question concerned how foodservice workers cope with workplace incivility. Several themes of coping with incivility were identified, including active, passive and proactive behaviors, as well as reappraisal. In addition, some coping responses, such as being passive when experiencing or witnessing incivility or retaliating with incivility to others, could function as a means of maintaining, or even contributing to a culture of workplace incivility in foodservice occupations. Coping with low intensity mistreatment in the foodservice industry may therefore be seen as a complex phenomenon, which can have both constructive and destructive outcomes.

Theoretical contributions
The present study makes several contributions. Firstly, the study contributes by identifying different types of incivility that foodservice workers have experienced or witnessed. The study also contributes to our knowledge about the variety of coping responses that kitchen and restaurant workers use in order to reduce the impact of workplace incivility. Considering that workplace mistreatment has been described as pervasive in this sector, it is important to identify the means of how individuals employed in this sector cope with such challenges. More specifically, the study contributes by identifying novel coping responses that are specific to workplace incivility. This does not only contribute to knowledge about how individuals cope with incivility in the foodservice industry, but provides new insights into how individuals can cope with workplace incivility in general. Lastly, the study provides a contextualized analysis of workplace incivility in an occupational sector where workplace mistreatment has been described as common (Johns & Menzel, 1999;Robinson, 2008;Smith et al., 2021). This contributes to the understanding of how low intensity mistreatment can become established in a workplace culture, and how an uncivil culture can be maintained in part due to coping responses. Considering that incivility has been suggested to be a precursor to more severe mistreatment, such as workplace bullying (Andersson & Pearson, 1999), these findings provide an important basis for understanding one possible reason behind the frequent reports of bullying in the foodservice industry (Mathisen et al., 2008;Smith et al., 2021). Smith et al. (2021) emphasized that tactics, such as training programs and policies, are needed to strategically reduce adverse social behaviors in the foodservice industry. More specifically, the role of coping processes could be incorporated into conflict management training, in order to deemphasize retaliation and reduce conflict escalation. A practical way of doing this would be to have recurring workshops for employees, where they discuss workplace incivility, their experiences, courses of action, and how to address it in a constructive way if it occurs. Specifically, the CREW-model (Osatuke, Moore, Ward, Dyrenforth, & Belton, 2009), can be used to reduce workplace incivility and address it constructively when it occurs.

Practical implications
CREW, which is an acronym for Civility, Respect and Engagement in the Workplace, was a model developed by the Veterans Health Administration in the United States, in response to high levels of incivility at the department's VA hospitals (Osatuke et al., 2009;Osatuke, Leiter, Belton, Dyrenforth, & Ramsel, 2013). The CREW-model involves discussions between employees about how to speak up against incivility, as well as how to actively promote civility and respect toward others in the workplace (Osatuke et al., 2009). More specifically, CREW uses trained facilitators to moderate group discussions among workgroups, typically during weekly meetings over a six-month period (Leiter, 2013). The facilitators use structured exercises that are designed to create a stronger sense of cohesion among staff, build trust, and actively address matters of civility and incivility, in order to create a foundation that a positive work culture can grow from (Leiter, 2013). Key points in the CREW-model are to identify and recreate successful and satisfying work experiences that build on each teams' strengths (Osatuke et al., 2013). The model also aims to raise awareness of the importance of civil treatment (Leiter, 2013). The model is by design not standardized. Rather, it is tailored to the specific workgroup. Workgroups are seen as active agents that discuss and define what constitutes a respectful workplace in their workgroup and identify obstacles that may hinder civil treatment (Osatuke et al., 2009). The shared perceptions of civility are then used as a basis for setting civility goals that are contextually tailored for the specific workgroup. The group's ownership of the process is a central element to the longevity of the intervention, and for the goals to be developed into concrete behaviors that in turn result in a less uncivil culture (Osatuke et al., 2013). The CREW workshop program has previously been shown to successfully reduce incivility and promote respect and civility in a healthcare setting (Leiter, Laschinger, Day, & Oore, 2011;Leiter, Day, Oore, & Laschinger, 2012), and may be of benefit in the foodservice industry as well. Managers and HR practitioners in the foodservice industry could benefit from using the CREW-model when designing workshops for staff, and specifically include key components such as contextually exploring civility and developing civility goals, identifying obstacles for civility, and raising awareness of the importance of civility. The results from the present study, concerning how coping can be both constructive and destructive, can also be integrated within the workshop program. Specifically, managers or HR practitioners in the foodservice industry could act as facilitators and present the results from the present study to employees during a workshop session to see if they recognize their coping patterns from the study. Employees can then discuss the results of the study, and how their coping processes may influence, and be influenced by, the workplace culture. For example, the discussion can concern whether employees' respond to incivility by acting rude in return, how they believe such a response would impact the workplace culture, and if they can identify other possible coping responses to incivility that may be more constructive. Such discussions could break a vicious cycle of uncivil exchanges, and correspond well with the CREWmodel element of discussing ways of speaking up against incivility with employees (Osatuke et al., 2009). This could increase awareness of ways incivility can be reproduced, and constructive alternatives, which could lead to prevention of future incivility. In such a way, the results of the present study are directly relevant for organizations attempting to promote a respectful work culture.
In addition, as some participants indicated that they sought social support, and reported incidents to managers, safety representatives, and the union, it may be helpful to clarify ways for employees to communicate about incivility when they experience mistreatment, in order to provide organizational support when employees need it. Providing employees with a clear overview of who to contact if they are exposed to incivility in the workplace is a concrete way of creating a supportive structure in the organization. Furthermore, considering that the foodservice industry has been pointed out as a high-risk sector for mistreatment due to high pressure and stress (Bloisi & Hoel, 2008;Johns & Menzel, 1999), it can be important to consider the organizational context as a possible cause for the emergence of incivility. The work environment in the foodservice industry could create situations conducive to uncivil behaviors (Johns & Menzel, 1999), which in turn could impact the organizational culture further. To address this practically, managers could strive to maintain a reasonable workload for employees, and continuously monitor employee stress levels when conducting psychosocial risk assessments.
Moreover, training initiatives such as the CREW workshop series could be complemented by specifically adding focus on methods for bystander intervention when others are subjected to incivility. The results of the present study showed that passive coping strategies could be a way of maintaining an uncivil culture. Bystander intervention is one way of showing active resistance to an uncivil culture. In practice, managers and HR practitioners could encourage employees to confront the perpetrator, provide support to the target, and to avoid joining in with the jargon, to reduce the risk of incivility becoming normalized in the workplace. Encouraging employees to intervene when witnessing incivility could be one way of breaking an uncivil culture from becoming established. In this way, managers can act proactively against incivility, and function as good role models for civil treatment, which could be an important signal to employees that civility is valued, and that incivility is unacceptable (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2000). A zero-tolerance policy to incivility has been advocated as one key tool to reduce incivility in an organization by giving clear expectations of respectful interpersonal treatment (Pearson et al., 2000). In line with this, positive leadership behaviors have been shown to be positively related to norms for respect in workplaces, which in turn was negatively related to the occurrence of workplace incivility (Walsh, Lee, Jensen, McGonagle, & Samnani, 2018). In cases where expectations of civil treatment are less clear or non-existent, managers may instead signal low commitment to employee well-being. Low managerial commitment, in turn, is a risk factor for workplace mistreatment (Law, Dollard, Tuckey, & Dormann, 2011). Consequently, incivility-related issues, but also potential remedies, can be successfully addressed by managers, but requires their active engagement (Pearson et al., 2000).
Lastly, some other concrete strategies are to develop an organizational policy document against mistreatment, conduct recurring risk assessments focused on the social work environment, and to implement a complaint system in the workplace (Smith et al., 2021). Collectively, this will show commitment from the top management, which has been identified as an important factor for reducing workplace mistreatment (Dollard, Dormann, Tuckey, & Escartín, 2017). Additionally, it can be important to promote civility and respect in an organizational policy together with zero-tolerance of incivility. The policy would therefore not only specify that mistreatment is unacceptable in the workplace, but also actively encourage civility and respectful behavior, in line with the CREW-model (Osatuke et al., 2009). By taking these practical steps, the overall risk for workplace incivility can be reduced, and ways of addressing it constructively when it occurs will be made available.

Limitations and future research
The study consisted of in-depth interviews with a few amount of employees from the foodservice industry. Therefore, no generalizations on the basis of these results can be made to the foodservice industry as a whole.
Moreover, a group interview setting with the immediate presence of others may have influenced which coping responses the participants shared. This could mean that less socially desirable coping strategies may not have been shared during the interviews. The questions concerning coping were also framed in a way that could be interpreted as mostly focusing on concrete behaviors (i.e., what did you do?). There may therefore be additional, more passive or indirect, forms of coping that did not emerge in the interviews. For example, denial or attributing blame to external factors rather than the instigator. Future studies could include measures of the novel forms of coping responses that were identified in the present study to investigate the effectiveness of coping strategies on health outcomes, as well as the frequency of different coping strategies in the foodservice industry, using large and diverse samples. Finally, as workplace incivility was described as a part of workplace culture in the foodservice industry, an important step in future studies would be to take on a meso level unit of analysis to account for the role of context . Beyond the individual level, it would be an important addition to study the impact of an uncivil culture in the foodservice industry, and how workplace incivility can affect health, behavioral, and performance outcomes on a workgroup or organizational level.