ORIGINAL PAPER Incivility’s Relationship with Workplace Outcomes: Enactment as a Boundary Condition in Two Samples Jeremy D. Mackey 1 • John D. Bishoff 2 • Shanna R. Daniels 2 • Wayne A. Hochwarter 2,3 • Gerald R. Ferris 2 Received: 20 July 2016 / Accepted: 26 February 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 Abstract The current two-sample investigation explores the role of enactment as a boundary condition in the rela- tionship between experienced incivility and workplace outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior [OCB], and turnover intent). We integrate the tenets of the transactional model of stress and sensemaking theory to explain why enactment is a psychological sensemaking capability that can neutralize the adverse effects of experienced incivility on workplace outcomes. The results across two samples of data (n Sample 1 = 156; n Sample 2 = 620) supported the study hypotheses by demonstrating that experienced incivility had stronger adverse effects on employees’ job satisfaction, OCBs, and turnover intent for employees who reported lower levels of enactment than employees who reported higher levels of enactment. This study’s results make three important contributions to theory and research. First, we make an empirical contribution by examining enactment as a psy- chological sensemaking capability that can neutralize the adverse effects of experienced incivility on workplace outcomes. Second, we make a theoretical contribution by integrating the tenets of the transactional model of stress and sensemaking theory in a novel way that explains why enactment is a psychological sensemaking capability that can neutralize the adverse effects of stress on strain. Third, we demonstrate that enactment is the boundary condition that explains why incivility does not have universally adverse effects on employees’ outcomes. Keywords Incivility Á Enactment Á Job satisfaction Á OCB Á Turnover intent Á Stress Á Sensemaking Introduction Over the past two decades, workplace incivility has gen- erated considerable interest among management scholars and practitioners due to its ethical and practical implica- tions. In terms of management practice, current statistics indicate that nearly 98% of employees have experienced some form of workplace incivility over the course of their careers (Porath and Pearson 2013). In monetary terms, it has been documented that incivility costs organizations nearly $14,000 per employee each year as a result of work delays and other forms of physical and mental distraction (Pearson and Porath 2009). Furthermore, incivility is of international importance because it is experienced by employees who work in all types of occupations and industries across the globe on a relatively frequent basis (Schilpzand et al. 2016). Given its financial impact and widely recognized pervasiveness, workplace incivility is an & Jeremy D. Mackey jmackey@auburn.edu John D. Bishoff jdb14e@my.fsu.edu Shanna R. Daniels srdaniels@business.fsu.edu Wayne A. Hochwarter whochwar@business.fsu.edu Gerald R. Ferris gferris@business.fsu.edu 1 Department of Management, Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, Lowder Business Building, Auburn University, 405 W. Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, AL 36849, USA 2 Department of Management, College of Business, Florida State University, 821 Academic Way, P.O. Box 3061110, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA 3 Australia Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia 123 J Bus Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-017-3492-8