Workplace bullying: individual hostility, poor work environment or both? Exploring competing explanatory models in a single longitudinal study.

Autor: Gamian-Wilk M; Institute of Psychology Faculty in Wroclaw Social Behavior Research Center, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland. mgamian@swps.edu.pl., Bjorkelo B; Norwegian Police College University, Oslo New University College, Oslo, Norway., Mikkelsen EG; Department of Psychology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark., D'Cruz P; Organizational Behaviour Area, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India., Madeja-Bien K; Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: International archives of occupational and environmental health [Int Arch Occup Environ Health] 2022 Dec; Vol. 95 (10), pp. 1955-1969. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jun 22.
DOI: 10.1007/s00420-022-01896-y
Abstrakt: Purpose: A central focus of research and literature on workplace bullying is the importance of explanatory factors such as individual dispositions (i.e., the vulnerability hypothesis) and work environment factors (i.e., the work environment hypothesis). Although several studies address the importance of the two approaches, as well as their individual and combined effects, the unique contribution of each of the competing approaches remain unexplored in a single longitudinal study.
Methods: Based on Affective Events Theory, we explore the contribution of work environment and individual hostility in the occurrence of workplace bullying over time, using two-wave survey data, collected with a 6-month time lag among 152 employees from 7 private and public workplaces.
Results: Results confirmed that work environment factors predicted later exposure to bullying. Exposure to workplace bullying at T1 was also related to a poor work environment at T2. Results further showed that higher exposure to workplace bullying at T1 and T2 was related to higher levels of almost all aspects of individual hostility over time. Moreover, poor working conditions especially in T1 predicted individual hostility at T2.
Conclusion: The present study thus documents that a poor work environment fosters bullying, and when bullying exists in a workplace, this elicits interpersonal hostility. Results points to the importance of addressing, through research and practice, work environment factors as predictors of workplace bullying.
(© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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