Impact of workplace bullying on employee outcomes: a study of Indian managerial employees

The effect of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing of the employees in scientific and technological enterprises: a moderated mediation model

PURPOSE

This study aims to understand how workplace bullying affects knowledge sharing among employees in Chinese scientific and technological enterprises.

METHODOLOGY

A convenience sampling method was employed to survey 275 employees from scientific and technological enterprises of Yangtze River Delta, China. The survey utilized a general information questionnaire, a workplace bullying scale, an organizational belonging scale, a knowledge sharing scale, and a forbearance scale. A moderated mediation model was set up, and the hierarchical regression and the bootstrapping method were applied.

FINDINGS

The empirical results indicated that workplace bullying has a negative effect on the knowledge sharing, and organization belonging has played mediating effect. Furthermore, Forbearance not only moderated the effect of workplace bullying on organizational belonging, but also moderated the mediated effect of organization belonging, and the effect will be stronger when employees are at a lower level of forbearance.

IMPLICATIONS

This study offers important implications for scientific and technological enterprises. The findings imply that enterprises should discourage person-related workplace bullying to increase employees' intention to engage in knowledge-sharing behavior. Moreover, the manager of these firms should develop a culture of family so that they can care for the organization belonging.

Last in, first out? Length of service as a moderator of the relationship between exposure to bullying behaviors and work-related outcomes

In the present study, we proposed and tested a conceptual model of length of service in the organization as a moderator of the relationship between exposure to workplace bullying behaviors and turnover intention, as mediated through job dissatisfaction. Specifically, based on the conservation of resources theory and organizational socialization research, we hypothesized that bullying exposure would be more detrimental to employees relatively new to the organization, and less so to those with a long length of service. We employed a probability sample from the Norwegian workforce (N = 1003), with data collected at two time-points separated by six months. In line with previous research, we found that exposure to workplace bullying behaviors predicts increased levels of stability-adjusted turnover intentions, and, that job dissatisfaction mediates this association. Moreover, the mediation effect was dependent on length of service, such that it only was present at average (50th percentile; 8.5 years) and short employment length (16th percentile; 2.5 years), and was significantly stronger for the latter group. Additionally, a Johnson-Neyman test of significance regions revealed that the moderation effect became non-significant at the 69th percentile (14.6 years of length of service) in the present sample. This indicates that while short length of service represents a risk condition for work-related outcomes of bullying exposure, long length of service may represent a resource relating to individual resilience that accumulates over long time-spans.

Individuals' psychosocial voice barriers in lean problem-solving teams

Purpose

Voice role identification and the psychosocial voice barriers represented by implicit voice theories (IVTs) affect lean team members' prosocial voice behavior and thereby lean team performance. This paper investigates how role definition and IVTs influence individual lean team-members' prosocial voice behavior during lean implementation.

Design/methodology/approach

This research was conducted in four case readymade garment (RMG) factories in Bangladesh following a mixed-method research approach dominated by a qualitative research methodology. Under the mixed-method design, this research followed multiple research strategies, including intervention-based action research and case studies.

Findings

The findings suggest that voice role perception affects the voice behavior of the individual lean team members. The findings also demonstrate that voice role definition significantly influences individually held implicit voice beliefs in lean teams.

Research limitations/implications

This research was conducted in four sewing lines in four RMG factories in Bangladesh. There is a need for a cross-sector and cross-country large-scale study that follows the quantitative research methods in different contexts.

Practical implications

This research contributes to the operations management literature, especially in lean manufacturing, by presenting the difficulties of mobilizing employee voice in lean problem-solving teams. This work provides new knowledge to managers to address challenges and opportunities to ensure decent work and to improve productivity.

Originality/value

This research raises a key issue of employee voice and its influence on lean performance which addresses two critical areas of employee voice behavior in lean teams: team-members' voice role perception and implicit voice beliefs that influence their voice behavior in the workplace, thereby influencing team performance.

Abusive Supervision and Employee Empowerment: The Moderating Role of Resilience and Workplace Friendship

Several studies have explored why employees leave their organization in the face of abusive supervision. However, there is a lack of research on what makes employees continue with employment despite being affected by abusive supervision. This study responds to the calls made to analyze multiple mechanisms that employees use to cope with abusive supervision. It addresses this gap by examining employees’ psychological and social resources that can mitigate the effects of abusive supervision. We specifically consider employee psychological and structural empowerment, as well as resilience and workplace friendship. This is a time-lagged study using a sample of 146 postgraduate students who have a minimum of 2 years of work experience. Utilizing the tenets of conservation of resources theory, we find that damage to psychological empowerment plays a significant role in diminishing the work engagement and creativity of employees, as compared to structural empowerment. We also find that workplace friendship plays a significant role in weakening the damaging effects of abusive supervision on structural empowerment. Future studies should consider other psychological and social mechanisms that can mitigate the effects of abusive supervision. Moreover, organizations should work toward developing a culture of sharing and support between coworkers.

The effect of workplace bullying on burnout: the mediating role of affective well-being

Purpose

This study aims to examine the impact of workplace bullying on employees’ burnout by investigating the mediating effect of affective well-being (AWB).

Design/methodology/approach

Data of 532 employees from diverse organizations in Portugal were collected. These data were collected using anonymously completed structured questionnaires available online.

Findings

The results support the research hypotheses proposed, confirming that workplace bullying is related to both AWB and burnout. Moreover, affective workplace bullying partially mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and burnout, indicating that the victims have their AWB reduced, and, consequently, increase their burnout levels.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that organizations can foster employees’ AWB and reduce the level of burnout by encouraging organizations to develop preventive policies and practices to safeguard against bullying at work.

Originality/value

To this date, only a few studies have examined mediating and moderating variables (Nielsen and Einersen, 2018) and none include AWB as a mediator of the relationship between workplace bullying and burnout. This study answers the call for further empirical research from those who have argued that more information is needed to understand the workplace bullying phenomenon and contributes to the growing debate on this topic and its effects on employees.