Job Demands as Risk Factors of Exposure to Bullying at Work: The Moderating Role of Team-Level Conflict Management Climate.

Lena Zahlquist,Ståle Valvatne Einarsen,Anders Skogstad,Jørn Hetland,Arnold B Bakker

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02017

Lena Zahlquist, Ståle Valvatne Einarsen + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02017

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Abstract

Conflict management climate is an important organizational resource that is theorized to prevent interpersonal frustration from escalating into harsh interpersonal conflicts and even workplace bullying. The present study investigates whether team-level perceptions of conflict management climate moderate the relationship between previously investigated psychosocial predictors of workplace bullying (i.e., role conflicts, workload, cognitive demands) and perceived exposure to bullying behaviors in the workplace. We collected data from crews on ferries operating on the Norwegian coastline consisting of 462 employees across 147 teams. As hypothesized, multilevel analyses showed positive main effects of role conflict and cognitive demands (but not workload) on exposure to bullying behaviors. Also, the hypothesized moderation effect of team-level conflict management climate on the relationship between individual-level job demands and exposure to bullying behaviors was significant for role conflict and cognitive demands, but not for workload. Specifically, the positive relationships between the two job demands and exposure to bullying behaviors were stronger for employees working in teams with a weak (vs. a strong) conflict management climate. These findings contribute to the bullying research field by showing that conflict management climate may buffer the impact of stressors on bullying behaviors, most likely by preventing interpersonal frustration from escalating into bullying situations.

Highlights

Exposure to workplace bullying has been documented to be of a relatively low prevalence, it has shown to be a psychosocial stressor with severe negative consequences for the health and well-being of those targeted (Bowling and Beehr, 2006; Nielsen et al, 2014; Verkuil et al, 2015), as well as for the social environment where it occurs (Einarsen et al, 1994; Vartia, 2001)
On the background of JD-R theory and previous research, we propose that a strong conflict management climate, as a prevailing perception in the immediate work group, will buffer the impact of job demands on job strain, in our case perceived exposure to bullying behaviors
Based on the work environment hypothesis and job demandsresources theory, we hypothesized that role conflict, workload, and cognitive demands would be positively related to exposure to bullying behaviors at work

Summary

Introduction

Exposure to workplace bullying has been documented to be of a relatively low prevalence, it has shown to be a psychosocial stressor with severe negative consequences for the health and well-being of those targeted (Bowling and Beehr, 2006; Nielsen et al, 2014; Verkuil et al, 2015), as well as for the social environment where it occurs (Einarsen et al, 1994; Vartia, 2001). In turn, may lead to interpersonal frustration and bullying behaviors (Notelaers et al, 2013; Janssens et al, 2016) Another central assumption of JD-R theory is that the presence of sufficient contextual and personal resources can buffer the energy depleting effects that high job demands potentially have (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007). Such preventive resources may be job-related, such as autonomy, skill variety, and support from colleagues, or may be personrelated, such as hardiness and self-efficacy. A central assumption in the present study is that conflict management climate constitute an important higherlevel resource that may influence the potential job demands – bullying relationship

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