Abstract
Bullying in the workplace is an increasingly recognized threat to employee health. We sought to test three hypotheses related to the determinants of workplace bullying: power distance at work; safety climate; and frustration related to perceived social inequality. A questionnaire survey was administered to a nationally representative community-based sample of 5,000 residents in Japan aged 20–60 years. The questionnaire included questions about employment, occupation, company size, education, household income, and subjective social status (SSS). We inquired about both the witnessing and personal experience of workplace bullying during the past 30 days. Among 2,384 respondents, data were analyzed from 1,546 workers. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to examine the social determinants of workplace bullying. Six percent and 15 percent of the total sample reported experiencing or witnessing workplace bullying, respectively. After adjusting for gender and age, temporary employees (Odds Ratio [OR]: 2.45 [95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.03–5.85]), junior high school graduates (OR: 2.62 [95%CI: 1.01–6.79]), workers with lowest household income (OR: 4.13 [95%CI:1.58–10.8]), and workers in the lowest SSS stratum (OR: 4.21 [95%CI:1.66–10.7]) were at increased risk of experiencing workplace bullying. When all variables were entered simultaneously in the model, a significant inverse association was observed between higher SSS and experiencing bullying (p = 0.002). Similarly in terms of witnessing bullying; SSS was significantly inversely associated (p = 0.017) while temporary employees reported a significantly higher risk of witnessing bullying compared to permanent workers (OR: 2.25 [95%CI:1.04 to 4.87]). The significant association between SSS and experiencing/witnessing workplace bullying supports the frustration hypothesis. The power distance hypothesis was also partly supported by the finding that temporary employees experienced a higher prevalence of workplace bullying.
Highlights
Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as a serious public health issue in the workplace, due to both its high prevalence as well as its adverse impact on employee health [1]
The aim of the present study was to test whether: (1) characteristics related to workplace power distance, (2) organizational characteristics related to safety climate, and (3) social status (SSS) as an indicator of perceived social inequality or disadvantage, were related to the witnessing or personal experience of workplace bullying
About 30% of respondents worked at companies with fewer than 50 employees, while another 30% worked for in the civil service
Summary
Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as a serious public health issue in the workplace, due to both its high prevalence as well as its adverse impact on employee health [1]. The prevalence of workplace bullying has been reported to be as high as 15.7% on average in European countries, except Scandinavia [2]. Disadvantaged groups in the working population are at heightened risk of being victimized by workplace bullying. Workplace bullying is an expression of the power distance between the perpetrator and the victim [10,11]. Workplace bullying is expected to be more prevalent among occupations with lower authority (such as manual workers) compared to occupations with higher authority (such as managers and professionals). Previous studies reported a higher prevalence of workplace bullying among unskilled workers who tend to be located in the lowest rungs of organizational hierarchies; the prevalence has been reported to be lowest among managers or supervisors [12,13,14]. The results are not entirely consistent; the study by Hoel et al [15] reported that the prevalence of bullying was similar across all occupational status groups
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