When the Going Gets Tough and the Environment Is Rough: The Role of Departmental Level Hostile Work Climate in the Relationships between Job Stressors and Workplace Bullying

Lena Zahlquist (), Jørn Hetland, Guy Notelaers, Michael Rosander and Ståle Valvatne Einarsen
Additional contact information
Lena Zahlquist: BI Norwegian Business School, Kong, Chr. Frederiks gate 5, 5006 Bergen, Norway
Jørn Hetland: BI Norwegian Business School, Kong, Chr. Frederiks gate 5, 5006 Bergen, Norway
Guy Notelaers: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Christiesgate 12, 5020 Bergen, Norway
Michael Rosander: Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Ståle Valvatne Einarsen: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Christiesgate 12, 5020 Bergen, Norway

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: In line with the work environment hypothesis, the present study investigates whether department-level perceptions of hostile work climate moderate the relationship between psychosocial predictors of workplace bullying (i.e., role conflicts and workload) and exposure to bullying behaviours in the workplace. The data were collected among all employees in a Belgian university and constitutes of 1354 employees across 134 departments. As hypothesized, analyses showed positive main effects of role conflict and workload on exposure to bullying behaviours. In addition, the hypothesized strengthening effect of department-level hostile work climate on the relationship between individual-level job demands and individual exposure to bullying behaviours was significant for role conflict. Specifically, the positive relationship between role conflict and exposure to bullying behaviours was stronger among employees working in departments characterized by a pronounced hostile work climate. In contrast to our predictions, a positive relationship existed between workload and exposure to bullying behaviours, yet only among individuals in departments with low hostile work climate. These findings contribute to the bullying research field by showing that hostile work climate may strengthen the impact of role stress on bullying behaviours, most likely by posing as an additional distal stressor, which may fuel a bullying process. These findings have important theoretical as well as applied implications.

Keywords: role conflict; workload; hostile work climate; workplace bullying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4464/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4464/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:5:p:4464-:d:1085753

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().