Predicting and Preventing Supervisory Workplace Aggression

The authors examined factors that lead to and prevent aggression toward supervisors at work using two samples: doctoral students and correctional service guards. The results supported that perceived interpersonal injustice mediates the relationship between perceptions of supervisory control over work performance and psychological aggression directed at supervisors, and further that psychological aggression toward supervisors is positively associated with physical acts of aggression directed at supervisors, supporting the notion of an escalation of aggressive workplace behaviors. Moreover, employees ’ perceptions of organizational sanctions (i.e., negative conse-quences for disobeying organizational policies) against aggression appear to play an important role in the prevention of workplace aggression by moderating the relationship between injustice and aggression targeting supervisors. Over the past decade, a large body of research on workplace aggression has resulted in increased awareness of its frequency, severity, and relevance to organizational functioning (e.g., Barling, 1996; Leather, Beale, Lawrence, Brady, & Cox, 1999). In recent years researchers have focused a substantial amount of research attention on the various forms of aggression at work (e.g., Greenberg & Barling, 1999; LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002), and, in opposition to the impression typically fostered by the media, research shows that the most frequent acts are not overt, but less dramatic, psychologically aggressive act