The impacts of workplace bullying on organizational climate

This dissertation was conducted via a systematic review of evidence based research on the impacts of workplace bullying on organizational climate. Using a systematic review of scholarly literature (2003–2016), this dissertation synthesized and combined evidence on the impacts of workplace bullying on organizational climate with the aim of discovering implications for management. Evidence pointed to impacts to individuals within organizations and direct impacts to organizational climate. Findings indicated that workplace bullying was positively related to trickle-down/systemic workplace bullying, negative reciprocity, threats to health and wellness, stress and mental strain, errors and low productivity, workgroup deviance, low perception of psychological safety, psychotropic drug use, and intention to leave. Workplace bullying also was found to be negatively linked to organizational commitment, team cohesion and creativity, job satisfaction, organizational performance and citizenship behavior. The dissertation suggested that perceived organizational support (POS) and the inherent psychological contract were interventions in climates where workplace bullying existed, contributing significantly to workplace safety, employee commitment and employee engagement. These findings have significant implications for management practice.IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 0 THE IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE By Rosette Burakari Adera A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of University of Maryland University College in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Management 2016 Dissertation Committee: Kathleen F. Edwards, Ph.D. James P. Gelatt, Ph.D. IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 1 RESERVED FOR PROQUEST COVER SHEET IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 2 Acknowledgement To God be all the Glory and Praise This far I have come only by Your grace, mercy and favor. BARUCH HASHEM ADONAI Much gratitude to my dedicated advisor Dr. Kay Edwards, thank you for your perseverance, guidance and support; Dr. James Gelatt, thank you for that critical third pair of eyes. Heartfelt thanks to my husband Tony and my children Ishimwe and Baraka for steadying my hand. Thanks for helping me to keep my eyes on the ball. And to the prayer warriors, you know who you are – thanks for staying on your knees while I stayed up to study and write. And when all is said and done, now and always BARUCH HASHEM ADONAI IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 3 Abstract This dissertation was conducted via a systematic review of evidence based research on the impacts of workplace bullying on organizational climate. Using a systematic review of scholarly literature (2003-2016), this dissertation synthesized and combined evidence on the impacts of workplace bullying on organizational climate with the aim of discovering implications for management. Evidence pointed to impacts to individuals within organizations and direct impacts to organizational climate. Findings indicated that workplace bullying was positively related to trickle-down/systemic workplace bullying, negative reciprocity, threats to health and wellness, stress and mental strain, errors and low productivity, workgroup deviance, low perception of psychological safety, psychotropic drug use, and intention to leave. Workplace bullying also was found to be negatively linked to organizational commitment, team cohesion and creativity, job satisfaction, organizational performance and citizenship behavior. The dissertation suggested that perceived organizational support (POS) and the inherent psychological contract were interventions in climates where workplace bullying existed, contributing significantly to workplace safety, employee commitment and employee engagement. These findings have significant implications for management practice. Key words: Workplace bullying, perceived organizational support, psychological contract and Social Exchange Theory. IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 4 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1. Statement of purpose …………………………………………………………….......6 1.2. Prevalence and significance of the problem………………………………………....6 1.3. Importance to management…………………………………………………….........10 1.4. Key term definitions ..………………………………………………………….........11 1.5. Types of workplace bullying …………………………………………………..........15 1.6. Distinguishing workplace bullying from other forms of unwanted workplace actions……………….................................................................................15 1.7. Measuring workplace bullying ……………………………………………………....16 1.8. Focusing on organizational climate ………………………………………………….17 1.9. Research question; proposition ………………………………………………............18 1.10. Organization of the dissertation ………………………………………………...........18 1.11. Summary.…………………………………………………………………………......19 Chapter 2: Systematic Review of the Literature 2.1. Overview ………………………………………………………………………………20 2.2. Research question ……………………………………………………………...............20 2.3. Emerging themes ……………………………………………………………................20 2.4. Negative impacts by leadership (abusive supervision) on organizational climate…......21 2.5. Impacts of workplace bullying on perceptions of psychological safety and organizational justice ………………………………………………………………….71 2.6. Impacts of workplace bullying on employee wellness and productivity……………...108 2.7. Impacts of workplace bullying on organizational commitment ………………………131 2.8. Theoretical framework…………………………………………………………………152 2.9. Summary of theoretical framework…………………………………………................154 2.10. Themes as they emerged from the literature……………………………………….......155 2.11. Summary of Chapter 2……………………………………………………....................156 Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework 3.1. Introduction to Chapter 3………………………………………………………………157 3.2. Organization of Chapter 3 ………………………………………………......................157 3.3. Research question, preposition and the themes that emerged from the SR…................158 3.4. Impacts of workplace on org. climate as viewed through SET, POS, and PC…………158 3.5. Conceptual framework for this dissertation……………………………………………162 3.6. Summary of Chapter 3 ………………………………………………….......................165 Chapter 4: Methodology 4.1. Evidence Based Research and Evidence Based Management……................................167 4.2. Discussion of evidence …….. ……………………………………………....................175 4.3. The use of an expert panel…….………………………………………………..............179 4.4. Summary of Chapter 4 ………..……………………………………………..................179 IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 5 Chapter 5: Analysis and Discussion 5.1. Presentation and summary of findings resulting from the literature review………...181 5.2. Research Question; Proposition in light of findings ……………………………...185 5.3. Research conclusions ……………………………………………………….............187 5.4. Consideration of other points of view not included in the systematic review………188 5.5. Summary of Chapter 5………………………………………………..……………..151 Chapter 6: Conclusions, Implications and Trends 6.1. Overall conclusions………………………………………………………….............192 6.2 Implications for effective management ……………………………………………..193 6.3. Implications of emerging trends…………………………………………………......196 6.4. Limitations of the dissertation ……………………………………………................197 6.5. Suggestions for future research………………………………………………..……..198 6.6. Summary of Chapter 6 …………………………………............................................200 6.7. Summary of dissertation ……………………………………………….....................200 Figures Figure 1: Theoretical Framework…….……………………………………………………...152 Figure 2: Conceptual Framework …………………………………………………...............162 Figure 3: Stages of Thematic Synthesis……………………………………………………...171 Figure 4: PRISMA …………………………………………………………………………..174 Figure 5: Search Results ……………………………………………………………..............175 Figure 6: Workplace Bullying Outcomes…………………………………………………….185 Tables Table 1: PRISMA Statement ...……………………………………………………………….178 Table 2: Summary of Outcomes of 32 Studies Included in the Systematic Review………….183 References ………….………………………………………………………………..............203 Appendices …………………………………………………………………………..............208 Appendix A…LIPT …………………………………………………………………………..230 Appendix B…NAQ …………………………………………………………………………..232 Appendix C…NAQ-R ………………………………………………………………………..233 Appendix D…Bruce & Scott’s Measure of Creative Behavior ……………………………...234 Appendix E…POS (creative behavior)……………………………………………………….235 Appendix F…Stakeholder Panel Biographies ………………………………………………..236 Appendix G…Summary of Quantitative Data from Systematic Review Arranged by theme ………………………………………………………………………….239 IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 6 Chapter 1 1.1. Statement of purpose The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the impacts of workplace bullying on workplace climate. The multidisciplinary attention in the scholarly literature to workplace bullying and its related impacts in the workplace spoke both to its pervasiveness and potential for harm to individuals’ psychological safety, to their overall health and wellness, and to their perceptions of fairness and justice in the workplace, all having implications for organizational commitment, employee productivity and organizational performance. Supported by concepts from the Social Exchange Theory, Perceived Organizational Theory and the Psychological Contract Theory, a systematic review of the literature, through evidence based research from 2003 through 2016, was conducted for this dissertation. 1.2. Prevalence and significance of the problem Workplace bullying can be defined as “repeated and persistent negative acts toward one or more individual(s), which involve a perceived power imbalance and create a hostile work environment” (Lavan & Martin, 2008, p. 148). As of June, 2016, the Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) website stated that 37% of American workers (an estimated 53.5 million individuals) reported having been bullied at work and that an additional 12% had witnessed bullying of co-workers. This bill defined a healthy workplace in contrast to an abusive work environment and held the employer accountable for addressing employee concerns related to abusive work environments. The website also stated that twenty-nine states had given serious consideration to the bill and that a growing number of countries, including Sweden, France, the United Kingdom IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 7 (UK) and Canada, already had legislation that addressed workplace bullying. A growing number of websites such as www.workplacebullying.org, www.stopworkplacebullies,wordpace.com and ReachOut.com (accessed June 28, 2016) listed harmful impacts of workplace bullying and called the public to action against the behavior. As will be seen in this dissertation’s systematic review of the literature, covering 2003-2016, workplace bullying had implications for psychological safety, health, productivity and organizational commitment by employees. It impacted organizational climate and overall performance. Research on mitigating the effects of workplace bullying pointed to legal and policy intervention (Namie, 2003; Carbo, 2009; Yamada, 2009). Many of the arguments for legal and policy interventions were based on lessons learned from existing laws that addressed similar and other forms of unethical workplace conduct, such as sexual harassment (Title IX of the Civil Rights Act), discrimination based on a protected class (such as race, sex and ethnicity) (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act), and various state policies against the intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) (Carbo, 2009; Yamada, 2009). According to Keashly and Neuman (2010), as well as to Carbo and Hughes, (2010), European studies showed that an average of 16% percent of the people in the workforce in the UK, as well as Scandinavian countries, reported that they had experienced workplace bullying at least weekly. Many of these studies were of employees from diverse industries, with no data analysis by industry. Surveys from the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) had estimated that as many as 53.5 million workers or 27% of the U.S. workforce reported that they had been bullied at work (based on a 2014 survey). The WBI website also reported that according to a national survey, in the U.S., workplace bullying was four times more prevalent than unlawful forms of IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 8 workplace harassment, such as sexual harassment or discrimination based on a protected class such as race, disability, or age. Other national, and some international, studies reviewed for this dissertation reflected similar statistics (Bandow & Hunter, 2007; Harvey, Treadway, Heames & Duke, 2009). Bandow and Hunter (2007), for example, cited studies that reported 20% of employees having had first-hand experience with workplace bullying, in the form of verbal abuse from managers, as well as employees’ perceptions of violations of justice/fairness workplace policies. A growing body of literature was found to link workplace bullying with serious and negative impacts on employee perceptions of workplace climate. Examples of such negative impacts to workplace climate were characterized as ‘antagonistic behaviors in the workplace (Yildirim, 2009), ‘vicarious bullying’ (Hollis, 2012), and the presence of ‘corporate psychopaths’ (Boddy, 2011; 2014). These cited studies are included in the systematic review of the literature presented in the second chapter of this dissertation. While this dissertation focused on the consequences of workplace bullying on organizational climate, studies also had shown that these impacts were observable in other areas of employees’ organizational experiences, such as individual employees’ creativity, innovation, and performance, as well as on employees’ perceptions of those experiences. Examples of studies in business research (Liu, Liao & Loi, 2012; Priesemuth, Schminke, Ambrose, & Folger, 2014), managerial research (Nielsen, 2013), business ethics (Lavan & Martin, 2008) and managerial psychology (Morten, Glasö, Stig, Eid, & Einarsen, 2013) either followed or were contemporaneous with similar research in the fields of public health and occupational health on the subjects of workplace bullying, and its influence on employee wellness and productivity. IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 9 A recent American study (Indvik & Johnson, 2012) suggested that workplace interpersonal conflicts, which included workplace bullying, were estimated to cost up to forty-three billion dollars ($43B) a year in paid sick leave, hiring and on-boarding processes due to high turnover rates and, in some cases, compensation due to reported psychological injury. More recent data in one industry, higher education, provided by Hollis (2015) showed the estimated cost of workplace bullying. In her studies with university staff and faculty at small, medium and large institutions (public and private), Hollis (2015) calculated an hourly rate of $35.22 and on average a reported mean of 3.9 hours/week in negative interactions with a bully. Hollis’ studies also indicated a 62% exposure to workplace bullying in higher education (targets, bullies and witnesses). When Hollis multiplied the number of persons bullied by the number of hours missed per week and used an estimated hourly rate for 50 weeks of a university work year, she estimated an approximate loss per year due to workplace bullying of US$4,684,999 for a medium sized college (1100 staff). Related studies also had linked workplace bullying and its impact on organizational climate, with reduced job performance and employee productivity (Lutgen-Sandvik, Tracy & Alberts, 2007; Linnan et al., 2008; Yildirim, 2009; Tsuno, Kawakami, Inoe, & Abe, 2010). Berry, Gillespie, Gates and Schafer (2012) found a significant link between workplace bullying and a reduced ability to carry one’s workload, while Simons and Mawn (2010) reported that bullying of newly licensed nurses resulted in errors that put patient care in jeopardy. Owoyemi (2011) found reduced performance and lowered commitment to the organization among para-military personnel who reported having experienced workplace bullying; and Yildirim, Yildirim & Timucin (2007) found that 38.4% of the respondents in one Turkish study reported difficulty concentrating on the job as a result of behaviors seen as harassment from IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 10 managers and other colleagues. These behaviors were characterized by the study respondents as workplace bullying. Other studies had estimated that the costs to organizations in employee productivity, absenteeism, and turnover attributed to workplace bullying ranged from $17,000-$24,000 per case (Ghosh, Jacobs, & Reio, 2011; Hollis, 2012). In Europe, mental illness related to workplace bullying was said to cost 1.3 billion Euros every year (Yeung & Griffin, 2008, cited by Ghosh et al. 2011, p.5) and one United Kingdom study of 5000 employees uncovered one million workdays lost in one year attributed to workplace bullying and bully avoidance (Keelan, 2000, as cited by Hollis, 2012). As is discussed in more detail in the second chapter of this dissertation, an employee’s colleagues, managers and subordinates could engage in harmful behavior that could be characterized as workplace bullying (Hollis, 2012). 1.3. Importance to management Workplace bullying had implications for organizational performance and productivity (Estes & Wang, 2008). In an environment of tight budgets, managers were expected to optimize their resources for maximum productivity. Workplace bullying could negatively affect existing positive individual and organizational behaviors and, as such, could challenge effective managers to prevent and appropriately respond to workplace bullying. A principle of management suggested that “responsive and accommodative” managers were expected to utilize the resources in their custody while also caring for the welfare of all stakeholders, including employees in their charge (Jones & George, 2011). The literature on workplace bullying, by contrast, suggested that some abusive managers elected to behave unethically by not nurturing the wellbeing of their employees, not heeding the ethical code of the organization and concealing employees’ concerns when they were raised to IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 11 their attention. The literature also revealed that abusive supervision was contrasted with the behavior of ethical managers, who were seen as effective in leading by example and by investing in and inspiring the ethical behavior of employees. These role-modeling and inspirational characteristics of ethical management were further linked to higher employee commitment to the organization, higher productivity and lower turnover (Al-Hussami, 2009; Obiwuru, Okwu, Akpa & Nwankere, 2011). Given that it was found to be of concern to management, both scholars and practitioners, that workplace bullying affected employee commitment, performance or productivity and levels of turnover, a link between workplace bullying and effective management was posited. Managers’ functions were determined by their ability to plan (choose appropriate goals), organize (match work teams to tasks), control (monitor and measure performance) and lead (determine direction by example, persuasion, vision and communication) (Jones & George, 2011). As identified in the systematic review of the literature conducted for this dissertation, a supportive work environment was sensitive to threats to task performance, team cohesion, employee commitment and work climate. Behavior that influenced managers’ capacity to be effective, by positively influencing job satisfaction, job involvement (positive affect between an employee and his/her job), employee engagement (positive affect between employees and the organization) and overall organizational commitment, were identified as integral components of effective management (Fox & Stallworth, 2006; Lavan & Martin, 2008). Workplace bullying was suggested to negatively impact positive individual and organizational behaviors, challenging effective managers to prevent or respond to workplace bullying. 1.4. Key term definitions IMPACTS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING ON ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE 12 A hostile work environment: is evidenced, as per the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, by: “…name calling, threats, intimidation, ridicule, or mockery, insults or putdowns and interference with work performance.” The same source further stated that a hostile work environment was characterized by “unwelcome comments or conduct that is severe and pervasive enough that a reasonable person would consider it intimidating, hostile or abusive” (www.eeoc.gov). Manager: is a person tasked with the role of supporting “the work efforts of others” (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn & Uhl-Bien. 2010). In some of the literature examined for this dissertation, the terms ‘manager’ and ‘leader’ were used and differentiated, depending on the evidence provided through the systematic review of the literature. Effective manager: is “one whose team or work unit…consistently achieves its performance goals while members remain capable, enthusiastic, and satisfied with their jobs” (Schermerhorn et al., 2010, p.14). Organizational (work) climate: is, as defined by Schneider and Reichers (1983), a group of collective perceptions of the behaviors, policies and procedures that speak to the sense of justice, ethics and safety of a workplace. This definition was further supported by Litwin (2001), cited in Ali