Examining the Relationship Between Personality Traits and Exposure to Workplace Bullying

Abstract

Workplace bullying is a common and constantly occurring phenomenon in organizations. Various factors render a workplace conducive to the occurrence of bullying-like features of the work environment and personality traits of the employees. While work environment features are well-established antecedents of workplace bullying, much of the research on personality traits as antecedents of bullying remains inconclusive. Drawing on the victim precipitation theory and the Big Five personality taxonomy, the present study aims to examine the relationship between four personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience) and exposure to workplace bullying. We have excluded neuroticism, as it is a well-established antecedent of workplace bullying, whereas literature suggests mixed findings on the relationships between the remaining four personality traits and workplace bullying. A total of 835 full-time Indian managers working across different Indian organizations served as the sample for our study. The results suggest that conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience negatively correlate with workplace bullying. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed in this article.

Investigating Personality Traits as the Antecedents of Workplace Bullying

“…The workpalce bullying occurs when workplace environment has narcissist employees (Hauge et al, 2011) who have anger issues, vengeance and anxiety (Hershcovis et al, 2007), desire for vengeance (Ferris et al, 2011), and inferiority complex (Ferris, Spence, Brown, & Heller, 2012). Sometimes perpetrator and the targets had similar personality traits (Vie, Glasø, & Einarsen, 2010) but sometimes they differ significantly (Pallesen et al, 2017;Rai & Agarwal, 2019). Hence, this study has discussed the conversation in the context of personality traits of bullies.…”

“…However, there are three major sources of antecedents of workplace bullying incidence which include bully, victim, and work environment (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). The most common antecedents of workplace bullying include contextual factors (Hershcovis et al, 2007), situational factors (Einarsen& Nielsen, 2015), personality traits (Clark et al, 2015;Rai & Agarwal, 2019). Major situational and contextual antecedents of workplace bullying include organizational injustice (Hershcovis et al, 2007), little job autonomy and job insecurity (Baillien, De Cuyper, & De Witte, 2011), job monotony and workplace boredom (Bruursema, Kessler, & Spector, 2011), autocratic leadership style (Valentine, Fleischman, & Godkin, 2015), weak working relations (Francioli et al, 2016), and weak organizational culture (Kwan et al, 2016).…”

“…Most of the previous studies have used five-factor model of personality (FFM) while exploring personality as a potential antecedent of workplace bullying (Nielsen et al, 217;Rai & Agarwal, 2019). The mechanisms of workplae bullying, being negative acts, can be explained with the explanation of five personality traits of extraversion, agreeblness, conscientiousness, emotional statbility and openness to experience (Nielsen & Knardahl, 2015).…”

“…There is also a need to explore and refine relationship between workplace bullying and personality (Clark, Barbosa-Leiker, Gill, & Nguyen, 2015;Linton& Power, 2013;Nielsen, Hetland, Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2012) due to the existing contradiction upon the nature of association between personality and workplace bullying (Nielsen, Glasø, & Einarsen, 2017). Rai and Agarwal (2019) examined personality as an antecedent of bullying and recommended to further investigate the phenomenon by arriving at a more authentic conclusion. These calls to explore personality traits of parties involved in bullying, associating personality traits with bullying, and establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between personality and workplace bullying for developing theoretical models (Zapf & Einarsen, 2003)and applied purposes (Nielsen et al, 2017;Pallesen, Nielsen, Magerøy, Andreassen, & Einarsen, 2017)necessitate further research in this avenue.…”

“…openness to experience was not significantly associated with workplace harassment. Moreover, Rai and Agarwal (2019) argued that scholars needed to probe personality traits as antecedents of bullying as it remained an inconclusive matter. These calls require further studies for testifying and validating such associations.…”