Understanding the Impact of Bullying in a Unionized U.S. Public Sector Workforce

Abstract

Background: Workplace Bullying (WPB) can have a tremendous, negative impact on the victims and the organization as a whole. The purpose of this study was to examine individual and organizational impact associated with exposure to bullying in a large U.S. unionized public sector workforce. Methods: A cross-sectional Web-based survey was conducted among 16,492 U.S. state government workers. Survey domains included demographics, negative acts (NAs) and bullying, supportiveness of the organizational climate, and individual and organizational impacts of bullying. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the impact among respondents who reported exposure to bullying. Findings: A total of 72% participants responded to the survey (n = 11,874), with 43.7% (n = 5,181) reporting exposure to NAs and bullying. A total of 40% (n = 4,711) participants who experienced WPB reported individual impact(s) while 42% ( n = 4,969) reported organization impact(s). Regular NA was associated with high individual impact (negatively impacted them personally; odds ratio [OR] = 5.03) when controlling for other covariates including: female gender (OR =1.89) and job tenure of 6 to 10 years (OR = 1.95); working in a supportive organizational climate and membership in a supportive bargaining unit were protective of high impact (OR = 0.04 and OR = 0.59, respectively). High organizational impact (transferring to another position) was associated with regular NA and bullying (OR = 16.26), female gender (OR = 1.55), providing health care and field service (OR = 1.68), and protective effect of organizational climate (OR = 0.39). We found a dose-response relationship between bullying and both individual and organizational-level impact. Conclusion/Application to Practice: Understanding the impacts of WPB should serve to motivate more workplaces and unions to implement effective interventions to ameliorate the problem by enhancing the organizational climate, as well as management and employee training on the nature of WPB and guidance on reporting.

A Psychometric Study of a Spanish Version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised: Confirmatory Factor Analysis

“…All the aforementioned agrees with the existing literature underlining the link between harassment and the victim’s health ( Leymann and Gustafsson, 1996 ; Niedl, 1996 ; Matthiesen and Einarsen, 2001 , 2004 ; Mikkelsen and Einarsen, 2001 , 2002 ; Borrás, 2002 ; Einarsen and Mikkelsen, 2003 ; Hogh et al, 2011 ; El Ghaziri et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Based on the epidemiological data, workplace harassment highlights the devastating impact at both human and organizational levels (EUROFOUND, 2017;Rodríguez-Muñoz et al, 2017;Hogh et al, 2019;El Ghaziri et al, 2020). From the perspective of forensic psychology, this paper validates one of the main instruments to measure mobbing with practical and clear implications for the development of forensic psychology in the justice administration.…”

“…Mobbing is one of the main stress factors causing devastating consequences for the employees ( Moreno-Jiménez and Muñoz, 2006 ). The studies showed a correlation between exposure to mobbing and chronic fatigue; physical symptoms, psychosomatic, insomnia, and mental stress reactions ( Dofradottir and Høgh, 2002 ; Einarsen and Mikkelsen, 2003 ; Zapf et al, 2003 ; Moayed et al, 2006 ; El Ghaziri et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, relevant symptoms such as musculoskeletal complaints, anxiety, irritability, and depression were reported by victims in different European countries ( Einarsen and Skogstad, 1996 ; Niedl, 1996 ; Zapf et al, 1996 ; O’Moore et al, 1998 ).…”