Workplace bullying and job burnout

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of workplace bullying on job burnout of employees and investigate the mediating role of hardiness in the relationship and the extent to which the mediation is moderated by emotional intelligence. Design/methodology/approach The present data were collected from 350 employees working in varied companies in the ITES-BPO sectors of Delhi NCR of India. The study used stratified sampling method for good coverage from different departments of the organizations. The present data were collected in two stages following the suggestion given by Podsakoff et al. (2003) so as to minimize common method bias. Findings The findings suggest that workplace bullying is positively related to job burnout, and workplace bullying is negatively associated with hardiness. Hardiness was also found to be negatively associated with job burnout. It has also been found that workplace bullying is associated with job burnout through hardiness, and emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between hardiness and job burnout. The results also indicate that the indirect effect of workplace bullying on job burnout via hardiness is conditional on emotional intelligence. Research limitations/implications As the present study pertains to only one part of India, i.e. Delhi NCR of India, the results cannot be generalized. Future research can take a larger sample for the same. The demographic variables’ effect was out of the scope of this study. If demographics were taken into consideration, it might have resulted in interesting results. Moreover, the employees who were physically present at the time of data collection were asked to respond in a given time frame. One might argue that employees were not given enough time to respond. Future work can also incorporate other sectors so as to do a comparative study between sectors. Practical implications Based on the study results, it may be suggested that managers may do well to devise strategies for coping with the phenomenon of workplace bullying and job burnout in employees, to provide a healthy work environment with better employee morale and enhanced productivity. Social implications The findings of the study have implications for organizations in the service sector, particularly the BPO-ITES sector examined in the study. This being a customer-focused industry expects employees to ensure meeting deadlines and enhanced customer satisfaction; therefore, it would be worthwhile for managers to help employees in dealing with job stressors in their work environment. It would be useful to raise awareness about workplace bullying and encourage employees to report such incidents while assuring the complete support of the management. Originality/value While a review of extant literature indicates that emotional intelligence may lead to a reduction in job burnout of employees, yet, emotional intelligence has not been used previously as a moderator in mitigating the influence of workplace bullying and job burnout. Moreover, the role of hardiness as a mediator in the above-mentioned relationships has not been addressed in previous studies.

Investigating the Relationship between Work-To-Family Conflict, Job Burnout, Job Outcomes, and Affective Commitment in the Construction Industry

“…This inhibits their ability to meet the needs of the latter role [ 24 ]. If employees do not have sufficient resources to meet the needs of the work domain and the family domain, they will face the problem of WFC [ 23 ]. Therefore, when employees have a high workload and high work intensity, they will invest a lot of time and energy in their work, and have few resources to take care of their family members [ 26 ].…”

“…Job burnout stems from long-term work pressure [ 5 ]. It includes emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and low professional effectiveness [ 23 ]. Specifically, emotional exhaustion is reflected in a lack of vitality caused by the exhaustion of emotional resources.…”

“…Low professional effectiveness is reflected in negative work evaluations and dissatisfaction with work results. Previous research has indicated that job burnout relates to negative personal-related and organizational-related outcomes, such as psychological and physical health issues [ 23 , 24 ], as well as decreased organizational efficiency and high employee turnover [ 8 , 10 ]. In addition, job burnout is “contagious” and can be transmitted to other employees [ 1 ].…”

“…The measurement items used to measure WFC were designed with reference to the relevant literature (Cao et al [ 1 ]; Liu et al [ 9 ]; Bowen and Zhang [ 22 ]). The items applied to measure job burnout were designed according to previous studies (Lingard et al [ 5 ]; Enshassi et al [ 7 ]; Srivastava and Dey [ 23 ]). The items used to measure affective commitment were designed with reference to the relevant literature (Kaur and Mittal [ 12 ]; Ribeiro et al [ 26 ]; Odoardi et al [ 27 ]).…”

Identification of interventions to improve employee morale in physically demanding, repetitive motion work tasks: A pilot case study

“…Fear should not be used as a motivator as this type of motivation is only temporary (Makawatsakul & Kleiner, 2003). Employees will soon rebel and leave their job or cause problems within the work environment if managers use fear as the primary means of motivation (Fatima & Bashir, 2017;Srivastava & Dey, 2020). Instead, managers could work side-by-side with employees if a higher-intensity situation demands extra staff during a workday (such as holiday and peak season product demands).…”