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Competition and Workplace Bullying. The moderating role of passive avoidant leadership style.
Sischka, Philipp; Steffgen, Georges
201811th International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment: Better Understanding of Workplace Bullying and Harassment in a Changing World
 

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Keywords :
Workplace bullying; Risk factors; Competition; Passive avoidant leadership
Abstract :
[en] It has been argued that an organizational climate that is characterized by competition and envy may increase workplace bullying (Salin, 2003, 2015; Vartia, 1996). Employees may be tempted to gain a relative advantage over their colleagues by setting them under pressure, isolating them, undermining or sabotaging their work (Kohn, 1992; Ng, 2017, Salin, 2003), in sum trying to bully them. This should be especially true, when supervisor exhibit a passive avoidant leadership style that is when supervisor are physically in post but fail to carry out their duties (Hoel, Glasø, Hetland, Cooper, & Einarsen, 2010). Therefore, the aim of our study was to test if competition is a potential risk factor for workplace bullying and if this association depends on the level of passive avoidant leadership style. We proposed that competition and passive avoidant leadership style are positive related to workplace bullying victimization and perpetration. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the effect of competition on workplace bullying victimization and perpetration is moderated through passive avoidant leadership style. Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to recruited employees. We followed recent recommendations using MTurk as participant recruiting system (Keith et al., 2017), e.g., prescreening for desired target population, fair payment (i.e. US$0.10 per estimated minute of participation; Chandler & Shapiro, 2016) and data screening methods for insufficient effort responding (McGonagle, Huang, & Walsh, 2016). The final sample consists of 1,411 respondents (56.6% females, n = 798). Respondents age ranged from 20 to 73 (M = 37.3; SD = 10.4). As the self-labelling method and the behavioral method to assess workplace bullying both have its shortcomings (Nielsen, Notelaers, & Einarsen, 2011), both approaches were used. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that competition and passive avoidant leadership style are important predictor for workplace bullying victimization and perpetration. Furthermore, the results indicated that the effect of competition on workplace bullying victimization (measured via behavioral method) and self-labelled workplace bullying victimization and perpetration is moderated through passive avoidant leadership style. However, for workplace bullying perpetration (measured via behavioral method) no moderation effect was found. These findings have important implications for employers that seek to end workplace bullying in their organization. The present study contributes to the workplace bullying literature in at least two ways. First, while recent research has focused on the main effects of competition (e.g., Salin, 2003) and passive avoidant leadership (e.g., Skogstad et al., 2007) on workplace bullying, the present study sheds light on the moderation effect of passive avoidant leadership style on the effect of competition on workplace bullying. Second, not only workplace bullying victimization but also perpetration is considered, that is still an under-researched topic.
Disciplines :
Social, industrial & organizational psychology
Author, co-author :
Sischka, Philipp ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Integrative Research Unit: Social and Individual Development (INSIDE)
Steffgen, Georges ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Integrative Research Unit: Social and Individual Development (INSIDE)
External co-authors :
no
Language :
English
Title :
Competition and Workplace Bullying. The moderating role of passive avoidant leadership style.
Publication date :
06 June 2018
Event name :
11th International Conference on Workplace Bullying and Harassment: Better Understanding of Workplace Bullying and Harassment in a Changing World
Event organizer :
International Association on Workplace Bullying and Harassment; University of Bordeaux
Event place :
Bordeaux, France
Event date :
05-06-2018 to 08-06-2018
Audience :
International
References of the abstract :
https://bullying2018.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/8
Available on ORBilu :
since 26 July 2018

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