ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A Comparative Study of Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe Antonio Ariza-Montes, PhD, Antonio L. Leal-Rodr´ıguez, PhD, and Antonio G. Leal-Mill´an, PhD
Objectives: Workplace bullying emerges from a set of individual, organizational, and contextual factors. The purpose of this article is hence to identify the influence of these factors among public and private employees. Methods: The study is carried out as a statistical–empirical cross-sectional study. The database used was obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey 2010. Results: The results reveal a common core with respect to the factors that determine workplace bullying. Despite this common base that integrates both models, the distinctive features of the harassed employee within the public sector deal with age, full-time work, the greater nighttime associated with certain public service professions, and a lower level of motivation. Conclusions: The present work summarizes a set of implications and proposes that, under normal conditions, workplace bullying could be reduced if job demands are limited and job resources are increased.
W
orkplace bullying is a serious, often unrecognized workplace issue with important psychological, social, and organizational costs. This phenomenon provokes dysfunctional effects both on individuals and organizations such as managerial costs, turnover, and productivity decrease.1 This assertion becomes even more significant for those organizations that are mainly composed by employees who provide particular assistance to citizens in a close and direct way. Given the negative consequences of workplace bullying on the employees’ mental health and well-being and, hence, on organizational performance, it is vital to understand the antecedent variables of this phenomenon.2 Research on workplace bullying has evolved toward a multicausal understanding. In this respect,3 identified five core areas are as follows: individuals; social interaction; group dynamics; work environment; and organizational, societal, and political levels. Nevertheless, the literature agrees that workplace bullying occurs as a result of the interactions among individual, organizational, and contextual factors.4 The individual antecedents of workplace bullying are a controversial topic because it is unlikely that all workers respond equally to aggression experiences. Several individual variables may affect the way an employee perceives aggressions from others in the workplace.5 Studies addressing this topic still show inconclusive results.6 In this vein, most of the researchers believe that there does not exist a personal predisposition for playing the role of victim or bully.7,8 Nonetheless, some studies have attempted to identify a selection of individual factors (eg, sex, age, and seniority) that may From the Department of Business Management (Dr Ariza-Montes), Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, C´ordoba; Department of Business Management (Dr Leal-Rodr´ıguez), Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, Sevilla; and Department of Business Management and Marketing (Dr Leal-Mill´an), Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. Dr Ariza-Montes is supported by the Department of Business Management, Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, Spain. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Address correspondence to: Antonio Ariza-Montes, PhD, Department of Business Management, Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, C/Escritor Castilla Aguayo, 4, 14004 C´ordoba Spain ([email protected]). C 2015 by American College of Occupational and Environmental Copyright Medicine DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000437
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increase the risk of becoming a victim or bully.7 In this sense, certain groups are considered more vulnerable than others (eg, women or junior employees). On the other hand, a set of organizational factors is also essential to understand workplace bullying.4 Although early studies mainly focused on the psychological characteristics of bullies and their victims, several scholars have more seriously pondered the impact that organizational working characteristics exert on people. Therefore, although it is considered that certain elements of the organizational design can act as harassment barriers as well as drivers (eg, job stability, job position characteristics, and human resources practices), there is no consensus regarding which are the most relevant, or even if they are significantly related to workplace bullying in diverse settings. In addition to the above-mentioned factors, bullying may also occur as a result of several factors inherent to the context in which the organization operates. Some of the contextual variables highlighted by the literature are the sector/industry, firm size, public/private ownership, etc.3,9 There is still an open debate concerning the prevalence of bullying within the private versus public sector. In this vein, although the number of studies focused on the assessment of bullying in the public sector is still scarce, there are some that argue the incidence of bullying in these kinds of organizations should be lower than in private firms.10 This might be explained by the special status of the public sector employees. On the other hand, some studies suggest that bullying might be more prevalent within the public sector because of the higher levels of bureaucracy, the existence of very strict norms, and an excessive job security, which may generate environments amenable to the occurrence of bullying.9,11-13 In consequence such settings make bullies invisible and victims less likely to resign.13 Given the existence of inconclusive results concerning this issue, there is a gap in the bullying literature involving which are the most influential antecedents of workplace bullying and whether it is more prevalent in the private or public sector. Thus, the main contribution of this article deals with extending the understanding of the factors that trigger workplace bullying, as it concerns to workplace health management. Thus, the main objective of this research is to identify, among public and private employees, the determinants of workplace bullying that emerge from individual, organizational, and contextual factors. For the purpose of the present work, we develop a comprehensive and exploratory workplace bullying conceptual model that links these three sets of factors with the prevalence of workplace bullying within the public and private sectors in the European context (Fig. 1). Therefore, the Methods section comprises the delimitation of the variables that act as antecedents of workplace bullying, as well as the description of the methodology followed in this study. The Results section encompasses the most relevant empirical results obtained through a logistic regression analysis. Finally, the last section contains the discussion, implications, and limitations of the article.
METHODS There are two main reasons to suggest that the models of workplace bullying within the public and private sectors may be different. First, this is because the motivations of both groups may be different. One of the most commonly identified normative 695
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cause of the dynamic interactions of variables linked to the working environment and individual factors. Taking into account prior studies on bullying at the workplace, this study comprises three sets of independent variables grouped into three categories: individual factors, organizational factors, and contextual factors. The codes and classification of such variables appear in Table 2.
TABLE 1. Demographic Data FIGURE 1. Conceptual model. foundations for public employment is a desire to serve the public interest. To many public employees, public service signifies much more than one’s locus of employment. To many of them it has more to do with an attitude, a sense of duty, even a different ethic and morality. To summarize, a variety of rational, norm-based, and affective motives seem to be primarily associated with public service.14 Second, this is because the organizational context is different in both cases. In this vein, some scholars assume that there are significant differences with regard to the job reward characteristics between public and private sectors. The rewards associated with the public sector include job security, pension systems, lower tension between family and work obligations, and overall perceived quality of life.15 Other researchers think in turn that the public sector remains characterized by a high degree of regulation, traditional bureaucratic structures, job security, and low mobility. Despite all the efforts to ease the public sector management, the truth is that public employees are still caught in a regulatory maze, in a confusion of regulations, inflexible structures, policies, and procedures that limit their ability to act. The differences are not only in organizational structures but also in a variety of human resource management practices. All these divergences between the public and private sectors may be significant within the assessment of bullying in the workplace. At this point, it becomes necessary to delimit the concept of workplace bullying. Although previous definitions have shown a propensity to combine the persistence and duration of bullying into the same key construct, this article posits that workplace bullying involves a strong psychological component in its materialization. Perceptions are central to and are part of complex processes of bullying at organizational and individual levels, and such perceptions may vary across contexts, individuals, and organizations.16 How problems are perceived may directly impact on the social resources available to targets of bullying, and in turn on how they make sense of their experiences.17 The data set utilized for this research was obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey, conducted in 2010 by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. This survey provides insight about the working environment and employment conditions of the 27 European Union Member States. This was a multistage investigation using a stratified random sample. More than 43,000 interviews were collected in 2010. Table 1 contains the main demographic data. The dependent variable for this analysis is workplace bullying. Respondents were asked to answer the following question on the basis of their individual experience: Over the past 12 months, during the course of your work, have you been subjected to bullying/ harassment? (0: no; 1: yes). We are aware that such dichotomy (yes/no) on the measurement of workplace bullying is not the most suitable, as it does not allow sensing the grade or level of perceived bullying. Nevertheless, we have relied on secondary data to develop this study, given the difficulties to find primary data. Workplace bullying is considered to be a complex phenomenon that arises be696
Demographics
Public Sector
Private Sector
Sample size, n Not bullied, n (%) Bullied, n (%) Prevalence of WB, % Male, % Female, % Average age, yrs University studies, %
1273 647 (50.8) 626 (49.2) 5.6 42.8 57.2 41.5 51.0
2193 1127 (51.4) 1066 (48.6) 3.7 57.5 42.5 41.3 32.1
WB, workplace bullying.
TABLE 2. Explanatory Antecedents of Workplace Bullying Explanatory Antecedents Individual factors
Organizational factors
Contextual factors
Factors Sex (0: male; 1: female) Age (0: 15–24; 1: 25–39; 2: 40–54; 3: ≥55) Level of education (0: university; 1: secondary; 2: elementary) Marital status (0: partnered; 1: single) With children at home (0: yes; 1: no) Length of service (0: >10 yrs; 1: 5–10 yrs; 2: 1–5 yrs; 3: up to 1 yr) Type of contract (0: permanent contract; 1: temporary contract) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Work at night (0: no; 1: yes) Work on Sundays (0: no; 1: yes) Working day (0: full-time; 1: part-time) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Monotonous tasks (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Rotating tasks (0: no; 1: yes) Teamwork (0: no; 1: yes) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Responsibility (0: executive; 1: nonexecutive) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Likely to be dismissed (0: no; 1: yes) Expectation of career growth (0: yes; 1: no) Motivation (0: yes; 1: no) Sector/industry (0: agriculture; 1: industry; 2: construction; 3: services) Size (0: microenterprise; 1: small enterprise; 2: medium-to-large enterprise)
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Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe
The methodology used to accomplish the objectives was based on a binary logistic regression model, a specific type of regression model intended for dichotomous variables. This statistical technique is used to determine the probability that an event will happen (workplace bullying, in this case) compared with the probability that it will not.
RESULTS Table 3 shows the results for the estimations calculated through logistic regression that were derived from the factors determining the level of workplace bullying within public employees. The statistical tests applied to assess the validity of the model (Hosmer-Lemeshow analysis; chi-square test: 326.74; significance 0.000) largely suggest enough basis to acknowledge its validity; that is, they affirmed that the set of job-related variables considered for the general model of this research may potentially explain in a satisfactory manner whether a public sector employee is prone to experiencing bullying at work. We should also highlight that the chosen variables allow the model to be generalized, indicating its possible utility for predictive purposes. The logistic regression model integrates individual, organizational, and contextual factors, and estimates that the likelihood of workplace bullying is 74.6% (75.5% for bullied workers and 73.7% for nonbullied ones). The individual, organizational, and contextual variables seemed reliable for predicting the development of certain attitudes, such as workplace bullying. Each of these significant factors that measure the probability of workplace bullying has a different degree of impact, as indicated by the analysis of the confidence intervals (CIs) obtained in the corresponding odds ratios (see Table 3). Accordingly, the best predictors of workplace bullying among public employees are working condition satisfaction (odds ratio [OR], 3.046; CI, 1.933 to 4.800), shiftwork (OR, 2.462; CI, 1.536 to 3.948), motivation (OR, 2.141; CI, 1.517 to 3.022), work stress (OR, 2.405; CI, 1.604 to 3.605), flexibility in work methods (OR, 1.927; CI, 1.318 to 2.816), and sex (OR, 1.806; CI, 1.276 to 2.556). The logistic regression model for the employees who work for private companies is presented in Table 4. The validity of the model is again demonstrated by means of the application of the Hosmer-Lemeshow test (chi-square test: 436.89; significance 0.000). The combination of variables that configure the final model
correctly classifies the 73.9% of the workers belonging to the private sector (72.0% for bullied workers and 76.0% for nonbullied ones). Once again, in the configuration of the model for the private sector, there appear individual, organizational, and contextual factors. The best predictors on this model seem to be the following: satisfaction with working conditions (OR, 4.373; CI, 3.110 to 6.150), work stress (OR, 2.009; CI, 1.447 to 2.790), shiftwork (OR, 1.937; CI, 1.374 to 2.729), gender (OR, 1.782; CI, 1.346 to 2.360), satisfaction with the wage perceived (OR, 1.766; CI, 1.318 to 2.366), and type of contract (OR, 1.743; CI, 1.186 to 2.563).
DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS As can be seen in Table 5, the model reveals that the probability of a public sector employee considering him/herself bullied is higher among women and increases with age. At the same time, bullying is more likely among public sector employees who work full-time, for many hours a day, and in jobs characterized by work shifts and night hours. The bullied of the public sector perform complex tasks and lack flexibility in their work methods. Perhaps, because of these circumstances, the respondents prove to be dissatisfied with their working conditions as well as with the wage they earn. All of this generates a greater degree of stress and low job motivation. Finally, the logistic regression model has also pointed out that bullying is more likely to occur as the size of the public sector organizations increases. Similarly, as shown in Table 5, the archetype of the bullied within the private sector is a woman without small children who maintains a temporary link with the company and works many hours (sometimes through a shift system) in a complex and responsibility job, although it does not grant her autonomy about the working methods used. In addition, the likelihood of being bullied increases among workers who are not satisfied well with their working conditions nor with the wages they receive, as well as among those who do not perceive the expectations of professional progress and that even fear the possibility of losing their jobs. All these issues lead the bullied in the private sector to experience a high degree of stress. Finally, in a similar way to what it can be seen among the employees in the public sector, bullying seems to be higher as the size of the company increases.
TABLE 3. Logistic Regression Model of Workplace Bullying in Public Sector (Confidence Intervals for Odds Ratios) Odds Ratios 95% CI for OR Variables in the Model Sex (0: male; 1: female) Age (0: 15–24; 1: 25–39; 2: 40–54; 3: ≥55) Work at night (0: no; 1: yes) Working day (0: full-time; 1: part-time) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Motivation (0: yes; 1: no) Size (0: micro; 1: small; 2: medium-to-large enterprise) Constant
B
SD
Wald
Sig
OR
Lower
Upper
0.591 0.323 0.459 − 0.456 − 0.945 0.901 − 0.713 0.656 0.878 1.114 0.528 0.761 − 0.231
0.177 0.107 0.226 0.191 0.199 0.241 0.177 0.194 0.207 0.232 0.168 0.176 0.112
11.134 9.158 4.12 5.688 22.624 13.99 16.226 11.463 18.057 23.043 9.908 18.756 4.239
0.001 0.002 0.042 0.017 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.039
1.806 1.381 1.582 0.634 0.389 2.462 0.49 1.927 2.405 3.046 1.696 2.141 0.794
1.276 1.12 1.016 0.435 0.263 1.536 0.346 1.318 1.604 1.933 1.221 1.517 0.638
2.556 1.701 2.463 0.922 0.574 3.948 0.693 2.816 3.605 4.8 2.357 3.022 0.989
− 1.371
0.374
13.428
0.000
0.254
B, Beta coefficients; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; SD, standard deviation; Sig, Significance; Wald, Wald test.
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TABLE 4. Logistic Regression Model of Workplace Bullying in Private Sector (Confidence Intervals for Odds Ratios) Odds Ratios 95% CI for OR Variables in the Model
B
SD
Wald
Sig
OR
Lower
Upper
Sex (0: male; 1: female) Children at home (0: yes; 1: no) Type of contract (0: a permanent contract; 1: a temporary contract) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Responsibility (0: executive; 1: nonexecutive) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Likely to be dismissed (0: no; 1: yes) Expectation of career growth (0: yes; 1: no) Size (0: micro; 1: small; 2: medium-to-large enterprise) Constant
0.578 0.379 0.556
0.143 0.144 0.197
16.299 6.943 7.987
0.000 0.008 0.005
1.782 1.461 1.743
1.346 1.102 1.186
2.36 1.937 2.563
− 0.600 0.661 − 0.547 0.345 − 0.578
0.154 0.175 0.147 0.149 0.188
15.243 14.271 13.841 5.364 9.45
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.021 0.002
0.549 1.937 0.579 1.412 0.561
0.406 1.374 0.434 1.054 0.388
0.742 2.729 0.772 1.891 0.811
0.698 1.476 0.569 0.538 0.400 0.196
0.168 0.174 0.149 0.163 0.151 0.085
17.332 71.921 14.495 10.836 7.012 5.37
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.008 0.02
2.009 4.373 1.766 1.712 1.492 1.216
1.447 3.11 1.318 1.243 1.11 1.031
2.79 6.15 2.366 2.358 2.007 1.436
− 1.476
0.281
27.518
0.000
0.229
B, Beta coefficients; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; SD, standard deviation; Sig, Significance; Wald, Wald test.
TABLE 5. Summary of Logistic Regression Results Workplace Bullying Antecedents Individual factors Sex Age Level of education Marital status With children at home Organizational factors Length of service Type of contract Working hours Work at night Work on Sundays Working day Shiftwork Monotonous tasks Complex tasks Rotating tasks Teamwork Flexibility in work methods Responsibility Work stress Working condition satisfaction Wage satisfaction Likely to be dismissed Expectation of career growth Motivation Contextual factors Sector/industry Size
698
Public Sector
Private Sector
√ √
√
√
√ √
√ √
√ √
√
√
√
√
√ √ √ √ √ √ √
√ √ √
√
√
√
As can be seen in Table 6, through comparing both models, it can be appreciated that a common trunk exists as for the factors that determine workplace bullying among the employees of the public and private sectors: (1) at the individual level: sex; (2) with regard to organizational factors: working hours, shiftwork, complex tasks, flexibility in work methods, working condition satisfaction, wage satisfaction, and work stress; (3) and at the contextual level, the size of the firm. Despite the common core that integrates both models, there are some factors specifically associated to the distinct sectors (public and private). This way, the distinctive features of the bullied within the public sector deal with the age, the full-time work, the prevalence of work at night associated with some professions of public service, and the low motivation. On the other hand, the profile of the bullied that works for a private company adds to the common trunk certain specificities that involve the absence of small children, a more temporary nature, the occupation of responsibility positions, the absence of professional horizons, and the fear of loss of employment (Table 6). Advances in the understanding of the antecedents of workplace bullying are critical for the development of more effective bullying prevention and intervention tools.18,19 Bullying prevalence varies significantly from one country to another and even within the same country. In Europe, for example, however, the inferences may vary depending on the measurement and estimation methods utilized.20,21 Other studies of workplace bullying prevalence in Europe report rates of approximately 4% to 10%.11 Our research shows a prevalence rate located at the lower limit: 4.2% of workers labeled themselves as bullied in their work environment. This general ratio increases up to 5.6% among the employees in the public sector and decreases up to 3.7% among the workers in the private sector. This dispersion is in line with prior studies that confirm a higher prevalence of bullying in the public sphere.11,12,22 A possible explanation of the higher rate of prevalence of bullying in the public sector can be due to its greater service orientation toward the customer. In this sense,23 working in industries with high customer service orientation has been associated with psychological violence incidents. The public service orientation toward the
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Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe
TABLE 6. Common and Specific Antecedents of Workplace Bullying for Both Public and Private Sectors Common Antecedents Sex Working hours Shiftwork Complex tasks Flexibility in work methods Work stress Working condition satisfaction Wage satisfaction Size
Only Public Sector Age Work at night Working day Motivation
Only Private Sector With children at home Type of contract Responsibility Likely to be dismissed Expectation of career growth
citizen provokes that in many public workplaces (eg, doctors, police officers, firefighters, judges, and teachers) there is a large emotional component (in contrast with the more instrumental nature of the private jobs) that constitutes the suitable scenario for the appearance of bullying. If we add to this that the bureaucratic and hierarchical nature of the public sector can lead to significant differences in power,24 the spread of bullying at the workplace is more than likely. A body of literature has emerged describing the possible triggers of workplace bullying within public sector employees and has primarily focused on two areas. The first area pertains to the individual differences among those involved in the bullying incidents, whereas the second relates to the characteristics of the surrounding organizational settings in which these circumstances occur. Regarding social–demographic features, our results indicate a tendency to suffer bullying between women, without children in the case of the private sector, and older women in the case of the public sector. The group described is certainly in a position of greater weakness in relation to the other groups that have greater power. In addition, regarding concrete cases related to female jobholders, persistent and predominant sexist attitudes should be noted, as well as structural barriers that inhibit women’s careers to a certain extent compared with their male colleagues. These circumstances make these groups particularly more vulnerable; therefore, they are more likely to end up as victims of workplace bullying. On the other hand, the fact that bullying in the public sector is more frequent among elder employees can be due to the accommodation of some of them, given the excess of job stability and the low expectations of professional development. Such mediocrity turns to get embedded with the passage of time, leading to counterproductive behaviors that turn these individuals into propitious victims of potential abuse. As Salin13 points out, bureaucracy and the difficulties in laying off employees with permanent status may increase the value of using bullying as a micropolitical strategy for avoiding rules, eliminating unwanted persons, or improving one’s own position. Furthermore, some organizational factors are found to increase the odds of workplace bullying against public sector employees. For instance, with respect to working conditions, McAneney et al25 report that violent events in long-term care are more likely to take place during the evening and night hours. It has been claimed in recent meta-analyses that there are some specific organizational variables (eg, workplace bullying antecedents) that are worth noting, such as conflict and role ambiguity,6 work overload, stress, lack of autonomy, and absence of organizational fairness.26 Research of
Zapf et al27 shows that performing monotonous and repetitive tasks is more common among bullying victims. On the other hand, our logistic regression model also identifies a greater tendency to bullying among the public sector employees who work full-time, in contrast to those who work part-time. These results are in line with the study carried out by Kivim¨aki et al.28 With a sample concerning more than 7000 employees from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Medicine, these authors conclude that 78% of the bullied workers had a fixed contract, and 94% worked fulltime. The type of working day discriminates between the public and private sectors because the full-time dedication of the employees in the private sector (82.2% of the whole) is higher than that of the employees in the public sector (77.1%). This higher exposure of the public sector employee may be added so that low job mobility coupled with high job security in the public sector environment may create fertile grounds for negative behaviors.29 The third defining variable of the phenomenon under study among public sector employees is motivation. Surely, the service vocation assumed to a majority of public sector jobs makes that these people’s degree of motivation (63.7% of them assures feeling motivated) turns up to exceed that of the employees who work in private companies (60.0%). This variable turns out to be critical in the bullying perception within the public sector, as the less motivated employees feel more bullied than their colleagues who maintain a high degree of motivation. An important clinical implication derived from our results is that the bullying outbreak can become epidemic if other elements common to the overall salaried work are added to the peculiarities of the public sector: lack of flexibility, shifts, stress, dissatisfaction, exhausting work journeys or the firm’s size, among others. This unpredictable environment, characterized by role conflict and tension, allows few opportunities for socialization and even less time for conflict resolution; both of these factors may indirectly contribute to the emergence of aggressive behaviors and bullying, which should be actively diagnosed and prevented within the workplace. Another clinical implication is that as a result of its negative consequences on the employees’ mental health and well-being, and hence on organizational performance, it becomes vital to detect and understand the key factors that contribute to the emergence and development of bullying, which is in line with the insights by Bond et al2 and Brees et al.30 . This work also provides insight that could be useful for managers while implementing human resource policies, such as reducing organizational levels of workplace bullying by adjusting certain working conditions that negatively affect employees who are especially susceptible to being bullied, given their individual characteristics. This research article offers an empirical basis for further studies related to public sector issues in Europe. From a practical standpoint, the present findings could assist practitioners in facilitating harmonious social relationships among public and private sector employees. In general, the results suggest that limiting job demands and increasing job resources could reduce workplace bullying, in both collectives. Particularly, in the public sector, it would be necessary to pay special attention to the elder personnel that work in night schedule and that present clear signs of lack of motivation, as they constitute a group with an increased risk of experiencing bullying. Nevertheless, this empirical study is not without some limitations that must be considered. First, the phenomenon of bullying was measured by self-report, which might increase the risk of common method variance, forcing us to assume a corresponding bias in the key variables. Second, because we relied on the use of secondary data obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey, workplace bullying is measured in broad terms, and consequently, there is a risk of overestimating its prevalence, as the respondents could report incidents that would not qualify as bullying according
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to the researchers’ understanding of the phenomenon.31 Third, a related methodological problem deals with social desirability; previous scholars have analyzed the repercussions of desirability in workplace bullying studies. Given the particular understanding of the phenomenon under investigation, it seems probable that any given prevalence rate would exceed the rates obtained in this type of research, as many of the present victims took a large amount of time to acknowledge and accept that they were subjected to aggressions of this nature. Fourth, the observed correlations between bullying and the variables analyzed in this study should be assessed cautiously, as the data are cross-sectional and not experimental. Finally, we developed our research within a particular social–geographical scenario (Europe), and hence, we should be cautious while generalizing these conclusions and insights to distinct contexts.
15. Perry JL, Hondeghem A. Building theory and empirical evidence about public service motivation. Int Public Manag J. 2008;11:3–12. 16. Niedl K. Mobbing/Bullying at Work. An Empirical Analysis of the Phenomenon and of the Effects of Systematic Harassment on Human Resource Management. Munich, Germany: Hampp; 1995. 17. Lewis SE. Recognition of workplace bullying: a qualitative study of women targets in the public sector. J Community Appl Soc Psychol. 2006;16: 119–135. 18. Saam NJ. Interventions in workplace bullying: a multilevel approach. Eur J Work Organ Psychol. 2010;19:51–75. 19. Einarsen S, Hauge LJ. Antecedents and consequences of psychological bullying at work: a review of the literature. Revista de Psicolog´ıa del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones. 2006;22:251–273.
REFERENCES 1. Gonz´alez-Mul´e E, Kiersch CE, Mount MK. Gender differences in personality predictors of counterproductive behavior. J Manage Psychol. 2013;28: 333–353. 2. Bond SA, Tuckey MR, Dollard MF. Psychosocial safety climate, workplace bullying, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Organ Dev J. 2010;28:37–56. 3. Hoel H, Cooper CL. Origins of bullying: theoretical frameworks for explaining workplace bullying. In:Tehrani N, ed. Building a Culture of Respect: Managing Bullying at Work. London, UK: Taylor & Francis; 2001:3–20. 4. Hoel H, Salin D. Organizational antecedents of workplace bullying. In:Einarsen H, Hoel H, Zapf D, Cooper C, eds. Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice. London, UK: Taylor & Francis; 2003:203–218. 5. Hepburn CG, Enns JR. Social undermining and well-being: the role of communal orientation. J Manage Psychol. 2013;28:354–366. 6. Bowling NA, Beehr TA. Workplace harassment from the victim’s perspective: a theoretical model and meta-analysis. J Appl Psychol. 2006;91:998–1012. 7. Zapf D, Einarsen S. Individual antecedents of bullying: victims and perpetrators. In:Einarsen H, Hoel H, Zapf D, Cooper C, eds. Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice. London, UK: Taylor & Francis; 2003:165–184. 8. Rayner C, Hoel H, Cooper CL. Workplace Bullying: What We Know, Who Is to Blame, and What Can We Do? London, UK: Taylor and Francis; 2002. 9. Lewis D, Gunn R. Workplace bullying in the public sector: understanding the racial dimension. Public Admin. 2007;85:641–665. 10. Strandmark M, Hallberg LRM. Being rejected and expelled from the workplace: experiences of bullying in the public service sector. Qual Res Psychol. 2007;4:1–14. 11. Zapf D, Einarsen S, Hoel H, Vartia M. Empirical findings on bullying in the workplace. In:Einarsen H, Hoel H, Zapf D, Cooper C, eds. Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: International Perspectives in Research and Practice. London, UK: Taylor & Francis; 2003:103–126. 12. Hoel H, Cooper CL. Destructive Conflict and Bullying at Work. Manchester, UK: University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology; 2000.
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13. Salin D. Prevalence and forms of bullying among business professionals: a comparison of two different strategies for measuring bullying. Eur J Work Organ Psychol. 2001;10:425–441. 14. Perry JL, Wise LR. The motivational bases of public service. Public Admin Rev. 1990;50:367–373.
20. Nielsen MB, Skogstad A, Matthiesen SB, Glaso L, et al. Prevalence of workplace bullying in Norway: comparisons across time and estimation methods. Eur J Work Organ Psychol. 2009;18:81–101. 21. Notelaers G, Einarsen S, de Witte H, Vermunt J. Measuring exposure to bullying at work: the validity and advantages of the latent class cluster approach. Work Stress. 2006;20:288–301. 22. Soares A. Bullying: When Work Becomes Incident. Montr´eal, QC, Canada: Universit´e du Qu´ebec; 2002. 23. Di Martino V, Hoel H, Cooper CL. Preventing Violence and Harassment in the Workplace. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities; 2003. 24. Crawford N. Bullying at work: a psychoanalytic perspective. J Community Appl Soc Psychol. 1997;7:219–225. 25. McAneney CM, Shaw KN. Violence in the pediatric emergency department. Ann Emerg Med. 1994;23:1248–1251. 26. Topa G, Depolo M, Morales JF. Workplace harassment: meta-analysis and integrative model of antecedents and consequences. Psicothema. 2007;19: 88–94. 27. Zapf D, Knorz C, Kulla M. On the relationship between mobbing factors, and job content, social work environment, and health outcomes. Eur J Work Organ Psychol. 1996;5:215–237. 28. Kivim¨aki M, Elovainio M, Vahtera J. Workplace bullying and sickness absence in hospital staff. Occup Environ Med. 2000;57:656–660. 29. Hoel H, Faragher B, Cooper CL. Bullying is detrimental to health, but all bullying behaviours are not necessarily equally damaging. Brit J Guid Couns. 2004;32:367–387. 30. Brees JR, MacKey J, Martinko MJ. An attributional perspective of aggression in organizations. J Manage Psychol. 2013;28:252–272. 31. Nielsen MB, Notelaers G, Einarsen S. Measuring exposure to workplace bullying. In:Einarsen H, Hoel H, Zapf D, Cooper C, eds. Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Developments in Theory Research and Practice. 2nd ed. London, UK: Taylor & Francis; 2011:149–174.
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A Comparative Study of Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe Antonio Ariza-Montes, PhD, Antonio L. Leal-Rodr´ıguez, PhD, and Antonio G. Leal-Mill´an, PhD
Objectives: Workplace bullying emerges from a set of individual, organizational, and contextual factors. The purpose of this article is hence to identify the influence of these factors among public and private employees. Methods: The study is carried out as a statistical–empirical cross-sectional study. The database used was obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey 2010. Results: The results reveal a common core with respect to the factors that determine workplace bullying. Despite this common base that integrates both models, the distinctive features of the harassed employee within the public sector deal with age, full-time work, the greater nighttime associated with certain public service professions, and a lower level of motivation. Conclusions: The present work summarizes a set of implications and proposes that, under normal conditions, workplace bullying could be reduced if job demands are limited and job resources are increased.
W
orkplace bullying is a serious, often unrecognized workplace issue with important psychological, social, and organizational costs. This phenomenon provokes dysfunctional effects both on individuals and organizations such as managerial costs, turnover, and productivity decrease.1 This assertion becomes even more significant for those organizations that are mainly composed by employees who provide particular assistance to citizens in a close and direct way. Given the negative consequences of workplace bullying on the employees’ mental health and well-being and, hence, on organizational performance, it is vital to understand the antecedent variables of this phenomenon.2 Research on workplace bullying has evolved toward a multicausal understanding. In this respect,3 identified five core areas are as follows: individuals; social interaction; group dynamics; work environment; and organizational, societal, and political levels. Nevertheless, the literature agrees that workplace bullying occurs as a result of the interactions among individual, organizational, and contextual factors.4 The individual antecedents of workplace bullying are a controversial topic because it is unlikely that all workers respond equally to aggression experiences. Several individual variables may affect the way an employee perceives aggressions from others in the workplace.5 Studies addressing this topic still show inconclusive results.6 In this vein, most of the researchers believe that there does not exist a personal predisposition for playing the role of victim or bully.7,8 Nonetheless, some studies have attempted to identify a selection of individual factors (eg, sex, age, and seniority) that may From the Department of Business Management (Dr Ariza-Montes), Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, C´ordoba; Department of Business Management (Dr Leal-Rodr´ıguez), Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, Sevilla; and Department of Business Management and Marketing (Dr Leal-Mill´an), Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. Dr Ariza-Montes is supported by the Department of Business Management, Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, Spain. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Address correspondence to: Antonio Ariza-Montes, PhD, Department of Business Management, Universidad Loyola Andaluc´ıa, C/Escritor Castilla Aguayo, 4, 14004 C´ordoba Spain ([email protected]). C 2015 by American College of Occupational and Environmental Copyright Medicine DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000437
JOEM r Volume 57, Number 6, June 2015
increase the risk of becoming a victim or bully.7 In this sense, certain groups are considered more vulnerable than others (eg, women or junior employees). On the other hand, a set of organizational factors is also essential to understand workplace bullying.4 Although early studies mainly focused on the psychological characteristics of bullies and their victims, several scholars have more seriously pondered the impact that organizational working characteristics exert on people. Therefore, although it is considered that certain elements of the organizational design can act as harassment barriers as well as drivers (eg, job stability, job position characteristics, and human resources practices), there is no consensus regarding which are the most relevant, or even if they are significantly related to workplace bullying in diverse settings. In addition to the above-mentioned factors, bullying may also occur as a result of several factors inherent to the context in which the organization operates. Some of the contextual variables highlighted by the literature are the sector/industry, firm size, public/private ownership, etc.3,9 There is still an open debate concerning the prevalence of bullying within the private versus public sector. In this vein, although the number of studies focused on the assessment of bullying in the public sector is still scarce, there are some that argue the incidence of bullying in these kinds of organizations should be lower than in private firms.10 This might be explained by the special status of the public sector employees. On the other hand, some studies suggest that bullying might be more prevalent within the public sector because of the higher levels of bureaucracy, the existence of very strict norms, and an excessive job security, which may generate environments amenable to the occurrence of bullying.9,11-13 In consequence such settings make bullies invisible and victims less likely to resign.13 Given the existence of inconclusive results concerning this issue, there is a gap in the bullying literature involving which are the most influential antecedents of workplace bullying and whether it is more prevalent in the private or public sector. Thus, the main contribution of this article deals with extending the understanding of the factors that trigger workplace bullying, as it concerns to workplace health management. Thus, the main objective of this research is to identify, among public and private employees, the determinants of workplace bullying that emerge from individual, organizational, and contextual factors. For the purpose of the present work, we develop a comprehensive and exploratory workplace bullying conceptual model that links these three sets of factors with the prevalence of workplace bullying within the public and private sectors in the European context (Fig. 1). Therefore, the Methods section comprises the delimitation of the variables that act as antecedents of workplace bullying, as well as the description of the methodology followed in this study. The Results section encompasses the most relevant empirical results obtained through a logistic regression analysis. Finally, the last section contains the discussion, implications, and limitations of the article.
METHODS There are two main reasons to suggest that the models of workplace bullying within the public and private sectors may be different. First, this is because the motivations of both groups may be different. One of the most commonly identified normative 695
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cause of the dynamic interactions of variables linked to the working environment and individual factors. Taking into account prior studies on bullying at the workplace, this study comprises three sets of independent variables grouped into three categories: individual factors, organizational factors, and contextual factors. The codes and classification of such variables appear in Table 2.
TABLE 1. Demographic Data FIGURE 1. Conceptual model. foundations for public employment is a desire to serve the public interest. To many public employees, public service signifies much more than one’s locus of employment. To many of them it has more to do with an attitude, a sense of duty, even a different ethic and morality. To summarize, a variety of rational, norm-based, and affective motives seem to be primarily associated with public service.14 Second, this is because the organizational context is different in both cases. In this vein, some scholars assume that there are significant differences with regard to the job reward characteristics between public and private sectors. The rewards associated with the public sector include job security, pension systems, lower tension between family and work obligations, and overall perceived quality of life.15 Other researchers think in turn that the public sector remains characterized by a high degree of regulation, traditional bureaucratic structures, job security, and low mobility. Despite all the efforts to ease the public sector management, the truth is that public employees are still caught in a regulatory maze, in a confusion of regulations, inflexible structures, policies, and procedures that limit their ability to act. The differences are not only in organizational structures but also in a variety of human resource management practices. All these divergences between the public and private sectors may be significant within the assessment of bullying in the workplace. At this point, it becomes necessary to delimit the concept of workplace bullying. Although previous definitions have shown a propensity to combine the persistence and duration of bullying into the same key construct, this article posits that workplace bullying involves a strong psychological component in its materialization. Perceptions are central to and are part of complex processes of bullying at organizational and individual levels, and such perceptions may vary across contexts, individuals, and organizations.16 How problems are perceived may directly impact on the social resources available to targets of bullying, and in turn on how they make sense of their experiences.17 The data set utilized for this research was obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey, conducted in 2010 by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. This survey provides insight about the working environment and employment conditions of the 27 European Union Member States. This was a multistage investigation using a stratified random sample. More than 43,000 interviews were collected in 2010. Table 1 contains the main demographic data. The dependent variable for this analysis is workplace bullying. Respondents were asked to answer the following question on the basis of their individual experience: Over the past 12 months, during the course of your work, have you been subjected to bullying/ harassment? (0: no; 1: yes). We are aware that such dichotomy (yes/no) on the measurement of workplace bullying is not the most suitable, as it does not allow sensing the grade or level of perceived bullying. Nevertheless, we have relied on secondary data to develop this study, given the difficulties to find primary data. Workplace bullying is considered to be a complex phenomenon that arises be696
Demographics
Public Sector
Private Sector
Sample size, n Not bullied, n (%) Bullied, n (%) Prevalence of WB, % Male, % Female, % Average age, yrs University studies, %
1273 647 (50.8) 626 (49.2) 5.6 42.8 57.2 41.5 51.0
2193 1127 (51.4) 1066 (48.6) 3.7 57.5 42.5 41.3 32.1
WB, workplace bullying.
TABLE 2. Explanatory Antecedents of Workplace Bullying Explanatory Antecedents Individual factors
Organizational factors
Contextual factors
Factors Sex (0: male; 1: female) Age (0: 15–24; 1: 25–39; 2: 40–54; 3: ≥55) Level of education (0: university; 1: secondary; 2: elementary) Marital status (0: partnered; 1: single) With children at home (0: yes; 1: no) Length of service (0: >10 yrs; 1: 5–10 yrs; 2: 1–5 yrs; 3: up to 1 yr) Type of contract (0: permanent contract; 1: temporary contract) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Work at night (0: no; 1: yes) Work on Sundays (0: no; 1: yes) Working day (0: full-time; 1: part-time) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Monotonous tasks (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Rotating tasks (0: no; 1: yes) Teamwork (0: no; 1: yes) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Responsibility (0: executive; 1: nonexecutive) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Likely to be dismissed (0: no; 1: yes) Expectation of career growth (0: yes; 1: no) Motivation (0: yes; 1: no) Sector/industry (0: agriculture; 1: industry; 2: construction; 3: services) Size (0: microenterprise; 1: small enterprise; 2: medium-to-large enterprise)
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Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe
The methodology used to accomplish the objectives was based on a binary logistic regression model, a specific type of regression model intended for dichotomous variables. This statistical technique is used to determine the probability that an event will happen (workplace bullying, in this case) compared with the probability that it will not.
RESULTS Table 3 shows the results for the estimations calculated through logistic regression that were derived from the factors determining the level of workplace bullying within public employees. The statistical tests applied to assess the validity of the model (Hosmer-Lemeshow analysis; chi-square test: 326.74; significance 0.000) largely suggest enough basis to acknowledge its validity; that is, they affirmed that the set of job-related variables considered for the general model of this research may potentially explain in a satisfactory manner whether a public sector employee is prone to experiencing bullying at work. We should also highlight that the chosen variables allow the model to be generalized, indicating its possible utility for predictive purposes. The logistic regression model integrates individual, organizational, and contextual factors, and estimates that the likelihood of workplace bullying is 74.6% (75.5% for bullied workers and 73.7% for nonbullied ones). The individual, organizational, and contextual variables seemed reliable for predicting the development of certain attitudes, such as workplace bullying. Each of these significant factors that measure the probability of workplace bullying has a different degree of impact, as indicated by the analysis of the confidence intervals (CIs) obtained in the corresponding odds ratios (see Table 3). Accordingly, the best predictors of workplace bullying among public employees are working condition satisfaction (odds ratio [OR], 3.046; CI, 1.933 to 4.800), shiftwork (OR, 2.462; CI, 1.536 to 3.948), motivation (OR, 2.141; CI, 1.517 to 3.022), work stress (OR, 2.405; CI, 1.604 to 3.605), flexibility in work methods (OR, 1.927; CI, 1.318 to 2.816), and sex (OR, 1.806; CI, 1.276 to 2.556). The logistic regression model for the employees who work for private companies is presented in Table 4. The validity of the model is again demonstrated by means of the application of the Hosmer-Lemeshow test (chi-square test: 436.89; significance 0.000). The combination of variables that configure the final model
correctly classifies the 73.9% of the workers belonging to the private sector (72.0% for bullied workers and 76.0% for nonbullied ones). Once again, in the configuration of the model for the private sector, there appear individual, organizational, and contextual factors. The best predictors on this model seem to be the following: satisfaction with working conditions (OR, 4.373; CI, 3.110 to 6.150), work stress (OR, 2.009; CI, 1.447 to 2.790), shiftwork (OR, 1.937; CI, 1.374 to 2.729), gender (OR, 1.782; CI, 1.346 to 2.360), satisfaction with the wage perceived (OR, 1.766; CI, 1.318 to 2.366), and type of contract (OR, 1.743; CI, 1.186 to 2.563).
DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS As can be seen in Table 5, the model reveals that the probability of a public sector employee considering him/herself bullied is higher among women and increases with age. At the same time, bullying is more likely among public sector employees who work full-time, for many hours a day, and in jobs characterized by work shifts and night hours. The bullied of the public sector perform complex tasks and lack flexibility in their work methods. Perhaps, because of these circumstances, the respondents prove to be dissatisfied with their working conditions as well as with the wage they earn. All of this generates a greater degree of stress and low job motivation. Finally, the logistic regression model has also pointed out that bullying is more likely to occur as the size of the public sector organizations increases. Similarly, as shown in Table 5, the archetype of the bullied within the private sector is a woman without small children who maintains a temporary link with the company and works many hours (sometimes through a shift system) in a complex and responsibility job, although it does not grant her autonomy about the working methods used. In addition, the likelihood of being bullied increases among workers who are not satisfied well with their working conditions nor with the wages they receive, as well as among those who do not perceive the expectations of professional progress and that even fear the possibility of losing their jobs. All these issues lead the bullied in the private sector to experience a high degree of stress. Finally, in a similar way to what it can be seen among the employees in the public sector, bullying seems to be higher as the size of the company increases.
TABLE 3. Logistic Regression Model of Workplace Bullying in Public Sector (Confidence Intervals for Odds Ratios) Odds Ratios 95% CI for OR Variables in the Model Sex (0: male; 1: female) Age (0: 15–24; 1: 25–39; 2: 40–54; 3: ≥55) Work at night (0: no; 1: yes) Working day (0: full-time; 1: part-time) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Motivation (0: yes; 1: no) Size (0: micro; 1: small; 2: medium-to-large enterprise) Constant
B
SD
Wald
Sig
OR
Lower
Upper
0.591 0.323 0.459 − 0.456 − 0.945 0.901 − 0.713 0.656 0.878 1.114 0.528 0.761 − 0.231
0.177 0.107 0.226 0.191 0.199 0.241 0.177 0.194 0.207 0.232 0.168 0.176 0.112
11.134 9.158 4.12 5.688 22.624 13.99 16.226 11.463 18.057 23.043 9.908 18.756 4.239
0.001 0.002 0.042 0.017 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.039
1.806 1.381 1.582 0.634 0.389 2.462 0.49 1.927 2.405 3.046 1.696 2.141 0.794
1.276 1.12 1.016 0.435 0.263 1.536 0.346 1.318 1.604 1.933 1.221 1.517 0.638
2.556 1.701 2.463 0.922 0.574 3.948 0.693 2.816 3.605 4.8 2.357 3.022 0.989
− 1.371
0.374
13.428
0.000
0.254
B, Beta coefficients; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; SD, standard deviation; Sig, Significance; Wald, Wald test.
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TABLE 4. Logistic Regression Model of Workplace Bullying in Private Sector (Confidence Intervals for Odds Ratios) Odds Ratios 95% CI for OR Variables in the Model
B
SD
Wald
Sig
OR
Lower
Upper
Sex (0: male; 1: female) Children at home (0: yes; 1: no) Type of contract (0: a permanent contract; 1: a temporary contract) Working hours (0: 10 h/d) Shiftwork (0: no; 1: yes) Complex tasks (0: yes; 1: no) Flexibility in work methods (0: yes; 1: no) Responsibility (0: executive; 1: nonexecutive) Work stress (0: no; 1: yes) Working condition satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Wage satisfaction (0: yes; 1: no) Likely to be dismissed (0: no; 1: yes) Expectation of career growth (0: yes; 1: no) Size (0: micro; 1: small; 2: medium-to-large enterprise) Constant
0.578 0.379 0.556
0.143 0.144 0.197
16.299 6.943 7.987
0.000 0.008 0.005
1.782 1.461 1.743
1.346 1.102 1.186
2.36 1.937 2.563
− 0.600 0.661 − 0.547 0.345 − 0.578
0.154 0.175 0.147 0.149 0.188
15.243 14.271 13.841 5.364 9.45
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.021 0.002
0.549 1.937 0.579 1.412 0.561
0.406 1.374 0.434 1.054 0.388
0.742 2.729 0.772 1.891 0.811
0.698 1.476 0.569 0.538 0.400 0.196
0.168 0.174 0.149 0.163 0.151 0.085
17.332 71.921 14.495 10.836 7.012 5.37
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.008 0.02
2.009 4.373 1.766 1.712 1.492 1.216
1.447 3.11 1.318 1.243 1.11 1.031
2.79 6.15 2.366 2.358 2.007 1.436
− 1.476
0.281
27.518
0.000
0.229
B, Beta coefficients; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio; SD, standard deviation; Sig, Significance; Wald, Wald test.
TABLE 5. Summary of Logistic Regression Results Workplace Bullying Antecedents Individual factors Sex Age Level of education Marital status With children at home Organizational factors Length of service Type of contract Working hours Work at night Work on Sundays Working day Shiftwork Monotonous tasks Complex tasks Rotating tasks Teamwork Flexibility in work methods Responsibility Work stress Working condition satisfaction Wage satisfaction Likely to be dismissed Expectation of career growth Motivation Contextual factors Sector/industry Size
698
Public Sector
Private Sector
√ √
√
√
√ √
√ √
√ √
√
√
√
√
√ √ √ √ √ √ √
√ √ √
√
√
√
As can be seen in Table 6, through comparing both models, it can be appreciated that a common trunk exists as for the factors that determine workplace bullying among the employees of the public and private sectors: (1) at the individual level: sex; (2) with regard to organizational factors: working hours, shiftwork, complex tasks, flexibility in work methods, working condition satisfaction, wage satisfaction, and work stress; (3) and at the contextual level, the size of the firm. Despite the common core that integrates both models, there are some factors specifically associated to the distinct sectors (public and private). This way, the distinctive features of the bullied within the public sector deal with the age, the full-time work, the prevalence of work at night associated with some professions of public service, and the low motivation. On the other hand, the profile of the bullied that works for a private company adds to the common trunk certain specificities that involve the absence of small children, a more temporary nature, the occupation of responsibility positions, the absence of professional horizons, and the fear of loss of employment (Table 6). Advances in the understanding of the antecedents of workplace bullying are critical for the development of more effective bullying prevention and intervention tools.18,19 Bullying prevalence varies significantly from one country to another and even within the same country. In Europe, for example, however, the inferences may vary depending on the measurement and estimation methods utilized.20,21 Other studies of workplace bullying prevalence in Europe report rates of approximately 4% to 10%.11 Our research shows a prevalence rate located at the lower limit: 4.2% of workers labeled themselves as bullied in their work environment. This general ratio increases up to 5.6% among the employees in the public sector and decreases up to 3.7% among the workers in the private sector. This dispersion is in line with prior studies that confirm a higher prevalence of bullying in the public sphere.11,12,22 A possible explanation of the higher rate of prevalence of bullying in the public sector can be due to its greater service orientation toward the customer. In this sense,23 working in industries with high customer service orientation has been associated with psychological violence incidents. The public service orientation toward the
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Workplace Bullying Among Public and Private Employees in Europe
TABLE 6. Common and Specific Antecedents of Workplace Bullying for Both Public and Private Sectors Common Antecedents Sex Working hours Shiftwork Complex tasks Flexibility in work methods Work stress Working condition satisfaction Wage satisfaction Size
Only Public Sector Age Work at night Working day Motivation
Only Private Sector With children at home Type of contract Responsibility Likely to be dismissed Expectation of career growth
citizen provokes that in many public workplaces (eg, doctors, police officers, firefighters, judges, and teachers) there is a large emotional component (in contrast with the more instrumental nature of the private jobs) that constitutes the suitable scenario for the appearance of bullying. If we add to this that the bureaucratic and hierarchical nature of the public sector can lead to significant differences in power,24 the spread of bullying at the workplace is more than likely. A body of literature has emerged describing the possible triggers of workplace bullying within public sector employees and has primarily focused on two areas. The first area pertains to the individual differences among those involved in the bullying incidents, whereas the second relates to the characteristics of the surrounding organizational settings in which these circumstances occur. Regarding social–demographic features, our results indicate a tendency to suffer bullying between women, without children in the case of the private sector, and older women in the case of the public sector. The group described is certainly in a position of greater weakness in relation to the other groups that have greater power. In addition, regarding concrete cases related to female jobholders, persistent and predominant sexist attitudes should be noted, as well as structural barriers that inhibit women’s careers to a certain extent compared with their male colleagues. These circumstances make these groups particularly more vulnerable; therefore, they are more likely to end up as victims of workplace bullying. On the other hand, the fact that bullying in the public sector is more frequent among elder employees can be due to the accommodation of some of them, given the excess of job stability and the low expectations of professional development. Such mediocrity turns to get embedded with the passage of time, leading to counterproductive behaviors that turn these individuals into propitious victims of potential abuse. As Salin13 points out, bureaucracy and the difficulties in laying off employees with permanent status may increase the value of using bullying as a micropolitical strategy for avoiding rules, eliminating unwanted persons, or improving one’s own position. Furthermore, some organizational factors are found to increase the odds of workplace bullying against public sector employees. For instance, with respect to working conditions, McAneney et al25 report that violent events in long-term care are more likely to take place during the evening and night hours. It has been claimed in recent meta-analyses that there are some specific organizational variables (eg, workplace bullying antecedents) that are worth noting, such as conflict and role ambiguity,6 work overload, stress, lack of autonomy, and absence of organizational fairness.26 Research of
Zapf et al27 shows that performing monotonous and repetitive tasks is more common among bullying victims. On the other hand, our logistic regression model also identifies a greater tendency to bullying among the public sector employees who work full-time, in contrast to those who work part-time. These results are in line with the study carried out by Kivim¨aki et al.28 With a sample concerning more than 7000 employees from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Medicine, these authors conclude that 78% of the bullied workers had a fixed contract, and 94% worked fulltime. The type of working day discriminates between the public and private sectors because the full-time dedication of the employees in the private sector (82.2% of the whole) is higher than that of the employees in the public sector (77.1%). This higher exposure of the public sector employee may be added so that low job mobility coupled with high job security in the public sector environment may create fertile grounds for negative behaviors.29 The third defining variable of the phenomenon under study among public sector employees is motivation. Surely, the service vocation assumed to a majority of public sector jobs makes that these people’s degree of motivation (63.7% of them assures feeling motivated) turns up to exceed that of the employees who work in private companies (60.0%). This variable turns out to be critical in the bullying perception within the public sector, as the less motivated employees feel more bullied than their colleagues who maintain a high degree of motivation. An important clinical implication derived from our results is that the bullying outbreak can become epidemic if other elements common to the overall salaried work are added to the peculiarities of the public sector: lack of flexibility, shifts, stress, dissatisfaction, exhausting work journeys or the firm’s size, among others. This unpredictable environment, characterized by role conflict and tension, allows few opportunities for socialization and even less time for conflict resolution; both of these factors may indirectly contribute to the emergence of aggressive behaviors and bullying, which should be actively diagnosed and prevented within the workplace. Another clinical implication is that as a result of its negative consequences on the employees’ mental health and well-being, and hence on organizational performance, it becomes vital to detect and understand the key factors that contribute to the emergence and development of bullying, which is in line with the insights by Bond et al2 and Brees et al.30 . This work also provides insight that could be useful for managers while implementing human resource policies, such as reducing organizational levels of workplace bullying by adjusting certain working conditions that negatively affect employees who are especially susceptible to being bullied, given their individual characteristics. This research article offers an empirical basis for further studies related to public sector issues in Europe. From a practical standpoint, the present findings could assist practitioners in facilitating harmonious social relationships among public and private sector employees. In general, the results suggest that limiting job demands and increasing job resources could reduce workplace bullying, in both collectives. Particularly, in the public sector, it would be necessary to pay special attention to the elder personnel that work in night schedule and that present clear signs of lack of motivation, as they constitute a group with an increased risk of experiencing bullying. Nevertheless, this empirical study is not without some limitations that must be considered. First, the phenomenon of bullying was measured by self-report, which might increase the risk of common method variance, forcing us to assume a corresponding bias in the key variables. Second, because we relied on the use of secondary data obtained from the 5th European Working Conditions Survey, workplace bullying is measured in broad terms, and consequently, there is a risk of overestimating its prevalence, as the respondents could report incidents that would not qualify as bullying according
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to the researchers’ understanding of the phenomenon.31 Third, a related methodological problem deals with social desirability; previous scholars have analyzed the repercussions of desirability in workplace bullying studies. Given the particular understanding of the phenomenon under investigation, it seems probable that any given prevalence rate would exceed the rates obtained in this type of research, as many of the present victims took a large amount of time to acknowledge and accept that they were subjected to aggressions of this nature. Fourth, the observed correlations between bullying and the variables analyzed in this study should be assessed cautiously, as the data are cross-sectional and not experimental. Finally, we developed our research within a particular social–geographical scenario (Europe), and hence, we should be cautious while generalizing these conclusions and insights to distinct contexts.
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