Do Personality and Organizational Politics Predict Workplace Victimization? A Study among Ghanaian Employees

Abstract

BackgroundWorkplace victimization is considered a major social stressor with significant implications for the wellbeing of employees and organizations. The aim of this study was to examine the influences of employees' personality traits and organizational politics on workplace victimization among Ghanaian employees.MethodsUsing a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 631 employees selected from diverse occupations through convenience sampling. Data collection tools were standardized questionnaires that measured experiences of negative acts at work (victimization), the Big Five personality traits, and organizational politics.ResultsThe results from hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that among the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness had significant, albeit weak relationships with victimization. Organizational politics had a significant positive relationship with workplace victimization beyond employees' personality.ConclusionThe study demonstrates that compared with personal characteristics such as personality traits, work environment factors such as organizational politics have a stronger influence on the occurrence of workplace victimization.

Risk Factors for Workplace Bullying: A Systematic Review

“…In a cluster of participants of one study, people with Type A personality [48], less extroverted, less agreeable, less conscientious, less open to experience and more emotionally unstable were also more likely to be bullied [76]. Nevertheless, another study showed that personality characteristics explained only 2% of the variance (adjusted R 2 = 0.02) of bullying [58].…”

“…Effect sizes of the association between neuroticism and bullying were small, so residual confounding should be considered. The explanatory power of personality as a predictor of bullying was also very small [58]. One of the premises of occupational health actions is that the work environment and the work organization should be adequate to individual characteristics, not the opposite.…”

Does personality affect the individual's perceptions of organizational justice? The mediating role of organizational politics

“…Results of Table 4 manifested that there is no relationship between agreeableness and POP ( β = −0.04, t = −1.126, p > 0.05). As the p -value of this relationship is not significant at 0.05 level of significance, it can be concluded that there is no effect of agreeableness on POP (Amponsah-Tawiah and Annor, 2017). Therefore, hypothesis 1c was rejected.…”

“…If an individual has an extrovert personality, then his/her POP will be less compared to its counterpart. In addition to this, results manifested that there is a significant and positive relationship between neuroticism and POP ( β = 0.247, t = 6.970, p < 0.01) (Amponsah-Tawiah and Annor, 2017). Therefore, hypothesis 1e was accepted.…”

“…Results of Table 5 manifested an inverse relationship between openness to experience and POP ( β = −0.219, t = −6.185, p < 0.01), such that a high level of openness to experience resulted in lower levels of POP (Amponsah-Tawiah and Annor, 2017). Hence, hypothesis 1a was accepted.…”