From workplace bullying to workplace withdrawal: mediating role of fear-based silence and moderating role of personality

Abstract

PurposeThe study aims to attempt to investigate the mediating role of fear-based silence (FBS) and moderating role of personality in the relationship between workplace bullying (WPB) and workplace withdrawal (WW) in hotel industry.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon conservation of resources theory, two waves approach was used to collect data from 263 hotel employees in India. Partial Least Squares (PLS) based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyse the data.FindingsFear based silence was seen to mediate the relationship between WPB and WW. Further, proactive personality moderated the relationship between FBS and WW.Practical implicationsThe present study has vital implications for practitioners, academicians and policy makers. Executives must take cognizance of incidences of WPB and take on well-timed actions to curb it altogether. Taking into consideration the significance of resources in mitigating the adverse impacts of WPB, organizations must try to promote conditions necessary for that resource acquisition.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine FBS as a mediator in the relationship between WPB and WW.

A study of workplace bullying and coping strategies in hospitality sector: role of moral injury and inclusive leadership

“…Workplace bullying and workplace withdrawal WW can be used as another response to bullying, which refers to the behaviours that typically manifest an employee's actions negatively and often engage them in to avoid Workplace bullying in hospitality sector carrying out their duties, such as skipping meetings, arriving late, taking frequent or lengthy breaks and purposefully failing to turn in assignments on time (Srivastava et al, 2022). WPB is believed to be occupational distress and employees have difficulty withstanding it for long (Hoel et al, 2010).…”

“…To safeguard the self-cognitive and emotional state, employees often remain silent out of fear of facing ostracism, retaliation and more bullying (Srivastava et al, 2022) and sometimes start withdrawing from the work. The employee falling out of bullying faces MI and if this continues, they disengage from the work and do not intend to blow an internal whistle, which lowers motivation, alters cognition or mood and causes isolation that has a lasting negative effect on an organisation (Cullen et al, 2020).…”

“…It has also been linked to workplace deviance (Peng et al, 2016); increased intention to quit, poor health and psychosomatic well-being (Rosander and Blomberg, 2021); reduced employee engagement (Vincent et al, 2022) and silence and opinion avoidance (Rai and Agarwal, 2017). Researchers have also explored various coping strategies adopted by employees, when they are treated unfairly at work, for example, fearbased silence (Jain et al, 2022), withdrawal behaviour (Srivastava et al, 2022), feedback avoidance (Rai and Agarwal, 2017) and whistleblowing (Fieger and Rice, 2018). But two areas that have engrossed researcher's significant attention are internal whistleblowing (IW) (approach-oriented work behaviour) and workplace withdrawal (WW) (avoidance-oriented work behaviour).…”

“…This study answers the call for research on the bullying-psychological variables (Hayat and Afshari, 2021;Xiang et al, 2022) by addressing MI as the mediator, which has not been studied earlier in the bullying-outcome relationship (coping strategies). The study empirically examines the direct effect of WPB on IW and withdrawal behaviour in response to the call for more research on the bullying-outcome relationship (Srivastava et al, 2022). Secondly, it explores the moderating role of IL in the bullying-MI relationship and responds to the call for research by Jiang and Qu (2022).…”

“…Researchers have also explored various coping strategies adopted by employees, when they are treated unfairly at work, for example, fear-based silence (Jain et al. , 2022), withdrawal behaviour (Srivastava et al ., 2022), feedback avoidance (Rai and Agarwal, 2017) and whistleblowing (Fieger and Rice, 2018). But two areas that have engrossed researcher's significant attention are internal whistleblowing (IW) (approach-oriented work behaviour) and workplace withdrawal (WW) (avoidance-oriented work behaviour).…”