Job Demands as Risk Factors of Exposure to Bullying at Work: The Moderating Role of Team-Level Conflict Management Climate

Abstract

Conflict management climate is an important organizational resource that is theorized to prevent interpersonal frustration from escalating into harsh interpersonal conflicts and even workplace bullying. The present study investigates whether team-level perceptions of conflict management climate moderate the relationship between previously investigated psychosocial predictors of workplace bullying (i.e., role conflicts, workload, cognitive demands) and perceived exposure to bullying behaviors in the workplace. We collected data from crews on ferries operating on the Norwegian coastline consisting of 462 employees across 147 teams. As hypothesized, multilevel analyses showed positive main effects of role conflict and cognitive demands (but not workload) on exposure to bullying behaviors. Also, the hypothesized moderation effect of team-level conflict management climate on the relationship between individual-level job demands and exposure to bullying behaviors was significant for role conflict and cognitive demands, but not for workload. Specifically, the positive relationships between the two job demands and exposure to bullying behaviors were stronger for employees working in teams with a weak (vs. a strong) conflict management climate. These findings contribute to the bullying research field by showing that conflict management climate may buffer the impact of stressors on bullying behaviors, most likely by preventing interpersonal frustration from escalating into bullying situations.

Outcomes of a Proximal Workplace Intervention Against Workplace Bullying and Harassment: A Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Among Norwegian Industrial Workers

“…The scale assesses intragroup trust and perceived fairness and trust in the department’s dispute resolution and conflict management procedures, including trust in managers’ conflict management skills. These scales have been used in numerous studies, and researchers have reported the scales as reliable with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.81 for climate for conflict management ( Zahlquist et al, 2019 ), Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86 1 for climate for psychological safety ( Koopmann et al, 2016 ), and Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92 2 for intragroup conflict ( Jehns, 1995 ). Example items are “The management handles cases of conflicts well” (conflict management climate), “It is easy to address problems and difficult issues in my work team” (intragroup trust), and “There is jealousy and rivalry between members of my work team” (intragroup conflict).…”

The Cross-Level Moderation Effect of Resource-Providing Leadership on the Demands—Work Ability Relationship

“…Specifically, we aimed at resources that best match the demands we investigated. Providing task control has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of workloads, [45,46], participation seems suitable to negatively affect role ambiguity [47], and conflict management may be especially helpful in dealing with emotional demands [48,49]. Employees rated their immediate manager on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).…”

Impact of Trust on Employees' Engagement: The Mediating Role of Conflict Management Climate

“…CMC has gained a growing interest among scholars as a developed process (Zahlquist et al, 2019). It is an essential organisational resource that helps buffer interpersonal frustration caused by the workplace's stressful conditions that cause bullying (Einarsen et al, 2018).…”