Suffering Silence and Turnover Intentions while Exposed to Workplace Bullying: The Role of Psychological Distress

Abstract

Although workplace bullying is a well-focused phenomenon in the Western context but the specific way it unfolds in nonwestern countries and especially in their higher education sector remains largely unexposed. In response to this gap, an empirical inquiry has been conducted across higher education institutions in Pakistan. This paper not only improves our understanding of the scope and features of bullying in HEI but also proposes strategies sufferers could employ to deal with the workplace bullying. Data were collected from higher education academic faculty in two-wave cross-sectional time horizon. Results were obtained by reference to structural equation modeling using Amos-24. Findings support the positive relationship of bullying with turnover intentions and silent behavior and also reveal the mediating role of distress between bullying and its venomous consequences. In brief, this paper recommends effectually implemented anti-bullying policy and management support to alleviate adversative impact of workplace bullying on academic faculty working in higher education institutions

The impacts of workplace bullying, emotional exhaustion, and psychological distress on poor job performance of healthcare workers in Thailand during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Ferguson (2012) found that workplace bullying, characterized by rudeness and unpleasant behavior from subordinates and peers, contributes to PD, leading to reduced employee performance. Previous studies have shown a positive association between WB and PD (Attell et al, 2017;Bhatti and Ahmed, 2021). Moreover, more frequent incidents of bullying have been found to lead to greater distress among nurses (Berry et al, 2016).…”

“…Although WB indirectly affects employee performance, it directly influences employee behavior (Anasori et al , 2020). The stress caused by WB further deteriorates performance in the workplace (Bhatti and Ahmed, 2021). Khalique et al (2018) argue that WB negatively impacts the productivity of peers and leads to a decrease in employee efficiency, consequently affecting organizational productivity.…”

Assessing the Impact of Workplace Harassment on Turnover Intention: Evidence from the Banking Industry

“…Peers might be requested to accept the obligation that the harassed person show silent behavior for the extra work. It becomes a practice when more than one employee is usually engaged in this phase; the estimates of turnover costs are also increased [73]. Previous study evidence showed that workplace silence behavior is positively linked to turnover intentions or workers who intend to leave work [52].…”