Workplace bullying in Serbia: The relation of self-labeling and behavioral experience with job-related behaviors

Abstract

Workplace bullying has been identified as a widespread problem in contemporary organizational research. The aim of the paper was to acquire theoretically based and comparable findings about workplace bullying in Serbia: to explore the behavioral experience and self-labeling approaches (applying the Negative Acts Questionnaire - Revised, NAQ-R) and their relationship with job-related behaviors. The sample comprised 1,998 employees. Prevalence rates of workplace bullying based on self-labeling and behavior experience approaches overlap significantly (70% of employees operationally identified as bullied had also labeled themselves as bullied). Both the self-labeling and behavioral experience approach showed significant correlations with job-related behaviors (perceived threat to a total job, absenteeism, intention to leave, and perceived productivity). Previously bullied, presently bullied and non-bullied employees differed significantly on all four job-related behaviors, with large effect size for the intention to leave and medium effect size for the perceived threat to a total job. The findings support combining self-labeling and behavioral experience approaches in workplace bullying research. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179018]

Rocking at 81 and Rolling at 34: ROC Cut-Off Scores for the Negative Acts Questionnaire–Revised in Serbia

“…Scarce research confirms that bullying may differ from country to country (Jiménez et al, 2007; Lutgen-Sandvik et al, 2007; Baillien and De Witte, 2009; Tambur and Vadi, 2009; Tsuno et al, 2010; Öcel and Aydin, 2012; Seo et al, 2012; Giorgi et al, 2013; Vukelić et al, 2015). Since workplace bullying is a sensitive social phenomenon it is always useful to understand specific national, cultural and economic research context.…”

“…Approximately 3,000 employees from different sectors of economy in Serbia took part in several studies of workplace bullying that used the NAQ-R. The overall prevalence of workplace bullying in Serbia, based on the NAQ-R and operationalized as at least two negative acts experienced on a weekly basis is 16% (Petrović et al, 2014). The most frequent negative acts in Serbia are gossiping and rumors, whereas threats of violence and physical abuse or actual abuse are the least frequent.…”

“…Even though those self-labeled as bullied were significantly older than those self-labeled as non-bullied, the size of the effect was small. Correlating the NAQ-R scores with work related behaviors (Vukelić et al, 2015), the highest correlations were with intention to leave ( r = 0.457) and perceived organizational support ( r = -0.497). Correlating the NAQ-R with health and well-being indicators, the highest correlations were with self-rating of health ( r = -0.315) and satisfaction with life ( r = -0.273).…”

“…A significant, but not a complete overlap between the “subjective” and “objective” measures (e.g., Lutgen-Sandvik et al, 2007; Petrović et al, 2014), implies that it is beneficial to apply them both in research of workplace bullying.…”

“…Both the Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ), and its newest version the Negative Acts Questionnaire–Revised, are probably the most internationally used and most thoroughly psychometrically explored workplace bullying inventories based on behavioral experience (e.g., McCormack et al, 2006; Jiménez et al, 2007; Lutgen-Sandvik et al, 2007; Baillien and De Witte, 2009; Einarsen et al, 2009; Tambur and Vadi, 2009; Tsuno et al, 2010; Öcel and Aydin, 2012; Seo et al, 2012; Giorgi et al, 2013; Notelaers and Einarsen, 2013; Arenas et al, 2015; Vukelić et al, 2015). The NAQ-R was developed based on previous versions of the NAQ scale that went through several quantitative and qualitative research analyses (Einarsen et al, 2009).…”