Relationships between stressful work environments and bullying: Results of a large representative study

Abstract

This paper contributes to the relatively sparse knowledge about relationships between stressful work environments and bullying. Relationships between job stressors and leadership behaviour were analysed as possible predictors of bullying at work on the basis of the work environment hypothesis, which states that stressful and poorly organized work environments may give rise to conditions resulting in bullying. Analyses of a representative sample (n=2539) of the Norwegian workforce showed role conflict, interpersonal conflicts, and tyrannical and laissez-faire leadership behaviour to be strongly related to bullying, and that the strength of associations to a high degree differed for various measures of bullying. Support was found for an interactive relationship between decision authority and role conflict at different levels of laissez-faire leadership. Not only targets and bully/targets but also bystanders assessed their work environment more negatively than did non-involved employees, while perpetrators of bullying did not differ significantly from non-involved employees as regards their perception of the work environment. Hence, bullying is likely to prevail in stressful working environments characterized by high levels of interpersonal friction and destructive leadership styles. In addition, bullying is particularly prevalent in situations where the immediate supervisor avoids intervening in and managing such stressful situations.