Escaping bullying: The simultaneous impact of individual and unit-level bullying on turnover intentions

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the simultaneous impact of, and interaction between, being the direct target of bullying and working in an environment characterized by bullying upon employees’ turnover intentions. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis of a sample of 41 hospital units and 357 nurses demonstrates that working in an environment characterized by bullying increases individual employees’ turnover intentions. Importantly, employees report similarly high turnover intentions when they are either the direct target of bullying or when they work in work units characterized by high bullying. Results also suggest that the impact of unit-level bullying is stronger on those who are not often directly bullied themselves.

Keywords

bullying healthcare organizations job/employee attitudes nurses organizational culture turnover work environment

Introduction

Organizational members can, and often do, interact with one another in harmful ways. Indeed, a primary source of adversity and distress at work emanates from interactions with other people (Basch and Fisher, 1998). Many streams of research have focused upon the prevalence and impact of socially harmful behaviors, such as aggression, interpersonal deviance, social undermining, incivility, interactional injustice, harassment, abusive supervision and workplace bullying. Although these streams address somewhat different subsets of behavior, they uncover a pattern: the experience of mistreatment at work is commonplace and it is detrimental to its targets (Ashforth, 1997; Bennett and Robinson, 2003; Berdahl and Raver, 2011; Duffy et al., 2002; Hershcovis and Barling, 2010; Tepper, 2000). Being the target of mistreatment has been associated with a range of negative outcomes, but perhaps the most common is the employee’s desire to escape from it. Decades of research have shown that employees report heightened withdrawal and turnover intentions when they experience mistreatment at work (e.g. Cortina et al., 2001; Glomb et al., 1997; Hershcovis and Barling, 2010; LeBlanc and Kelloway, 2002; Lim et al., 2008; Miner-Rubino and Reed, 2010; Spence Laschinger et al., 2009; Tepper, 2000).

Although the impact of mistreatment on those who directly and personally experience such behavior is well-documented in the literature, much less is known about the effects of mistreatment at the level of one’s work environment. Can the mistreatment of others in the work environment affect individual employees, even when they are not the direct target of this mistreatment? And if so, what kind of effect does mistreatment in the work environment have on individual employees? To date, only a handful of studies have addressed these research questions. Some studies have looked at the effects of mistreatment in groups on individuals’ propensity to engage in similar antisocial behaviors (e.g. Glomb and Liao, 2003; Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly, 1998) or the likelihood of being a target of these behaviors in work groups with either a high or low prevalence of mistreatment (e.g. Duffy et al., 2006). In this research, we explore the impact of workplace bullying in a work unit on individuals’ turnover intentions. We seek to understand whether bullying in the work unit environment can have a negative impact on one’s desire to remain in their organization, independent of their personal or direct experiences of workplace bullying.

Workplace bullying is the repeated exposure over time to mistreatment and acts of aggression by others within one’s organization, including from subordinates, supervisors and colleagues (Einarsen et al., 2009: 24). We chose to look at workplace bullying rather than other forms of mistreatment because the subset of behaviors that capture bullying tend to be apparent to others, at least in comparison to other common forms of mistreatment. For example, bullying tends to be less insidious and subtle than the subset of behaviors that capture constructs such as incivility (Andersson and Pearson, 1999) and social undermining (Duffy et al., 2002). Even when bullying is not directly observed by or easily discernable to a bystander, its existence can easily spread through gossip and other means of social communication present in an organization’s social environment (Foster, 2004; Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978). Thus, similar to other scholars, we recognize that bullying does not occur in a social vacuum in the workplace (e.g. Duffy et al., 2006; LePine and Van Dyne, 1998), and that certain features of a given work environment, such as bullying, are likely to be accessible to all members of a group or organization, even when they are not directly experienced or observed (Hackman, 1992).

We argue that bullying at the work unit level is likely to have an impact on individual turnover intentions, independent of whether one is the target of bullying or not. Turnover intentions may not necessarily lead to actual turnover, but a number of studies point to a very high correlation, especially in occupations where alternative employment options are readily available (Parasuraman, 1982; Steel and Ovalle, 1984). Furthermore, the costs of turnover for organizations are significant (Waldman et al., 2004), and for those who intend to quit but cannot and remain silent about their bullying experience, the costs may be even higher to organizations (Milliken et al., 2003).

It is very important for us to consider not only the direct effects of bullying, but also the simultaneous and moderating effects of bullying in the work unit. This study highlights the cost of bullying that can extend beyond the direct target. We draw our theoretical arguments for the simultaneous and moderating impact of unit-level bullying on individual turnover intentions from the deontic model of justice and we characterize bullying as a violation of moral norms that can trigger deontic reactions (Folger, 1998, 2001; Folger et al., 2005). The deontic model states that individuals can be concerned over unfair treatment, regardless of whether they are the direct target, because unjust treatment represents a moral violation of normative standards of how one should treat others (Folger, 1998, 2001; Folger et al., 2005). Furthermore, we conceptualize turnover intentions and quitting one’s workplace as a deontic act characterized as a form of organizational resistance (Lawrence and Robinson, 2007; Lutgn-Sandvik, 2005). Thus, before discussing our formal hypotheses, we first provide a summary of the deonance model of unfair treatment and present a conceptual link between the notion of deonance justice, workplace bullying and turnover intentions.

The deontic perspective

The deontic model situates justice concerns on the understanding of how one should and should not treat others. Folger (2001) coined the term deonance to refer to the psychological and emotion-laden state that permeates from one’s reactions to actions perceived as violating significant moral standards. The deontic model of justice states that people can be motivated toward justice out of a sense of moral obligation, because ‘it is the right thing to do’ (Folger, 2001), as an end in and of itself. Importantly, when others infringe upon moral standards it can provoke a reaction because such actions reflect disrespect and ignorance of the implicit social rules that others have tried to uphold (Folger, 2001; Miller, 2001). Deontic reactions are characterized by an intense feeling of moral indignation, or anger toward the perpetrator of unfair treatment, and strong motivations to restore the moral order that has been infringed upon (Folger, 2001; Folger et al., 2005). The deonance perspective of organizational justice provides an explicit conceptual link between the concepts of justice and morality. Furthermore, unlike traditional models of unfair treatment that have generally focused upon the self-interested motivations that trigger reactions to unfair treatment, the deontic model explains why people can become upset and angered even when they are not directly treated unfairly.

Folger and Skarlicki (2008) theorized that deontic judgments of right and wrong derive from evolved and adaptive psychological systems. In accordance with this view, Haidt and colleagues (Haidt and Graham, 2007; Haidt and Joseph, 2004) have narrowed the foundational values of moral reactions to five underlying sources: harm/care; fairness; loyalty; respect; and purity. When one’s actions violate a standard established upon one or more of these foundational criteria people can experience deontic reactions and be moved to react. The importance of each of these foundational criteria can vary across different cultures, however harm/care and fairness tend to be relatively more ubiquitous foundations than the other three (Haidt and Graham, 2007; Haidt and Joseph, 2004). O’Reilly and Aquino (2011) argue that individual differences capturing the extent to which individuals care about morality in general and are concerned about the welfare of others can also influence the extent to which they experience deontic reactions when a perceived moral standard has been violated.

The actions one takes to restore the moral order or ‘get even’ with a perpetrator of injustice can be broad. On an interpersonal level, deontic reactions can sometimes take the form of retaliation, or attempts to take actions against someone after they have committed a perceived wrongdoing (Miller and Vidmar, 1981; Skarlicki and Folger, 1997). People generally perceive retaliation to be a moral endeavour when it is used to deter someone from engaging in further harmful behaviors. Another form of deontic response is resistance, defined as any active or passive act that attempts to disrupt or erode another social entity’s base of power (Lawrence and Robinson, 2007; Lutgen-Sandvik, 2005, 2006). Importantly, some of the most common forms of organizational resistance are turnover intentions, psychological withdrawal and quitting (Lutgen-Sandvik, 2005, 2006). Retaliation can often be a costly reaction that triggers further negative retributions. In contrast, resistance through passive withdrawal, not going beyond one’s formal work duties and quitting as soon as an opportunity for another job arises is discrete, does not break any explicit moral norms, and is less likely to trigger further retaliation. Thus, for example, employees will quit in protest of what they feel are unfair managerial procedures, policies and changes (e.g. Chalykoff and Kochan, 1989; Shapiro and Kirkman, 1999; Tucker, 1993).

Pertinent to the current study, qualitative work by Lutgen-Sandvik (2005, 2006) on bullying victims has shown that quitting, including the desire to quit, is one of most prevalent forms of resistance in response to workplace bullying. In line with the deonance perspective, both the targets and witnesses of bullying can perceive resistance toward a bully, or an organization that fails to reprimand a bully, as a moral obligation (Lutgen-Sandvik, 2005). This work provides insight into the bullying targets’ understanding of their experiences and it challenges the ‘passive’ view of workplace bullying that characterizes the targets of bullying as hapless victims who are too vulnerable and weak to fight their bullies. Instead, the targets of bullying see ‘escaping’ their own and others’ bullies as a means to create turmoil and disrupt the organization in an act of defiance. Given that these sentiments are not based solely upon the consequences of bullying, but also the moral standards that bullying infringes upon, they are potentially available to all those involved in a bullying environment, including third parties. While this work provides evidence to suggest that at least some third parties will be moved by moral indignation to resist an organizational environment with significant bullying, we do not know whether such a trend will exist in work units as a whole, or how individual experiences of bullying influences reactions to bullying within the broader environment. We explore this possibility to provide a further understanding of the unit-level costs of bullying.

The current study

In this research, we study the simultaneous and interactive effects of direct and unit-level bullying on turnover intentions in a sample of nurses. Workplace bullying is a prevalent phenomenon in the health care industry and nurses tend to have a greater likelihood of experiencing such harmful behaviors than other healthcare professionals (e.g. Duffy, 1995; Hogh et al., 2011; Hutchinson et al., 2006; Quine, 1999, 2001). Furthermore, bullying in the healthcare industry is associated with a host of negative job-related and health-related outcomes (e.g. Hogh et al., 2011; McVicar, 2003; Quine, 2001).

As a starting point, we posit that employees who are subject to bullying will report higher turnover intentions, as is consistent with prior findings and theorizing. Adverse or dissatisfying elements of work, such as bullying from others, can trigger the withdrawal process, of which intention to quit is the first step (e.g. Hom and Griffeth, 1995; Hulin, 1991; Mobley, 1977). Research has shown that withdrawing from the organization can be an effective means by which to react to aversive work environments and avoid subsequent bad feelings (Brayfield and Crockett, 1955; Chadwick-Jones et al., 1982; Hackett and Guion, 1985):

Hypothesis 1: Being the target of bullying is positively related to turnover intentions, independent of the extent of bullying in one’s work unit.

We further argue that the degree of bullying in one’s work unit at large will also be positively related to individual turnover intentions. Most importantly, the impact of unit-level bullying will be independent of, and in addition to, the actual bullying one receives from others. Thus, even when an employee is not bullied, she or he will desire to quit the organization to the extent that his or her work unit is characterized by bullying. Drawing from the deontic perspective, we argue that working in an environment in which others are bullied will create a sense of moral uneasiness that will contribute to their own turnover intentions, regardless of whether one personally experiences bullying.

Workplace bullying can create a deontic state because it violates significant and entrenched moral norms of how others ought to treat one another, in ways that preserve dignity and respect (Bies and Moag, 1986). Furthermore, moral norms of treating others with a basic level of dignity and respect are often considered to be universal and applicable to all human beings, by virtue of a common humanity, even if some may infringe upon these norms (Nieman, 2008). Moreover, the aggressive and painful acts that characterize workplace bullying are often considered to be volitional (Keashly, 1998; Lutgen-Sandvik, 2005; Neuman and Baron, 1998) and the extreme negative impact of workplace bullying is well-documented in the literature and thus violates the moral standard of preventing harm toward others (Haidt and Graham, 2007; Haidt and Joseph, 2004).

Witnessing or learning about these impacts of workplace bullying is likely to promote empathetic responses. Employees witnessing coworkers being bullied, or merely talking to them about their experiences, are pushed toward taking the targets’ perspective. Such perspective-taking leads one to experience cognitive or emotional empathy, which includes imagining how another feels (Clark, 1980; Eisenberg et al., 1994) or actually sharing in another’s feelings (Hoffman, 1977). These empathetic responses can contribute to the understanding that a significant moral violation has occurred and the recognition that the victim does not deserve his or her mistreatment. As a result of this moral uneasiness, bullying at large within a work unit will increase employee intentions to quit their work group. Thus, we offer the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Work unit-level bullying is positively related to turnover intentions, independent of the extent to which one is a direct target of bullying.

The question then becomes, does work unit-level bullying have a similar impact on both those who experience a lot of workplace bullying directly and those who experience comparatively less direct bullying? We hypothesize that the effect of work unit-level bullying on turnover intentions will be stronger to the extent that one is not bullied oneself. This is because the discrepancy between one’s relatively positive treatment by others, compared with others’ experience of bullying, evokes stronger deontic concerns. Witnessing others being bullied already evokes a sense of moral indignation, but the added discrepancy between one’s own good treatment and others’ poor treatment, makes it seem even more unfair. Moreover, one’s good treatment provides a model of comparison of how one’s coworkers could and should have been treated (Folger and Cropanzano, 1998). This line of reasoning is supported by those who have found consistency to be a key criterion of justice (Leventhal, 1980; Rupp et al., 2007). It is also congruent with past studies showing that injustice directed toward an individual in a group impacts others in that group more when those others are not also experiencing injustice (Colquitt et al., 2002; Spencer, and Rupp, 2009). Thus, we predict a stronger relationship between work unit-level bullying and turnover intentions for those who experience less bullying directly:

Hypothesis 3: There is an interaction effect between direct bullying and work unit-level bullying such that the relationship between work unit-level bullying and turnover intentions is stronger for individuals who experience less direct individual-level bullying than for individuals who experience more.

Methods

Data and sample

The data used for this study were collected from nurses in 41 units of a large health authority in a western Canadian city. We administrated two surveys, two months apart, to 1385 nurses. Survey participation was voluntarily and confidential.

For the first survey, we received 567 responses, of which 519 were valid in terms of survey completion (response rate = 41%). In the second survey, we received 422 responses, of which 398 met our requirements to be included for this study (response rate = 30%). After merging both surveys, based on our sampling criteria, our final sample included 357 participants, with an average age of 43 years (SD = 11.6 years), and with an average tenure of 16 years (SD = 12 years). The average unit size was 31 (SD = 6.8) and the average number of survey respondents per unit was 9 (SD = 3).

Measures

Individual-level bullying

We measured the extent to which one directly experienced bullying using 17 items based on the Aggressive Experience Scale (Glomb and Liao, 2003). This is a validated instrument that assesses individuals’ perceptions of the extent to which they are bullied by their coworkers. This measure covers a wide diversity of harmful interpersonal behaviors at work, ranging from relatively minor bullying behaviors, to more extreme behaviors. Respondents were asked: ‘How often have you experienced the following situations or behaviors from your nursing colleagues that work in this nursing unit in the past 6 months’, using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘always’. Example items included: ‘made angry gestures at you (e.g. pounding fist, rolling eyes),’ ‘withheld resources (e.g. supplies equipment) needed to do your job,’ ‘physically assaulted you’ and ‘damaged your property.’ We collected participants’ reports of bullying behavior in the first survey. The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .90.

Work unit-level bullying

We measured work unit-level bullying by averaging across the individual-level, or direct, reports of employees within each work unit using hierarchical linear modeling software. We averaged individuals’ direct reports of their own experiences because even when specific acts of bullying are not directly observed by others within a particular work group, bullying is likely to be an ambient work unit element and the negative emotions associated with it can happen without a particular employee’s direct knowledge. We therefore used an additive composition model. In additive composition models, a higher level construct is composed of lower level constructs regardless of the variance among the lower constructs (Chan, 1998). This method is consistent with Glick’s (1985) conceptualization of constructing organizational climate from a psychological climate.

It is important to note that although the work unit-level bullying includes the focal individual’s report of bullying, the focal individual’s report comprises, on average, only 11 percent of the work unit (given the average number of survey respondents per unit was 9); moreover, with the use of hierarchical linear modeling, we are able to report the unique variance explained in work unit-level bullying over and above that accounted for by the focal individual’s report of direct experience of bullying.

Turnover intentions

We used Chatman’s (1991) seven item measure to capture turnover intentions. We measured turnover intentions on both surveys. Example items include: ‘If I had a chance, I would change to some other organization,’ and ‘I often think about resigning.’ Respondents used a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. The Cronbach’s alphas were .78 and .80 for turnover at time 1 and time 2.

Control variables

Along with controlling for turnover intentions at time 1, we also controlled for a number of other variables that could potentially predict turnover intentions at time 2. First, we controlled for demographic variables, age and tenure, that have been shown to be significantly related to turnover intentions, especially in recent studies examining turnover among nurses (e.g. Delobelle et al., 2011; De Gieter et al., 2011; Gray and Phillips, 1994; Haifer, 2011; Mobley et al., 1978).

We also controlled for a particularly relevant contextual variable – unit size – which assessed the total number of nurses working in a unit (Bliese, 1998). We controlled for unit size because it has been repeatedly shown to be related to turnover and turnover intentions in numerous recent nursing studies (Blegen et al., 2008; Sellgren et al., 2009) and it serves as a proxy for many contextual challenges facing nursing staff.

Finally, we also included a social support measure as it is conceivable that being bullied and working in an environment of bullying may reflect the absence of social support, which is a primary buffer against stress and identified as a critical predictor of turnover intentions, especially among healthcare providers (see Barak et al., 2001 and Tai and Bame, 1998, for reviews). We provided each respondent with a list of coworkers in their unit and asked them to identify which ones provided social support in the past six months. Social support was calculated as the number of coworkers identified divided by unit size.

Analysis

We used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze our data. We chose HLM because it enables us to examine the simultaneous effects of variables at different levels of analysis within the same model (Hofmann, 1997); in this case, control variables, bullying and turnover intentions at the individual level, and at the group level, bullying environment and unit size.

Before conducting our HLM analysis, we assessed the variability of individuals’ turnover intentions within- and between-groups. We used the between-groups and within-group variance estimates provided by HLM analysis to calculate how much the variance of individuals’ turnover intentions are accounted for by variance in the group level (Hofmann, 1997). We performed one-way ANOVA in HLM and measured the intra-class coefficients (ICC), which measures the extent to which the variation in the dependent variable is explained by the next level (Hox, 2002). We observed a significance difference between groups (τ₀₀ = .11, χ²(40)= 84.38, p < .01). The ICC for the turnover intentions at time 2 was .27. The value of ICC suggested that variations in hospital units accounted for 27 percent of the variability of nurses’ turnover intentions at time 2. This analysis, combined with the nested structure of our variables, provides valid support to use HLM to analyze our data. Further, we standardized our variables for ease of interpretation and to reduce potential multi-collinearity (Hofmann and Gavin, 1998).

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics among the dependent, independent and control variables measured at both the individual- and unit- levels.

Table 1

Correlations and descriptive statistics^a

	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Age	43.4	11.58
2. Tenure	16.36	12.17	0.83**
3. Unit size	30.68	6.75	−0.14*	−0.07
4. Social support	0.39	0.25	0.025	−0.02	−0.05
5. Turnover intentions at T1	2.32	0.79	−0.26**	−0.27**	0.1	−0.13*
6. Individual bullying	1.29	0.38	−0.14**	−0.1	−0.1	−0.06	0.32**
7. Unit-level bullying	1.29	0.15	−0.05	−0.04	−0.22**	−0.02	0.14**	0.41**
8. Turnover intentions at T2	2.36	0.79	−0.35**	−0.29**	0.09	−0.08	0.77**	0.35**	0.21**

N = 357 participants in 41 units.

Notes: * p < .05 (two-tailed); ** p < .01 (two-tailed).

Hierarchical linear modeling is a statistical technique that simultaneously takes into account the effect of variables from different levels of analysis. In this case, tests of Hypotheses 1 and 2 include the combination of two regression models at the individual level and unit level:

Level 1 (individual level):

Y_{i j} (t u r n o v e r i n t e n t i o n s a t t i m e 2) = β_{0 j} + γ_{10} (i n d i v i d u a l - l e v e l b u l l y i n g) + γ_{20} (t e n u r e) + γ_{30} (t u r n o v e r i n t e n t i o n s a t t i m e 1) + γ_{40} (a g e) + γ_{50} (s o c i a l s u p p o r t) + r_{i j}

(1)

Level 2 (unit level):

β_{0 j} = γ_{00} + γ_{01} (u n i t s i z e) + γ_{02} (u n i t - l e v e l b u l l y i n g) + u_{0 j}

(2)

Therefore, the predicted equation becomes:

Y_{i j} (t u r n o v e r i n t e n t i o n s a t t i m e 2) = γ_{00} + γ_{10} (i n d i v i d u a l - l e v e l b u l l y i n g) + γ_{20} (t e n u r e) + γ_{01} (u n i t s i z e) + γ_{30} (t u r n o v e r i n t e n t i o n s a t t i m e 1) + γ_{40} (a g e) + γ_{02} (u n i t - l e v e l b u l l y i n g) + γ_{50} (s o c i a l s u p p o r t) + u_{0 j} + r_{i j}

(3)

Table 2 presents the results of our hierarchical linear modeling analysis. The main effects of individual-level bullying and work unit-level bullying are shown in Model 2. Hypothesis 1 predicted that being the target of bullying is positively related to individuals’ turnover intentions. The prediction is consistent with the significant coefficient for being the target of bullying (β = .08, p < .05). Thus, Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Table 2

HLM results for effects of individual-level bullying and unit-level bullying on turnover intentions

Variables	Turnover intentions at time 2
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Unit size		.02	.02
Tenure	.09	.09*	.09*
Age	−.22***	−.23***	−.22***
Turnover intentions (time 1)	.70 ***	.70***	.69***
Social support	.03	.03	.03
Individual-level bullying	.11**	.08**	.13**
Unit-level bullying		.07*	.08*
Interaction
Individual bullying X unit-level bullying			−.06 ^*
R-squared	0.64

For ease of interpretation, we report standardized coefficients. N = 357 participants in 41 units.

Note: * p < .05 (one-tailed); ** p < .01 (one-tailed); *** p < .001(one-tailed).

Hypothesis 2 predicted that work unit-level bullying would have a positive relationship with turnover intentions, while controlling for direct experiences of bullying. The coefficient for work unit-level bullying is significant (β = .07, p < .05). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.¹

Hypothesis 3 predicted an interaction effect between individual- and work unit-level bullying, such that the relationship between work unit-level bullying and turnover intentions is stronger for those who experience less direct bullying, compared with those who experience more. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a cross-level moderator analysis in HLM (e.g. Raudenbush et al., 2004). Model 3 shows a significant coefficient for the interaction term (β = -.06, p < .05). This interaction is graphically depicted in Figure 1. As predicted, the positive relationship between work unit-level bullying and turnover intentions is stronger for those who infrequently experience direct bullying (-1SD), compared with those who are bullied often (+1SD), supporting Hypothesis 3. The graph also indicates that the cumulative impact of bullying is strongest for those who are bullied often and work in a work unit characterized by high bullying.

Figure 1

The impact of unit-level bullying on turnover intentions in high versus low levels of individual bullying.

Discussion and conclusion

How does bullying influence turnover intentions? Consistent with past studies, the results of this study show that when people are bullied at work, they have a stronger desire to leave their organization (Hauge et al., 2010; McKay et al., 2008). Given that bullying is most often a painful and distressing experience, it is not surprising that people want to avoid situations in which they must endure uncivil, harassing or aggressive behaviors from others in their workplace. Such sentiments can often lead to employees actually leaving their organizations when an opportunity arises. Even when employees are unable to quit their jobs and leave their organization when they face a high degree of being bullied, simply thinking about leaving may help them cope with and resist this negative treatment.

Importantly, the results of this study show that people are not only aversively affected by their own experience of being bullied, but that the bullying experiences of others in their work units can have significant effects as well. Our results show that merely working in a work unit with a considerable amount of bullying is linked to higher employee turnover intentions. This is consistent with prior studies that have revealed the impact of environmental level effects of specific harmful behaviors such as sexual harassment or incivility (Glomb et al., 1997; Lim and Cortina, 2008). Our findings add to these findings, however, in two ways. First, we examined a broad, varied and generalized experience of bullying. Second, because we relied on hierarchical linear modelling techniques, we were able to accurately examine the simultaneous impacts of direct bullying and ambient bullying, showing each unique effect above and beyond that accounted for by the other (something not possible with earlier statistical techniques).

Of particular note is the fact that we could predict turnover intentions as effectively by either how much one was the target of bullying, or by how much one’s work environment was characterized by bullying. This is potentially interesting because we tend to assume that direct, personal experiences should be more influential upon employees than indirect experiences only witnessed or heard about in a second-hand fashion. Yet our study identifies a case where direct and indirect experiences have a similarly strong relationship to turnover intentions. These findings point to the potential importance of a growing area of research in organizational behavior that gives attention to and addresses third party experiences. To date, most of our research has focused upon the direct experiences of actors or targets in interpersonal organizational dynamics, and we are only beginning to understand the significance of being a third party to those dynamics.

Drawing from recent developments on deontic justice, we suggest that simply working in an aggressive environment can lead to turnover intentions because bullying represents a severe moral transgression that creates an abstract sense of moral uneasiness. As a result of this deonance state, third parties, or those who are not the direct target of bullying, can be moved to quit their organization as soon as an opportunity arises out of disgust and protest toward the bullies and toward their organization, which does not prevent the bullying or reprimand the bullies. Although the correlational nature of our study prohibits us from drawing such bold conclusions, we encourage future research to establish a stronger cause and effect relationship than our study permitted, as well as attempt to capture the particular mechanisms or pathways by which employees are impacted by ambient bullying.

In this study, we were also able to demonstrate that the relationship between work unit-level bulling and intentions to quit was dependent, in part, upon whether one is directly targeted or not. We found that when someone is not bullied directly, the impact of bullying within the work unit has a stronger impact on them than when they are also the direct target of bullying. Consistent with a deonance justice perspective, although individuals may experience moral indignation at other people being bullied, it is perceived as even more unfair when others are bullied and they are not. Not only does their own relatively good treatment by others provide a reference point of how their coworkers should be treated, the inconsistent treatment between themselves and others fuels a sense of moral outrage (Folger and Cropanzano, 1998).

Our findings suggest some potential insights about the role of context (Johns, 2006) in understanding bullying. We thus contribute to the general stream of meso-level research by highlighting how the bullying context can influence individuals’ reactions (Klein et al., 1999; Mathieu and Chen, 2011). We also have hopefully added to the new but quickly growing literature on the third parties in organizational environments who may be, as our study suggests, as impacted by organizational dynamics and exchanges as much or even more so as those who are directly targeted. Future studies not only need to continue to incorporate a simultaneous examination of effects at different levels of the organization by routinely using hierarchical linear modelling, but these results suggest we also need empirical research to determine the actual mediating mechanisms that can explain the higher level or environmental effects.

A potential limitation of this article is that our study measures turnover intention, not behavior. Although prior research finds turnover intentions and behavior to be moderately related (Steel and Ovalle, 1984), this relationship may be much stronger in occupations that have strong labour markets, such as nursing. Moreover, we contend that predicting turnover intentions itself is worthwhile because organizations are also harmed by having employees with turnover intentions but who remain employed. Nevertheless, we believe that future studies that can examine both intended and actual turnover over time would be worthwhile.

Another potential limitation is rooted in our assumption that bullying is a perceived injustice. This assumption is consistent with the existing literature that posits bullying has many negative impacts and, therefore, breaches people’s moral standards to prevent harm toward others (Haidt and Graham, 2007; Haidt and Joseph, 2004). However, to the best of our knowledge, no research has specifically investigated the psychology that surrounds bullying and morality. A fruitful avenue for future research would be to explore how people relate bullying to immoral behaviors and how that affects their subsequent reactions. On a related note, in the current research we examined only one form of deontic reaction, resistance. As we note above, turnover, as a form of resistance can be conceptualized as a deontic reaction because it is often an attempt to disrupt a bully’s source of power. However, deontic punishment can come in many forms, depending on what is available to third parties. Future studies could shed light onto how other forms of deontic reactions, such as covert sabotage and retaliation, result from unit-level bullying.

Finally, our research design did not enable us to determine the direction of causality between our variables. However, we contend that the most theoretically parsimonious explanation for our main effects is that bullying, especially at the work unit level, drives one’s turnover intentions rather than one’s turnover intentions drive one’s experience of being bullied or the degree of bullying in one’s work environment. Likewise, it is difficult to imagine how our moderation effect – that the impact of work unit-level bullying upon turnover intentions is greater for those who infrequently experience bullying than for those who experience more frequent bullying – operates in a different causal direction than that which we propose. In addition to establishing causality, future research should be devoted to understanding the mediation mechanisms that link third party injustice to deontic punishment or resistance. Our theory is based on a few mediating factors, such as a sense of moral uneasiness, deontic emotions and empathetic responses, that contribute to a behavioral deontic reaction. Future studies involving multiple waves of data collection and measuring the explanatory variables will ultimately provide stronger evidence of causal relationships between bullying, work unit-level bullying, and turnover intentions and the mechanisms responsible for these relationships.

Despite the limitations of this research, our findings offer several practical implications for hospitals and other types of organizations. The results of this study indicate that organizations need to be mindful of bullying for two reasons. First, our findings are consistent with prior research that suggests that the targets of bullying develop undesirable organizational attitudes and/or behaviors (e.g. increased turnover intentions). Perhaps more importantly though, our findings provide evidence to support the notion that the costs of bullying can extend even to those who are not the direct target of bullying. Those who experience bullying second-hand, simply because they work in environments in which others are bullied, can also experience negative attitudes and behaviors, similar to the direct targets of bullying. Importantly, while the loss of individual employees may be absorbed by organizations, a potential mushrooming effect in work units characterized by a great deal of bullying presents a greater need for management to take protective action against mistreatment among employees.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge partial funding from Fraser Health Authority Strategic Imperatives Research Grant.

Notes

Marjan Houshmand is a PhD student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research focuses on the impact of interpersonal and network level dynamics in social networks on individual and group level outcomes. She is particularly interested in investigating this question within the unique context of family business firms that consist of two intertwined networks of family and business.

Jane O’Reilly is a PhD student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research is directed at understanding how to constructively address and prevent mistreatment in organizations. Specifically, she is interested in understanding how third parties’ reactions toward others’ mistreatment can provide direct and indirect benefits to the victims and help punish the perpetrators of mistreatment in organizations. She is also interested in understanding the unique effects of social exclusion at work.

Sandra Robinson is Professor in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She obtained her PhD from Northwestern University, USA. Over the past two decades, Sandra’s research has sought to address the ‘dark side’ of organizational behavior, with a special interest in behavior within relationships and individuals’ perceptions of how they are treated by others. Her prior publications, which have appeared in various journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Harvard Business Review, and Academy of Management Review, have focused upon topics such as psychological contract breach, trust betrayal, workplace deviance, aggression, territorial behavior and infringement. She has won various awards for her work, including the Cummings Award for early career achievement, the Western Academy Ascendant Scholar Award, and a Killam Research Prize. Sandra’s current research program continues her focus on the dark side of organizational relationships by addressing the effects of ostracism and social exclusion.

Angela Wolff is employed in Fraser Health Authority and holds an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor with the University of British Columbia School of Nursing, Canada. Her current research focuses on how relational diversity in age and work values leads to interpersonal conflict and burnout among nurses; ostracism in healthcare workplaces; capacity for student clinical experience and the learning culture of workplaces; and instrument development to assess nurses’ work values and the competency of clinical nurse educators. The broader focus of Dr Wolff’s research is on the sustainability of the nursing workforce, the quality of work life/work environment for nurses, and the factors that affect the work performance and preparedness of new registered nurse graduates. Dr Wolff has published her work in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Nursing Management, Nurse Education Today, International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship and Western Journal of Nursing Research.

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