Abstract

The purpose of this theoretical research is to investigate the general determinants of workplace bullying and its implications on employee’s performance; its primary interests are to address the following research questions. Firstly, what are the general determinants that predict workplace bullying? Secondly, how would workplace bullying impact work-related performance and employee overall well-being? This paper is predicting the phenomena of bullying occur if and only if at least three elements of the following factors have been satisfied: (i) Leadership Style, (ii) Job title, (iii) Extrinsic Motivator, (iv) Personality, (v) Gender, (vi) Body Height, (vii) Cultural orientation, and (vii) Language fluency.

Introduction

Organizational behaviour is one of the most crucial and decisive factors in determining success of an organization; Organization has always initiate way to provide finest environment and attractive incentives to ensure optimal performance for the employees. However, some of the negative practise in workplace still occur and often produce de-motivated employees, which in turn affect overall productivity of an organization. For instance, workplace bullying sometimes do exist and often the most irritating issue in any organization as not only it involves high expense in complex human resource management policies and strategies, but also reduce employee productivity (Baillien & White, 2009). Inappropriate management in human resource that cause organizational problem and conflict, particularly workplace bullying would often result detrimental impacts on overall productivity, customer relationship, customer satisfaction, and both intangible and tangible assets of an organization (Baillien & White, 2009). Base on several past researches, as mentioned above, the detrimental effect of workplace bullying on performance has been showing convincing relationship (Leymann, 1990; Keashly & Harvey, 2005; ; Sandvik & Sypher, 2009; Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011; Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). As employees that reported bullying in the workplace also report health problems and poorer well-being, and also higher rate of absenteeism in the workplace in the occurrence of workplace bullying (Dehue, Bolman, Vollink & Pouwelse, 2012). Moreover, bullying in the workplace often linked with mental health problems (Hogh, Mikkelsen, & Hansen, 2011), might as well considered as an extreme form of social abuse and mental distress that to an extend of suicidal thought creation ( Vartia, 2011; Zapf & Einarsen, 2003). In addition, those who are the victim of workplace bullying often report psychosomatic and physiological detrimental effect after the occurrence of workplace bullying (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). It also leads to more severe disorder (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Moreover, not only the victim experiences negative symptoms of workplace bullying and reduced productivity, but also the entire organization would be affected, this is because co-worker experience similar feeling and emotion while observing such phenomena in the workplace (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Employees experience bullying in workplace are often dissatisfied with the working environment and are often de-motivated to excel in any given task, this can lead to reduced level of productivity in an department, and customer dissatisfaction (Deery, Walsh, & Guest, 2011; Hoel, Sheehan, Cooper, & Einarsen, 2011). Additionally, absenteeism is one of the most obvious organizational negative implications of workplace bullying, it is found that 50% more prevalent in employees that reported bullying in workplace compared to normal employee that doesn’t report workplace bullying (Martino, Hoel & Cooper, 2003). Hence, organizations that do not view workplace bullying as a serious problem often suffer from decline in organizational productivity rate. It is crucial for management to reduce the occurrence of workplace bullying to ensure healthy organization culture.

Definitions and theoretical frameworks of workplace bullying

One most critical obstacle in the previous research in workplace bullying is to identify the nature of the behaviours, past researchers failed to set unambiguous delineation and proliferation for workplace bullying. One of the earliest study about workplace bullying begin with Heinz Leymann (1990), a German physician that are interested in adult bullying, he adopted the idea of mobbing as a form of adult bullying (Leymann, 1990), mobbing is in fact initially adopted from a term in animal behaviour, where mobbing is referring to animals that are highly engage in an cooperative behaviour in the afford of attacking or harassing a species or a mob of species (Dominey, 1983). Heinz Leymann (1990) discuss the operational definition of mobbing as psychical terror, a form of intimidating and immoral communication which is directed in a persistent way by one or a group of people towards an individual (Leymann, 1990), this form of situation must last at least six month, and cause considerable psychic, psychosomatic and social distress (Leymann, 1990); Leymann (1990) mentioned about the Mobbing to Expulsion model, where harassment and mobbing has distinctive nature, where mobbing could last as least six month, and harassment could be stop by immediate effect (Leymann, 1990). In the Leymann Mobbing to Expulsion model, there are four phrases, the first phrases is known as “the original critical incident” , it is often seen as a form triggering incident that are perceived as conflict in the eye of victim, and this conflict is usually arises from over working (Leymann, 1990). The second phrases is “mobbing and stigmatizing”, it is basically a continuum of the first phrase in a systematic way over a long period, at least six month of time (Leymann, 1990), and it is somehow unknown for the reason behind that six month of time is the minimum duration in Leymann’s research. The third phase is known as “personnel administration”, it is basically the phase when the victim confronted with serious violation of justice by the management, the victim is often seen as having a deviant personality that cause the negative situation (Leymann, 1990). The last phase of this model is “expulsion”, this phase is referring to the unproductive performance of the victim resulting from all the previous stage as well as emotional exhaustion, resulting from the negative consequences of mobbing (Leymann, 1990). Figure one summarized the Leymann Mobbing to Expulsion model, Leymann study has intrigued the latter study about workplace bullying in the world, especially setting minimum period for the occurrence of workplace bullying, and that is at least six month of time; this has effectively distinguish the different between workplace bullying from short term unintentional offensive behaviour, and at the same time pioneering the important concept of duration and period in the occurrence of workplace bullying.  However, Leymann model argue that expulsion occur follow a sequential order, from phase one to phase four, this is somehow inappropriate in reality, this is because an individual might have the symptoms of expulsion even without going through phase two and three, an individual might happen to embrace with deviant behaviour at the first phase that are supposing shown in phase four.

Figure 1. Leymann Mobbing to Expulsion model (Leymann, 1990)

 

Apart from Leymann perspective on workplace bullying, Loraleign Keashly and Steve Harvey (2005) from US has associated the Leymann study with the idea of workplace emotional abuse, it is more specific on the emotional aspect rather than the overall performance of the victim. Keashly and Harvey (2005) focus in the emotional and non-physical aspect base on the ground of most workplace aggression is non-physical (Chappel & Di Martino, 1998; Keashly & Harvey, 2004; Neuman & Baron, 1997 as cited in Keashly & Harvey, 2005). Keashly and Harvey (2005) define workplace emotional abuse as a form of persisting endurance and competent of a worker in a hostile working environment that has been repeatedly challenged (Keashly & Harvey, 2005), or in a simpler term, the individual is experiencing emotional abuse at workplace if the individual is repeatedly uncovered with co-workers’ verbal or nonverbal, but non-physical and aggressive manners (Keashly & Harvey, 2005). The concept of emotional abuse is basically measured in duration of time, ranging from six months to 5 years by self-indentifying emotion checklist (Keashly & Harvey, 2005). Keashly and Harvey’s concept of emotional abuse in workplace might not accurately capture the real essence of workplace bullying, but they have associated mobbing with the negative and intense emotional effect among the victim of workplace bullying. However, Keashly and Harvey emphasized the important of emotional distress in the event of bullying in the workplace.

Keashly and Harvey conceptualization of workplace bullying by the aspect of emotional abuse could be further explained by affective events theory of workplace bullying. Affective events theory provides a clear predictive relationship of the causes, consequences, and the structure of affective experiences at the workplace (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011); Glasø, Holmdal and Einarsen, (2011) hypothesized the following:

  • Negative affects mediate the relationships between exposure to bullying and job satisfaction, and between exposure to bullying and turnover intentions. Exposure to bullying will be associated with an increase in negative affects, which further will be related to a decrease in job satisfaction and an increased intention to leave the organization, respectively. (p.200)
  • Positive affects mediate the relationships between exposure to bullying and job satisfaction, and between exposure to bullying and turnover intentions. Exposure to bullying will be related to a decrease in positive affects, which further will be related to a decrease in job satisfaction and an increased intention to leave the organization, respectively. (p.200)

In accordance of affective events theory, work environment features such as responsibility, duty and roles have greatly influence the work events and work attitudes (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). While affective reactions serve as a mediator between work events and work attitudes; work attitudes ultimately influence judgmental drive behaviors in the workplace. All this happen via a cognitive route as well as through a series of indirectly affective route (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). The positive or negative affective reaction that are generated by work events base on work environment features will then lead to affect driven behavior and such driven behavior must be the result of accumulated event from previous event of the triggering work events (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). Figure two illustration a more comprehensible concept of the affective event theory as discussed above. Although the affective event theory has intuitively associate working environment or better known as work environment features with working attitudes, it does not specify which kind of work environments or work situation that are associative with either positive or negative affective reactions, and the only test in that experiment is solely base on bullying in the workplace (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). This is less accurate because other events besides bullying could possibly arouse the similar affect at work (Basch & Fisher, 2000 as cited in Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). In the study of Glasø, Holmdal, and Einarsen (2011), they have associated negative event to bullying behavior at work, and such behavior has been shown to be related to a spanning range of work features, for instances: i.) Perceived power imbalance, ii.) Motivating incentives,  iii.) Organizational restructuring, iv.) Changes in the composition of the work group (Stalin, 2003, as cited in Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011) and v.) Role conflict, vi.) Interpersonal conflicts, and vii.) Leadership style ( Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2007 ,as cited in Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011). Moreover, the use of self-reported questionnaire might post some validation and accuracy issues, for example, participants might not always reveal their own thought, or simple give answer base on social needs, the latter issue cause a major problem in most questionnaire reporting, it is better termed as social desirability bias, it is basically the tendency of the participants to responds in a way that are in favor by others, or simply match with the purpose of the researchers and theme of the study (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Although affective reactions theory fails to set specification for work environment features that could possibly the foundation of work attitudes and subject to social desirability bias, it developed the role of personality, emotions, and environment in determining workplace bullying (Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011), this is because different personality linked with different emotion react in different ways.

Figure 2. Illustration of Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996, as cited in Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011).

 

Nevertheless, the first step in understanding workplace bullying is to label the term “workplace bullying”, as this would provide a scope to ease the problem and solution (Namie & Namie, 2011). In the past, workplace bullying is often an ambiguous term,  this is because workplace bullying is often sharing meaning with other similar terms, for example, sexual harassment, mobbing, humiliation, and glass ceiling. Besides, the terms alter from author to author, a region to another region, and perception to another perception. As an illustration, US researchers prefer to labels this phenomenon as employee emotional abuse (Keashly, 1998, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), generalized workplace abuse (Rospenda, Richman, Wislar, & Flaherty, 2000, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), mistreatment (Meares, Oetzel, Derkacs, & Ginossar, 2004, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), and perceived victimization (Aquino & Bradfield, 2000, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), these are only few past research in the related study. Nonetheless, as a general interest of the current theoretical paper, workplace bullying should and always a distinct situation; Leymman (1990) defined bullying as an experience of negative act in both verbal and non verbal style weekly for at least six months.  In order to begin, referring to the previous definition of workplace bullying that are under the great influence of Leymman’s researches (1990) might hint the current paper in the correct direction; there are several definitions of workplace bullying that are greatly influence by Leymman (1990), for example, according to the definition of Tracy, Sandvik and Alberts, workplace bullying is defined as a form of hostile communication and behaviour in workplace setting (Tracy, Sandvik, & Albers, 2006). Nonetheless, hostile communication and behaviour might not always constitute to workplace bullying, it might just a habitual communication style. Another definition by Namie and Namie, workplace bullying is defined as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment, verbal abuse, or conduct which is threatening, humiliating, intimidating, or sabotage”  that intervene usual work routine or the wellness of an employee (Namie & Namie, 2011). Although this definition is somehow precise, it could be better if the term of duration is mentioned.  Labelling and defining workplace bullying is crucial as it set appropriate guideline, rules and regulation for both employee and employer to practise, and hence reducing abusive and maltreatment of employee in the workplace (Fox & Stallworth, 2008). On the other hand, organization and policy maker are consensus in not giving resource and serious commitment to clarify the ambiguous problem, as they tend to see workplace bullying a mild interpersonal conflict, and it doesn’t require any serious attention from the top management (Fox & Stallworth, 2008).

In fact, despite of the pre-existing ambiguous definition of workplace bullying, some research try to provide a more comprehensible idea of workplace bullying, for instance, Mattice and Garmen (2010) as quoted in Nevada State Education Association article (n.d), define workplace bullying as:

Systematic aggressive communication, manipulation of work, and acts aimed at humiliating or degrading one or more individual that creates an unhealthy and unprofessional power imbalance between bully and target(s), result in psychological consequences for targets and co-workers, and cost enormous monetary damage to an organization’s bottom line. (p.2)

           Apart from that, according to the definition of Sandvik and Sypher, the bully victim is known as target, and bully actor are known as actors, bullies, or perpetrators, whereas the act of bullying is defined as repeated health-degrading mistreatment that often intended to initial negative interactive that bring irritation and intimidation on others (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009).  In addition, Sandvik and Sypher view work interference and sabotage that negatively affect workplace performance could be seen as a symptom of the occurrence of workplace bullying (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). The targeted worker or victim often feels that the actors or bullies want to harm, control, and drive them in the workplace (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Base on Sandvik and Sypher’s concept of workplace bullying, it is seen as a “distinct communicative phenomenon” that could be identified by the “workplace bullying differentiate characteristic model”, these are the following features: (i) Repetition, (ii) Duration, (iii) Escalation, and (iv) Harm (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), figure three illustration the workplace bullying differentiate characteristic model. In brief elaboration of this workplace bullying differentiate characteristic model, repetition is referring to recurring and frequent targeting of the victim, this repetition is different with the incident of infrequent negative interactions (Rayner, Hoel & Cooper, 2002, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Whereas duration is the persistent nature that gives workplace bullying the killing factors, researchers usually see six-months as the minimum duration for workplace bullying; this is a great influence by Leymann (1990) study, but the victim of workplace bullying often report bullying would last longer (Namie, 2003a as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). While Escalation is about the degree of intensification over the duration, victim might feel uncomfortable to trace their experience in the occurrence of workplace bullying (Adams & Crawford, 1992, as cited in Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), but in the much later case, they are able to recognize that they are the constantly being abuse (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Lastly, Harm is taking place when the bullying effect goes beyond the victim endurance; its destructive nature is often associated with the victim weakened or impaired physical, mental, social, and occupational health (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009), or impaired of personal skill that are external to the victim work life (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Differentiate characteristic model provide fair consideration of duration and escalation but fail to take environmental factor into serious account,  for instance, environmental factors associated with working duty and responsibility; workplace structure should be put into great consideration when applying differentiate characteristic model in order to capture the essence of workplace bullying. However, differentiate characteristic indeed create an effective awareness to other researchers about the importance of differentiating workplace bullying with other similar term as mentioned above. Besides, Sandvik and Sypher (2009) manage to provide fair detail of harm, in the “differentiate characteristic model”. For instance, the element of harm has been further interpreted in different aspect, namely: (i) Attribute intent, (ii) Hostile work environment, (iii) Power disparity, (iv) Communication patterning and, (v) Distorted communication networks (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). The following would be the brief elaboration of the abovementioned element of harm. Firstly, Attributed intent refer to the perception of victim that the action of bullies are highly intentional, the victim are highly convinced that themselves are the target from the bullies and such act from the bullies are not accidental or by chance (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Secondly, hostile work environment simply refer to the existing resource and working settings are marked as unpleasant and uncomfortable by existing workgroup member (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Thirdly, power disparity is the simple referring to the perceived power differences between workgroup members; it is often in accordance of the corporate hierarchy of a company that exists prior to the bullying behavior (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Whereas communication patterning means a constellation of verbal and non verbal communication understood in the eye of victim perception as hostile and unfriendly, and often with a purposeful of intention to bring distress to the victim (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). Lastly, distorted communication networks are about a set of complex pattern of unpleasant treatment to the victim through routine communication and routine task (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009). However, the mechanism of these problems might because of a different set of cultural and emotional appraisal, or perhaps a different interpretation in different power distance context, this might be in turn serves as an important element in the predictive determinant of cultural orientation that would be discussed later. Hence, it is obvious that Sandvik and Sypher (2009) researches have provided a critical review on the concept of harm and damage in from the perspective of the workplace bullying victim.   

Figure 3. Workplace bullying differentiate characteristic model (Sandvik & Sypher, 2009).

           The concept of workplace bullying is more specific and understandable aaccording to the definition of Einarsen’s research, Einarsen defined worplace bullying is a form of coercive influence that the “bullier or actor” put on “victim or target” to act in a non-voluntary way in a prolonged period of time in the workplace; it often comes in various forms, spanning from verbal, non-verbal, psychological, and sociological (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Employees that experienced suffice level of bullying would more likely to quit their job due to mental distress and lower level of job satisfaction (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Workplace Bullying could also involve consistent legitimate abuse of hierarchy between managerial and subordinates (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011), most of the time, boss, leader, supervisor, manager or colleagues from a higher hierarchy in an organization is forming a hidden tied to influence individual or group of co-worker in a lower hierarchy with the intention to cause harm and mental distress on the target employee (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Intuitively, the above mentioned behavior is somehow linked with one of the human behavior, aggresiveness; perhaps the study of human aggression could be use to explain the reason behind aggression at work and bullying in the workplace. In order to understand aggression at work better,   Berkowitz (1969) has hypothesized a fair predictive relationship between frustrations and aggression. Frustration–aggression hypothesis is a good associative concept to define the occurrence of bullying in the workplace; this theory is developed by John Dollard and colleagues and claimed that frustration causes aggression (Berkowitz, 1969), but when the original triggering cause of such frustration could not be confronted, these aggression generated by such frustration would be displaced to innocent target (Berkowitz, 1969). As an illustration, if a man feels he has been personally attacked or bullied by supervisor or boss, but cannot react due to his fear of losing his occupation, he may go home and take his negative and frustration on his family members, or perhaps he might transferred his anger to his own subordinate in the corporate hierarchy system, and this intuitively elucidate the cycle of aggression and frustration. This theory could used to explain the occurrence of workplace bullying. A more in-depth explanation of this theory could be simplified into the idea of frustration and goal-directed behavior and expectations (Berkowitz, 1969). Frustration is termed and defined as “an interference with the occurrences of an instigated goal response at its proper time in the behavior sequence” (Dollard et al, 1939, p.7, as cited in Berkowitz, 1969). Goal-directed behavior and expectations is an individual motivation and expectation to strike for better performance, obstacle to a goal is not a form of frustration unless the individual has “intent to gratify the primary drive” (cited in Yates, 1962, p.110, as cited in Berkowitz, 1969). This theory is interesting to the current theoretical paper as it provides a clue on the determinant of workplace bullying, in accordance of this theory, the level of frustration could be a determinant to drive an individual to displace their anger on other individual in the workplace and subsequently causes workplace bullying. More importantly, this theory could also explain the cycle among victim, victim-actor, and actor, where victim is the victim of bullying, actor is the bullying executor, and victim-actor is previously a victim of bullying and displace their frustration to become a bullying actor. Conversely, this theory has several shortcomings; firstly, the empirical data to support the experiment and research is very limited, even though this research has been studied for more than sixty years (Berkowitz, 1969). Further, it fail to explain why some frustration could not lead to aggression while are show clear linkage between aggression and frustration (Berkowitz, 1969). 

           Besides that, bullying could also take place in the electronic form, for instance, electronic mail or better known as email (electronic mail), video, social media website (eg. Facebook, and twitter) , blog, SMS (mobile short message services), and other electronic form and internet medium. Cyber bullying in the workplace is the latest trend of bullying in the workplace and, cyber bullying in the workplace is now on the rise due to the reason that it is very easy to manipulate electronic communication data through the use of intranet and internet (Giumetti, Hatfield, Scisco, Schroeder, Muth, & Kowalski, 2013). Cyber bullying in the workplace is very similar to the traditional workplace bullying, except cyber bullying involve the use of communication technology and electronic devices (Menesini & Nocentini, 2009); Cyber bullying is simply a set of repeated act of aggressiveness with the intent to harm other through the use of electronic device and technology to bring distress in any form on an individual in a prolong time period (Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho, Fisher, Russell, & Tippett, 2008). In addition, Li (2007) provides a clearer definition of cyber bullying; cyber bullying is defined as the following:

           the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and         pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory          online personal polling Web sites to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by      an individual or group, that is intended to harm others. (p. 1779)

In short, cyber bullying is no different from the traditional way of bullying, but only involves the use of technology in communication, cyber bullying in the workplace shall then also be an important topic to discuss as it has greater escalation compare to the traditional bullying in the workplace (Barlett & Gentile, 2012). Its escalation is greater because cyber bullying not only takes place in the workplace, but also it happens anytime, anyplace, and anyhow. For instance, a target of cyber bullying in the workplace has been attack on social media website by his co-workers, the stress that the target experience doesn’t end in the workplace, but instead, the worry and uneasiness continue from workplace to home until the relevant posting on social media website has been removed. Researches in cyber bullying intrigue the concept of duration and harm, as cyber bullying extend the duration of stress experience by the target of bullying, it might as well expands the amount of damage and harm that target received (Barlett & Gentile, 2012). Hence, cyber bullying has redefined the concept of duration and harm from the tradiotional way of bullying by its intensified version of duration and harm suffered by the target of bullying.

            Base on the discussion above, there is variety of definition and concept for workplace bullying in different scope and perspectives, as a general interest of this theoretical paper, the perspective of workplace bullying would concur on the concept and definition of the following organizational psychology researchers: Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, and Cooper (2011), Sandvik (2006), and Keashly & Harvey (2005). In short, the definition of workplace bullying shall have the following characteristics and features altogether: (i) duration, (ii) persistence, (iii) perceived harm, (iv) perceived hostile working environment, and (v) emotional distress, and such concept is often the result of victim’s perception and experiences that are influenced by different predictive determinants that might bring negative emotional distress or serves as a fair predictive for overall well being of an employee in the workplace, however, the emotional distress served as a great mediator for the other four concept and it could be possibly another predictive determinant of perceived workplace bullying and workplace bullying. The predictive determinants of the workplace bullying that are base on the mentioned characteristics and features will be discussed later.  For the purpose of this theoretical paper, it is simply termed as “The Major Five Concept” of workplace bullying. Figure four depict the idea of the major five concept of workplace bullying.

Figure 4. The Major Five Concept of workplace bullying.

 

Determinants

The current theoretical paper is highly interested in dwelling the closest or more appropriate predictive factors that constitutes to the occurrence of workplace bullying, as discussed above, workplace bullying is often a phenomena that are  greatly influenced by victim emotional experiences, predisposed predictive factors, and the overall structured and management of a company. The focus of the current theoretical paper is also based on the definition of workplace bullying that is mentioned in the major five concept of workplace bullying above. It is basically comprised of three main and general predictive determinants of workplace bullying that are based on the major five concept of workplace bullying, it comprised of the following: (i) the workplace environmental predictive determinants, (ii) the predisposed predictive determinants and (iii) the geographical predictive determinants. The workplace environmental predictive determinant includes leadership style, job title, and extrinsic motivator, and the predisposed predictive determinants include personality, gender, and body height, while the geographical predictive determinants refer to cultural orientation and language fluency. The likelihood of a workplace bullying is predictability fair and high if and only if all three general predictive determinant of workplace bullying are present. Figure five illustrate the possible predictive determinants of workplace bullying base on the major five concept of workplace bullying.

Figure 5. Three main and general predictive determinants in accordance of “The Major Five Concept of workplace bullying”.

 

Workplace environmental Predictive determinants

  • Leadership style. Inspired by Leymann workplace environmental hypothesis, Hauge, Einarsen, Knardahl, Lau, Notelaers, and Skogstad had conducted a study in 2011 to study the mechanism of leadership style in an organization that affect workplace bullying. Result indicated a positive hypothesis when an absent of a fair and supportive leadership style do promote the occurrence of workplace bullying. Although leadership style shown to be the probable factor to explain workplace bullying, yet there aren’t any single explanation to delve the complexity of why workplace bullying occurs (Zapf, 1999, as cited in Hauge, Einarsen, Knardahl, Lau, Notelaers & Skogstad, 2011). Besides, the sampling of this research are very similar to Leymann’s study, merely using a western sampling, thus, can’t represent as a general and common factor that cause workplace bullying. Despite of the study have been accessed by the General Nordic Questionnaire for psychological and social factors at work, this study are somehow subject to the common social desirability bias as well, as survey in carried out in the workplace with the present of management supervision doesn’t capture the essence of the problem accurately. In addition, the aim of the study is about environmental condition that generated stressor, emotion does serves as a intuitive mediator in the study, but it is not determined and emphasised in Hague et al.’s (2011) study. However, this study brought up a great concern about power distance in the workplace, Hague et al.’s nature of the study is about the role of leadership as a stressor in an interdepartmental workplace setting, this is then creating another form of predictive determinants, the power distance or hierarchy of the workplace. Result of Hague et al.’s (2011) study shown that at the departmental level, workplace bullying was interpreted as a continuous event by most of the employee that has leadership style intervened (Hague et al, 2011).  In accordance of the result of Hague et al.’s study, their hypothesis is highly associative, assumption that prevailing environmental conditions such as leadership style do serves as a good predictive determinant of workplace bullying (Hague et al, 2011). Supportive and fair leadership style showed significantly lower reported case of workplace bullying compare to an unfair and unsupportive leadership style in a department (Hague et al, 2011), and it is possible that unfair and unsupportive leadership style could cause more workplace bullying and may lead to an ambiguous conflict within a department (Hague et al, 2011). Hence, unfair and unsupportive leadership style in the workplace could possibly a fair predictive determinant that contributes an unfavourable situation in the workplace where employees are more likely to experience workplace bullying and aggressiveness (Bond, Tuckey, & Dollard, 2010; James, Choi, Ko, McNeil, Minton, Wright, & Kim 2008). Last but not least, Hague study also intuitively brought up the idea between job duty and responsibility in a hierarchical workplace settings, where the higher the hierarchical job title has a higher potential to become a bullying actor.
  • Job title. Job title here refer to the job duty and responsibility rather than a mere position, it serves as a symbolical power of an employee in the workplace. In the study of Tuckey, Dollard, Hosking, and Winefield in 2009, it shows that the likelihood of workplace bullying occur is significantly higher in the situation where higher ranked employee will bully their subordinates, and this is very common in the governmental servant department especially the military and police of the country (Tuckey, Dollard, Hosking, & Winefield, 2009); Their finding are in alignment of the hypothesis that argue working environment that has a far hierarchical structure does promote workplace bullying (Vartia, 1996); (Vartian, 2001). Tuckey et al’s study about workplace bullying mainly by the observation of the police officer during their duty hour, it is claimed that psychosocial work environment factors serves as a good contributor of workplace bullying (Tuckey et al, 2009). It shown that the job title and duty of the police officer are associated with support resources, whenever the demand of the task go beyond the expected job title and duty, and whenever the support resources provided fall below the expectation for such job title, the police officer are more likely to experience workplace bullying (Tuckey et al, 2009). Tuckey et al’s study is indeed an interesting study, however, different work setting might have different result, the result discussed in Tuckey et al’s study could not represent another workplace in a general term, this is because police officer might have higher expected discipline principle compare to other conventional employee from different work settings. Hence, generalisation of job title in a hierarchical structured workplace that does promote workplace bullying is risky even though it serves as a good predictor of workplace bullying; especially the employee’s core value of expected task and value are different from one industry to another industry. Nonetheless, Tuckey et al’s study also indirectly create another question, that higher incentive of employee generally hold higher hierarchy position in an organization (Tuckey et al, 2009), but does extrinsic motivator such as wages and salary compensate workplace bullying? This is interesting as the hypothesis simply suggest the relationship between expected work task, and expected support and resource are associative (Tuckey et al, 2009); does extrinsic motivator such as salary serve as a kind of resource to compensate exceed level of work task?
  • Extrinsic motivator. Although there are none direct associative research between extrinsic motivator and bullying in the workplace, job satisfaction ,an important indicator of overall well being of an employee in the workplace, has play an important role in determining the occurrence of perceived bullying among the employee in the workplace. Whereas extrinsic motivator is one of fair determinant of job satisfaction (Terborg & Miller, 1978). One of the most controversial and obstacle for the enactment of workplace bullying legislation is the occurrence of perceived bullying rather than genuine workplace bullying (Namie & Namie, 2011). In order to differentiate the idea of perceived bullying and workplace bullying, with the reference of the above mentioned definition of workplace bullying, employee perception and mental distress in workplace do serves as a common predictive determinant that increase the probability of bullying in the workplace (Keashly & Harvey, 2005). Extrinsic motivator is very likely a good mediator between job satisfaction and emotional distress in the workplace; this is especially accurate in the case of female (Escartin, Salin, Rodriguez, 2011). When expected job duty and expected resource such as salary does not equate, the likelihood of workplace bullying is exceptional fair (Tuckey et al, 2009), especially when the intrinsic motivator is absent (Halpern, 1966). This in turn serves as a good predictive detrimental for emotional distress when job dissatisfaction is low (Ziegler, Schlett, Casel & Diehl, 2012). However, this is less appropriate in the case of a “burnout”, burnout is often relative to dissatisfaction of work accomplishment as more extrinsic motivator doesn’t provide a good resource to compensate self-perceived competent employee in the workplace (Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach, & Jackson, 1996 as cited in Leary, Green, Denson, Schoenfeld, Henley & Lanford, 2013). Hence, extrinsic motivator such as salary, bonus and incentives do serves as a predictive determinant of workplace bullying, as an illustration, an employee will not quit or report for any emotional abuse if the extrinsic motivator exceed job routine or task, and this in turn explain why certain employee doesn’t voice up their problem when that’s a abuse of power in the management, in order to avoid job loss that provide certain amount of extrinsic motivation in their monthly expenses.
  • Predisposed predictive determinants. Personality or individual differences do have a significant role in aiding the occurrence of workplace bullying. For instance, some researchers have been investigating the relationship between personalities as a mediator to drive task motivation in the event of workplace bullying (Milam, Spitzmueller, & Penny, 2009). Particularly, in the perspective of Big Five Traits (i.e, agreeableness, neuroticism, and extraversion), Milam, Spitzmueller, and Penny in 2009 have conduct an investigation on individual different and workplace bullying. The result of Milam et al. research shows that agreeableness is the main role in becoming the target of incivility in workplace, individual with low level of agreeableness often experience more incivility compare to others, incivility is the experience of rudeness or lack of respect from others, often perceived as a form of bullying (Milam, Spitzmueller, & Penny, 2009). Milam et al. result are parallel with the finding of Lind, Claso, Pallesen, and Einarsen in 2009, where individual with a low score in agreeableness would report the experience of bullying much prevalence with those that high in agreeableness. Claso and et al. discover another personality trait, conscientiousness are also an important role in determining bullying in the workplace; individual with high score of conscientiousness is often a victim of workplace bullying because their work colleagues find them highly irritable (Pervin, Cervone, & Oliver, 2005). However, using a Big Five scale tool to indentify personality traits is somehow serves as a vague parameter; this is due to accuracy reason, individual with true nature of certain personality traits doesn’t necessary give correct feedback on the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999). Another possible flaws of this study is that the fact they use the samples from a mix sampling, where most of the participants are already no longer working, making this study less inaccurate. Nonetheless, personality base on the big five inventory, especially the agreeableness dimension, does have certain predictive nature in determining the occurrence of bullying in workplace. Agreeableness, is generally associative with being generous, being forgiving, kind-natured, cooperative, trusting, warm, sympathetic, friendly, and polite (McCrae & Costa, 1987). This dimension of personality generally likeable in the workplace and hence less likely being a target of bullying in the workplace, this is logical as individual with naturally high score in agreeableness are often generous, even happen to be a bullying ( Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996), they will not perceived as a form of bullying but rather than a form of sympathy. Besides, being fully cooperative and helpful in the workplace surely would generate some amount of charismatic that shield such individual from being a target of bullying ( Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996). In addition, in the study of Milam et al., the result is in alignment with the initial Milam et al’s hypothesis, that agreeableness and workplace incivility are negative correlated (Milam et al, 2009). Thus, personality particularly, on the dimension of agreeableness, neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness could be a fair predictive determinant for workplace bullying. Based on the explanation of Hutchinson and Eveline in 2010, bullying is often seen as gender-neutral phenomenon that both genders would have the similar experiences and perception. Nonetheless, Escartin, Salin, and Rodriguez-Carballeira in 2011 have show some contradiction on the Hutchinson findings, their result indicated that women were more likely to perceive workplace bullying as a form of emotional abuse and rate bullying a form of aggressive act more severely than men did. Nevertheless, this could be due to the unjust treatment between different gender in the working environment, as gender discrimination for better position and job offer still exist (Weyer, 2007). Hence, Escartin et al’s research might not show the appropriate nature of the effect of gender in the perception of bullying; it is perhaps the result of unjust treatments in the workplace (i.e, the effect of leadership style and management style). Furthermore, Escartin et al’s research were using Spain sampling, where the Spanish labour market are still practicing gender discrimination in various aspect, such as salary, career development et cetera (Artazcoz, Borrell, Cortes, Escriba-Aguir, & Cascant, 2007, as cited in Escartin, Salin, & Rodriguez-Carballeira, 2011). Besides, in a study of cyber bullying that use different gender as a variable had shown that female are generally target of bullying compare to male (Low & Espelage, 2013). It is important to study the reason and mechanism of gender on workplace bullying as gender role an important factor in the perception of social and moral standard in an organization, thus, top management can set different protocols for different gender in handling different tasks and responsible in order to maximize human resource and to reduce workplace stress. Female are generally the target and victim of bullying in the workplace is due to some of the evolutionary aspect, for instance, female are generally in favour of creating or being a part of the relationship and group or better known as having the brain and DNA of “commitment hemisphere”, it is basically means female tend to be more cooperative in most situation as their brain are hardwired to think in this way (Pease & Pease, 2001). This relationship gene are the main culprit that encourage bullying in workplace, this is because female generally tend to seek approval and acceptance by giving full commitment and compromise (Dijkstra, Linderberg, & Veenstra, 2007), to an extent of bullying in the workplace. Hence, different gender work differently towards the occurrence of bullying in the workplace, female are generally the victim of bullying in the workplace, and male are tend to be the bullying actor (Dijkstra, Linderberg, & Veenstra, 2007).
  • Body Height. Last but not least in the aspect of predisposed predictive determinants, an interesting determinant of workplace bullying, Body height, it is often claimed that body height is one of the main factor that result bullying in school, how about in the workplace? Unfortunately, they are very limited investigation in this scope, but there is tons of research indicating height is often a criterion in career success; this is when top management perceive body height as a dominant trait in providing opportunity in career development in an organization (Hensley & Cooper, 1987). Hence, height in workplace somehow indirect creates an unjust situation where certain employee with lower self-esteem due to body height might feel working in an unjust environment (Judge & Cable, 2004). Although many people are aware of this “napoleon complex”, and have considered height, personality and behaviour are connected (Hensley & Cooper, 1987). However, Hensley in 1993 stated that is no linkage between height and enhanced job performance. Nevertheless, it is too naïve to make conclusion base on limited amount of past research on this scope, perhaps self-esteem among employee in an organization is a real factor in determining the occurrence of workplace bullying. Factors that related to self esteem and confidence level are often a good predictive determinants of a victim of bullying in the workplace, victim of bullying are often having self-perceived of low confidence, for instance, body height, physical fitness, and body weight are some of the factors that relative to feeling of dominance (Eisenberg & Philip, 1937). This form of low level of self-esteem of an individual in the workplace encouraging the victim of bullying to feel inferior and continue to commit to this form of negative communication and interactive in the workplace. Thus, body height could only be a fair predictive determinant of bullying in the workplace if and only if the workplace comprises of a group of low self-esteem employee.
  • Geographical predictive determinants
  • Cultural Orientation. Several reports have been conducted by Leymann in 1980s for the negative consequences of bullying in workplace, Leymann primarily explain workplace bullying in the approach of behavioural psychology, and his report explained workplace bullying as a critical reason for job quitter due to an undesirable psychological act that employee experience (Leymann, 1980). Furthermore, Leymann’s work environment hypothesis suggested that workplace bullying occurs mainly due to neglected working conditions and inappropriate leadership style in organizations, hence; Leymann’s finding are too environmental biased, he neglected the perspective of non-environmental factors such as biological and personality factors. Further, his research is mainly using a western sampling and can’t represent a general determinant of workplace bullying, especially in the eye of eastern cultural context. On the other hand, several researchers had been carrying out similar study with an eastern sampling, for instance, Giorgi, Arenas, Ando, Shoss, and Leon-Perez had conducted a study in 2012 to explore the personal and organizational determinants of workplace bullying with a Japanese sampling; Giorgi and colleagues found out that the prevalence of bullying are reported 2 times higher than the prevalence rates reported in western countries; Giorgi and colleagues pointed out that the reason of higher reported rates of workplace bullying in Japan is due to Japanese culture, where rationality is encouraged and expression of emotion reserves only to the superiority (Bhagat & Steers, 2009). Perhaps, this is one of the factor known as cultural orientation, generally, westerner are regarded as more individualistic, where as easterner are regarded as more collectivistic (Trafimow, Triandis, and Goto, 1991). Besides, Giorgi et al. also discovered that women and men differed in their perception of bullying, where women are more likely to perceived bullying as aggressive and intentional actions (Giorgi, Arenas, Ando, Shoss, & Leon-Perez, 2012). Hence, Giorgi and colleagues stated cultural factors, personality, and gender are some of the possible determinant of workplace bullying. Nevertheless, Giorgi and colleagues are using cross-sectional research method; where researchers are able to access amass data quickly might not be sufficient to prove causality, so, Neyman Bias might arises, where accuracy of the data is weak. Furthermore, in the study of Leymann and Giorgi, questionnaire are the mere tool of measurement, which had commonly lead to a common bias and some limitations, where participants might not answer honestly, or perhaps participants would have been influenced by various unforeseen external variable, such as the presence of authority, the presence of other co-worker, and et cetera. Again, this research is subject to social desirability bias. However, research on cultural orientation raise the awareness and importance of organizational culture fit of employee, it is basically about the organization is viewed as a form of social system, and member of such system are seen as both agent and members, anyone in the system that go against the existing or norm of the system are often seen as odd and peculiar (Albrow, 1990, as cited in Dextras-Gauthier, Marchand, & Haines, 2012). Researchers also claimed that anyone who go against the organizational culture and work organization condition would often suffer from negative mental health (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996), resulting from the rejection of peer in the workplace (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996). Hence, cultural orientation is somehow a good associative and indicator for bullying in the workplace, it does serve as a fair predictive determinant in the event of workplace bullying.
  • Language fluency. Although they are not direct research in this field, but according to one of the cultural aspect of cultural orientation, language does serve as an important role in determining an individual’s culture (Bartram, 2012). Spoken language of employee in the organization does leave different impression on the supervisor and management of the organization (Bartram, 2012). Individual who speak the same language as the supervisor or overall organization common language does improve the impression of the employee on the administrative team (Ramos, 1981). This is somehow very close related to the concept of cultural fit, if the organization encourage the use of specific language that are natively the language spoken by the employee, then it would definitely improve overall performance of the organization, this is because the communication process is much more effective. For instance, Hispanic applicants in a instruction test perform better with the use of Spanish compare to those who use an English test (Ramos, 1981). Hence, imagine an employee that only speaks native English in a Japanese company that located in Korea might stir up some communication conflict during the routine interactive event in the organization. The likelihood of bullying in the workplace is exceptionally high when an employee does not understand the language spoken by other working colleague; this is especially true when different body language give different interpretation in different culture (Pease & Pease, 2005). However, this is not true in the event of multicultural organization that encourage multicultural concept in the workplace. Besides, it is illogical for a company to hire a foreign employee that speaks alien language. Hence, language fluency is somehow related cultural orientation and serve vague and weak as a predictive determinant of bullying in the workplace. Thus, the predictive determinant of language fluency alone shall not be a sole predictive determinant in the event of workplace bullying.

Implication

As discussed earlier, bullying in the workplaces generate more negative implications than positive one.  It is basically categorized into two main spectrums, either in the aspect of overall well being of the employee, and in term of the overall productivity of the organization. In the aspect of employee health, particularly, in term of mental, social, psychological, physiological, and interpersonal relationship are greatly affected in a negative way.

  • Psychological

            In the aspect of mental and psychological health, emotion and stress are the two most crucial elements in determining this issue. According to the hypothesis of Lazarus and Folkman study in 1984, stress generated by the event of bullying in the workplace affect employee’s emotion and overall well being, employee generally require appropriate coping strategies, if inappropriate coping strategies has been practised by the victim of workplace bullying, it does cause detrimental effect on mental health (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Undesirable stressor, such as the mentioned problem arising from the predictive detrimental could possibly create overwhelming stress among the employee in the workplace, especially in the event of workplace bullying, possible negative consequences of such stressor are behavioural, psychological, physiological health issues (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), even such issues might be the mere result of self-perception or in a simpler term, appraisal of stress could trigger human stress-response mechanism (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). According to several study about health and workplace bullying, it does shown that overall health and workplace bullying are highly associative, and the occurrence of workplace bullying serves well as a good predictor for negative mental health of the employee that experienced workplace bullying (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Dehue, Bolman, Vollink, & Pouwelse, 2012; Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Hogh, Mikkelsen, & Hansen, 2011). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or to an extent of suicide are some of the common problem that influenced by workplace bullying, Einarsen et al. (2011) found out that more than 77% of the target of workplace bullying experience posttraumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, colleagues that witness workplace bullying also have negative emotional experiences, this includes the following: (i) fear, (ii) stress, (iii) emotional exhaustion (Einarsen et al, 2011). Einarsen et al. (2011) observation is somehow in alignment with the Leymann (1990) mobbing to expulsion model, where target of workplace bullying suffer emotional exhaustion. Besides that, Dehue et al. (2012) summarized the negative impact of workplace bullying as a destructive weapon to mental health, physical health, and well-being, and it is highly associated with the problem of absenteeism, and under-performing employee (Dehue et al., 2012). Another more apparent impact of bullying in the workplace are  emotional problem, as the employee that perceived themselves has been repeatedly attacked and abuse, their emotion turn sour, and their mental resource are diverted in different spectrum, rather than concentrating in the given task, hence, job performance decrease; when employee are not meeting organization performance’s expectation, complaint from the supervisor or manager occur, this in turn serves as a repeat loop that reinforce the thought of employee that they are being bullied. As discussed earlier in the general concept of workplace bullying, emotional distress does serve as an important element in influencing employee perception of bullying in the workplace. However, Dehue et al. (2012) research are slightly biased, it is strongly emphasised that the stressor generated by workplace bullying are the main culprit of the employee overall well-being, but it is not taking into consideration that stressor generated by workplace bullying could have been a performance motivator. As mentioned earlier, different personality response to different situation very differently. For instance, employee that score high on the agreeableness dimension of the big five personality inventory, does see antagonistic behaviour or idea as a set of different idea rather that an offensive behaviour.

  • Physiological

            Apart from mental health, workplace bullying does negatively affect physical health too, for instance, stress generated by workplace bullying could represents an activator to trigger the homeostasis of the body, a steroid hormone known as the stress releasing hormone, or better known as cortisol is released in response to a stress event (Joe, Pu, Wiegert, Oitzl & Krugers, 2005), and stress could be easily generated by workplace bullying  (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Dehue, Bolman, Vollink, & Pouwelse, 2012; Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Hogh, Mikkelsen, & Hansen, 2011). This cortisol is released primarily to increase blood sugar and suppress immune system (Joe, Pu, Wiegert, Oitzl & Krugers, 2005). Human immune system are generally rely on T-cells found in bloodstream, its main purpose is to attack and neutralized virus, bacteria or unorganized foreign cell that might potentially harmful to the human body, the release of cortisol hormones suppress the amount of T-cells in the blood stream, and hence directly reduce human immunity as the number of T-cells that are responsible to human immunity has been decreased (Joe, Pu, Wiegert, Oitzl & Krugers, 2005). Hence, the presence of stress resulting from workplace bullying are potentially harmful to human as it trigger the release of cortisol hormones in the blood stream, which in turn reduce the human immunity by suppressing the amount of T-cells in the body.  When the human immunity is greatly reduced, logically the risks of getting a wide range of illness and disease potentially increase. 

  • Organizational

            Besides psychological and physiological negative implication, workplace bullying also raise some issue in economic harm. According to WorkplaceBullyingInstitute.org,  in 2012, there are 77% target of bullying in workplace fear of losing job, 28% quit their current job, 25% terminated unwillingly, and 25% are forced out. This in turn raise the cost of an organization as job satisfaction has been greatly declined, when job satisfaction is declined, negative emotional issue and stress complaint goes up, employee performance go does, when employee performance go does, it simply means productivity of an organization go down, when productivity of an organization go down, it is logical to assume profit will not improve. To a bigger extend, when organization is not making a good turnover in a prolonged period of time, it would then become an under-performing organization, if problem continue, the organization might be competed out by other well performing organization, then, the failing organization would ultimately go out of business, this in turn, increase unemployment rate of the country, indirectly decreasing the overall productivity of a country. Besides that, legislature cost that involve workplace bullying is very costly, for instance, when workplace bullying become a criminal, sexual harassment and physical battery, the cost for a dispute is sky high when employee file a lawsuit to a specify person in an organization, not only the legal expenses during the lawsuit is expensive, but also the goodwill and reputation of an organization are also damaged. Hence, serious policy and governmental intervention should have been taken place in order to prevent the occurrence of such circumstances.

Limitation

            There are several limitations of the current theoretical paper, firstly, the current theoretical paper are mainly focus in the predictive determinants of the occurrence of bullying in the workplace, and its possible implication on employee and organizations. Moreover, the in-depth explanation and mechanism of bullying in the workplace is not greatly discussed. Furthermore, positive implication of bullying in the workplace is not discussed in the current theoretical paper as it has very limited information about the positive effect of bullying in the workplace. Lastly, prevention and effective strategies to reduce the likelihood of workplace bullying is not discussed, it is crucial to understand the accurate mechanism behind workplace bullying in order to suggest an effective and efficient method to reduce or eliminate the likelihood of bullying in the workplace.

Future direction

            The study of workplace studying shall not halt here until the existing of effective treatment or fair intervention from the governmental policy. Cyber bullying in the workplace is a rising trend as technology in communication are often used as a communication tools in the workplace. Nonetheless, the inappropriate usage or netiquette in using such technology to aid communication in the workplace might increase the likelihood of ineffective communication and interaction, and it might also cause the occurrence of workplace bullying through the use of technology in communication devices if it is not under any form supervision. Cyber bullying in the workplace is very risky, not only has it affected the overall productivity of the organization and employee overall well being, but also it is destructive to an organizational public image and reputation. This is exceptionally true if someone posts something malicious to another employee or to the organization policy through the social media website, it is open to the public, everyone has an access to it, and hence, reputation of the organization would then be tarnish by such posting and complaint on the internet. Nonetheless, cyber bullying in the workplace shall intrigued the future researcher to dwell more about the communication process and the relevant mechanism in the event of bullying in such communication process. Besides that, future researcher shall also set possible guidelines for the policy maker to prevent abusive behaviour on the internet, particularly the use of communication technology in the workplace. Hence, serious consideration shall be practises during the policy making process relevant to the usage of communication technology in the workplace, this is to ensure the likelihood of a cyber bullying in the workplace could be greatly reduced or eliminated.

Conclusion

Hence, the reason of this theoretical research is to identify high associated predictive determinants of workplace bullying in eight aspects: (i) Leadership Style, (ii) Job title, (iii) Extrinsic Motivator, (iv) Personality, (v) Gender, (vi) Body Height, (vii) Cultural orientation, and (vii) Language fluency. All these predictive determinants are then in accordance of the three main and general predictive determinants of “The Major Five Concept of workplace bullying” as discussed above. The major five concept of workplace bullying is a summarized version of different framework, theory, and model of workplace bullying that has been discussed by prominent researchers in the past (Leymann, 1990; Keashly & Harvey, 2005; ; Sandvik & Sypher, 2009; Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011; Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). Cyber bullying in the workplace is on the rise due to the fact that technology is easily assessable, the effect of cyber bullying has intensified the degree of harm and duration experience by the victim of bullying in the workplace. Base on the past researches, workplace bullying generally produces negative implications on employee psychological and physiological health, as well as increase organization unnecessary expenses and decrease in productivity in the organization (Leymann, 1990; Keashly & Harvey, 2005; ; Sandvik & Sypher, 2009; Glasø, Holmdal, Einarsen, 2011; Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). There are very limited of convincing evidences shows that workplace bullying could have any positive implication in the aspect of both the employee health and organization health. Thus, appropriate treatment and suitable governmental intervention such as specific legislation for workplace bullying shall be amended for better working environment that ultimately promote better productivity in the organization and economy of the country.

 

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