Personality conflicts and Bullying in Workplace
Workplace is somewhere we meet different types of people. It a point where professional lives whether they like or not get along with. A definite clash of personalities will conflict in here. Apart from that some people experience the enjoyment at work but some doesn’t. Due to the negative environment in the workplace most of the individual are unenthusiastic to perform their action at the organization. The negativity in a workplace, organization, society is build due to interpersonal conflicts, aggression and workplace bullying by the social stressors, for example, by negatively affecting employee commitment, engagement, and health (Bowling and Beehr, 2006; Nielsen and Einarsen, 2012). Interpersonal conflict defines a “process that begins when one party perceives that the other has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that he or she cares about” (Thomas, 1992, p. 653). Workplace Bullying is also known as harassment at work.
According to an analysis presented by Bowling and Beehr (2006) the interpersonal conflict, aggression and bullying are grouped together under the umbrella concept of workplace harassment. Conflicts and bullying are mostly occurred in a verbal manner without any physical intervention. These two types are marked by behaviors, which, if perceived in seclusion, may not appear to be highly hostile but which explain the truly negativity effects that will define the basic characteristics of bullying, but not of conflict (Einarsen et al., 2011, p. 15; Baillien et al., 2017).
The above Figure 1 show the impact of workplace bullying which leads employees subjects to diseases that they will suffer a lifetime. Even though conflict and bullying looks similar, there is a shortage of empirical studies on their convergence (and divergence) (Aquino and Thau, 2009). With the use of a multi-method design in a cross-sectional study, Ayoko et al. (2003) has found that conflicts and bullying are inter related but they are mainly focused on investigating the aggression not on the aggression exposure.
Lately, Hershcovis (2011) presented meta-analytical document support by stating that that conflict, and bullying are strongly related. Based on this relationship between conflicts and bullying the job satisfaction, phycological behavior, commitment, turnover desire will be measured. A Questionnaire has been provided to evaluate the employees in the workplace regarding the personal conflicts that they face with the colleagues and the leaders (van Veldhoven and Meijman, 1994): The Survey questions were; (1) ‘Do you have any conflict with your colleagues?’ and ‘Do you have any conflict with your direct boss/supervisor?’ Four answer options were given to the respondents as: ‘never,’ ‘sometimes,’ ‘often,’ and ‘always.’. And also another Questionnaire was conducted to measure the workplace bullying. SNAQ which a quasi-unidimensional consist of three main indicators as work related acts, person-related acts and acts of social isolation. The items which are selected had the highest factor loading in positive LC analysis (Notelaers and Einarsen, 2008). Few odf the Example items are: ‘Repeated reminders about your mistakes’ (work-related act), ‘Repeated reminders about your blunders’ (person-oriented act) or ‘Social exclusion from co-workers or work group activities’ (act of social isolation). All the Respondents were required to answer on the item on how frequently they have been they exposed to these behaviors during the last 6 months. The answer options provided were: ‘never,’ ‘now and then,’ ‘once a month’ and ‘once a week or more often.’ Employee along with the organization HR should understand and get aware on the conflicts and bullying happening in the workplace that make them to communicate on the regard.
References
Aquino, K. and Thau, S., 2009. Workplace Victimization: Aggression from the Target's Perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 60(1), pp.717-741.
Ayoko, O.B., Callan, V.J. and Härtel, C.E., 2003. Workplace conflict, bullying, and counterproductive behaviors. The International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Baillien, E., Escartín, J., Gross, C. and Zapf, D., 2017. Towards a conceptual and empirical differentiation between workplace bullying and interpersonal conflict. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 26(6), pp.870-881.
Bowling, N.A. and Beehr, T.A., 2006. Workplace harassment from the victim's perspective: a theoretical model and meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 91(5), p.998.
Hershcovis, M.S., 2011. “Incivility, social undermining, bullying… oh my!”: A call to reconcile constructs within workplace aggression research. Journal of organizational behavior, 32(3), pp.499-519.
Nielsen, M.B. and Einarsen, S., 2013. Can observations of workplace bullying really make you depressed? A response to Emdad et al. International archives of occupational and environmental health, 86(6), pp.717-721.
Notelaers, G., De Witte, H., Vermunt, J.K. and Einarsen, S., 2006. Pesten op het werk, gewikt en gewogen. Een latente-klassenbenadering op basis van de Negative Acts-vragenlijst. Gedrag & Organisatie, 19(2).
ProfileTree. 2022. How to Overcome Workplace Bullying? Understanding Bullying. [online] Available at:
Thomas, K.W., 1992. Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of organizational behavior, pp.265-274.
Veldhoven, M.V. and Meijman, T., 1994. Het meten van psychosociale arbeidsbelasting met een vragenlijst: de vragenlijst beleving en beoordeling van de arbeid (VBBA).
Figure 1 - (How to Overcome Workplace Bullying? Understanding Bullying, 2022)
The above Figure 1 show the impact of workplace bullying which leads employees subjects to diseases that they will suffer a lifetime. Even though conflict and bullying looks similar, there is a shortage of empirical studies on their convergence (and divergence) (Aquino and Thau, 2009). With the use of a multi-method design in a cross-sectional study, Ayoko et al. (2003) has found that conflicts and bullying are inter related but they are mainly focused on investigating the aggression not on the aggression exposure.
Lately, Hershcovis (2011) presented meta-analytical document support by stating that that conflict, and bullying are strongly related. Based on this relationship between conflicts and bullying the job satisfaction, phycological behavior, commitment, turnover desire will be measured. A Questionnaire has been provided to evaluate the employees in the workplace regarding the personal conflicts that they face with the colleagues and the leaders (van Veldhoven and Meijman, 1994): The Survey questions were; (1) ‘Do you have any conflict with your colleagues?’ and ‘Do you have any conflict with your direct boss/supervisor?’ Four answer options were given to the respondents as: ‘never,’ ‘sometimes,’ ‘often,’ and ‘always.’. And also another Questionnaire was conducted to measure the workplace bullying. SNAQ which a quasi-unidimensional consist of three main indicators as work related acts, person-related acts and acts of social isolation. The items which are selected had the highest factor loading in positive LC analysis (Notelaers and Einarsen, 2008). Few odf the Example items are: ‘Repeated reminders about your mistakes’ (work-related act), ‘Repeated reminders about your blunders’ (person-oriented act) or ‘Social exclusion from co-workers or work group activities’ (act of social isolation). All the Respondents were required to answer on the item on how frequently they have been they exposed to these behaviors during the last 6 months. The answer options provided were: ‘never,’ ‘now and then,’ ‘once a month’ and ‘once a week or more often.’ Employee along with the organization HR should understand and get aware on the conflicts and bullying happening in the workplace that make them to communicate on the regard.
References
Aquino, K. and Thau, S., 2009. Workplace Victimization: Aggression from the Target's Perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 60(1), pp.717-741.
Ayoko, O.B., Callan, V.J. and Härtel, C.E., 2003. Workplace conflict, bullying, and counterproductive behaviors. The International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Baillien, E., Escartín, J., Gross, C. and Zapf, D., 2017. Towards a conceptual and empirical differentiation between workplace bullying and interpersonal conflict. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 26(6), pp.870-881.
Bowling, N.A. and Beehr, T.A., 2006. Workplace harassment from the victim's perspective: a theoretical model and meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 91(5), p.998.
Hershcovis, M.S., 2011. “Incivility, social undermining, bullying… oh my!”: A call to reconcile constructs within workplace aggression research. Journal of organizational behavior, 32(3), pp.499-519.
Nielsen, M.B. and Einarsen, S., 2013. Can observations of workplace bullying really make you depressed? A response to Emdad et al. International archives of occupational and environmental health, 86(6), pp.717-721.
Notelaers, G., De Witte, H., Vermunt, J.K. and Einarsen, S., 2006. Pesten op het werk, gewikt en gewogen. Een latente-klassenbenadering op basis van de Negative Acts-vragenlijst. Gedrag & Organisatie, 19(2).
ProfileTree. 2022. How to Overcome Workplace Bullying? Understanding Bullying. [online] Available at:
Thomas, K.W., 1992. Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of organizational behavior, pp.265-274.
Veldhoven, M.V. and Meijman, T., 1994. Het meten van psychosociale arbeidsbelasting met een vragenlijst: de vragenlijst beleving en beoordeling van de arbeid (VBBA).
Workplace conflicts, aggression and bullying refer to work-related interpersonal problems, all of which have some features in common but also differ in many regards, as obvious from their definitions. Interpersonal conflict describes a “process that begins when one party perceives that the other has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that he or she cares about” (Thomas, 1992, p. 653). Workplace aggression is commonly referred to as “any behavior directed toward another individual that is carried out with the proximate (immediate) intent to cause harm” (Anderson and Bushman, 2002, p. 28). That is to say, to qualify as workplace aggression, the perpetrator must expect the behavior to cause harm in the target and must believe that the target is motivated to avoid this behavior. Bullying at work, most commonly, is defined as “harassing, offending, socially excluding someone or negatively affecting someone’s work tasks. In order for the label bullying (or mobbing) to be applied to a particular activity, interaction or process, it has to occur repeatedly and regularly (e.g., weekly) and over an extended period of time (e.g., 6 months). Bullying is an escalating process in the course of which the person confronted ends up in an inferior position and becomes the target of systematic negative social acts” (Einarsen et al., 2011, p.
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding the enjoyment people experience from their job and the effort and engagement they put into it; work can also have negative effects. Social stressors at work like interpersonal conflict, aggression and workplace bullying have been found to have severe negative consequences for employees, organizations, and society, for example, by negatively affecting employee commitment, engagement, and health Our findings suggest that companies, at a minimum, would need to raise awareness for the potentially grave implications of conflict, aggression, and bullying and would need to design policies to help prevent those social stressors at work from occurring in the first place. This involves that employees may need to learn about conflict de-escalation strategies (De Dreu and Gelfand, 2007) and receive conflict management trainings that help prevent conflicts from escalating (León-Pérez et al., 2016). Employees who are occasionally bullied should receive individual counseling to help them cope with the situation. In cases of severe bullying, however, counseling will not suffice. Thus, companies need to develop and enforce legal procedures to help protect targets of bullying
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