Adopting a person-environment perspective for the understanding of workplace bullying: A longitudinal investigation

PURPOSE: Previous research on the development of bullying suggests that working conditions such as role stressors, high job demand and low control may promote the phenomenon via the stress process. Research has also shown, however, that personal vulnerability may be involved. By using a longitudinal design, the present study adopts a person-environment perspective and explores the hypothesis that distressing working conditions are related to bullying particularly for personally vulnerable employees. METHODOLOGY: A follow up study with a one-year time lag has been conducted on employees (N=234; 86.3% females) of the health sector. Distressing working conditions were operationalized in terms of high job demands and low job control, while personal vulnerability in terms of mental distress. RESULTS: Job demand positively affected the experience of bullying behaviour longitudinally, while neither job control nor job strain played an effect. Mental distress was not longitudinally related to the experience of bullying behaviour. However, mental distress strengthened the effect of job demand on bullying such that at higher mental distress the impact of job demand on bullying was stronger. LIMITATIONS: The main limitation of this study is the difficulty in generalizing its results due to the small sample available. IMPLICATIONS: The obtained results suggest that the prevention of bullying should focus on both distressing working conditions and distressed employees, in other words primary and secondary prevention should be adopted. ORIGINALITY: The original features of the study are its longitudinal nature and the integration of work environmental and personal factors in the understanding of bullying.