Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111625

Coping with bullying 1

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P-060

Running Head. COPING WITH BULLYING

Coping with Bullying as an Intractable Organizational Conflict

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111625

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Abstract

This study’s objective is to approach bullying as an asymmetric and relational conflict.

In other words, a conflict where there is a great power imbalance between the affected

parties, and where emotional and relational problems exist. First, we analyse the link

between relational conflict and bullying, and secondly we try to verify whether the

strategies that have shown their worth for handling relational conflict may also be used

to cope with bullying. Results show that the presence of high relational conflicts and

high positional power are related with the presence of bullying practices. In a similar

way to what occurs with management strategies in intractable conflicts, integrating

behaviours with the opponent increase practices of workplace bullying, while avoiding

behaviours are related to a lower presence of these practices. Findings also confirm that

a climate of support within the group is related with a lower presence of bullying

practices. The study analyses the implications of these findings for coping with bullying

in the organisational setting.

Keywords: Bullying, organisational conflict

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111625

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Bullying practices, far from being a sporadic problem in new organizational

settings, have been established as a workplace plague. For this reason, bullying is

increasingly being recognized as a serious problem in society today (Cowie, Naylor,

Rivers, Smith & Pereira, 2002). The Third European Survey on Working Conditions

informs that 9% of workers report being subject to intimidation in the workplace. Being

at the receiving end of bullying practices in the workplace causes a variety of negative

health effects in the target (Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003). Bullying at work is costly

and counterproductive to individuals and organizations, and it is a focus of interest for

researchers and practitioners (Lee & Brotheridge, 2006)).

There are different ways to approach the study of bullying in an organisational

setting. One of the most recent perspectives is to analyse it drawing on contributions

made from the area of conflict management (Keashly & Nowell, 2003; Zapf &

Einarsen, 2005). Thus, the focus of this paper is to approach bullying as an asymmetric

and relational conflict where there is a great power imbalance between the affected

parties, and where emotional and relational problems exist.

Bullying in an organisational setting

The question of bullying has gained in importance in social and research terms

since Heinz Leymann published his first study on the subject in the 1980s. Leymann

defined this phenomenon as “a social interaction through which one individual (seldom

more) is attacked by one or more (seldom more than four) individuals almost on a daily

basis and for periods of many months, bringing the person into an almost helpless

position with potentially high risk of expulsion” (1996, p. 168). Hoel, Einarsen,

Keashly, Zapf and Cooper (2003) have analysed several definitions that have arisen

subsequently on the subject, and found that they share some elements that appear to be

Comment [a1]: He quitado la cita anterior de Rayner y Keashly,2005, porque no aparece en las referencias al final

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consubstantial to the bullying phenomenon. These elements are “repeated or patterned

negative acts, prolonged experience over time (duration) and the presence of a power

imbalance between the perpetrator and the target” (p.413). One definition that combines

these elements is that formulated by Cooper and Faragher, defining bullying as “a

situation where one or several individuals persistently over a period of time perceive

themselves to be on the receiving end of negative actions from one or several persons,

in a situation where the target of bullying has difficulty in defending him or herself

against these actions” (2001, p. 447). Given the persistence and duration of these

incidents as a characteristic of bullying, the authors indicate that they do not consider a

one-off incident as bullying.

Bullying and Organizational Conflict

After the analysis of a large number of bullying cases, Leymann (1990) argued

that the process had its origin in a conflict. He stated that bullying must be viewed as an

exaggerated conflict and that the difference between an occupational conflict and

workplace bullying is not in what is done or how it is done but in the frequency and

duration with which it is done (Leymann, 1996). Similarly, Zapf and Gross (2001)

described workplace bullying as a long-lasting and badly managed conflict. From this

perspective what differentiates bullying from habitual conflict in the workplace is the

dimension of long-lasting and systematic conflict.

Bullying practices may be common in the workplace and have been experienced

at some time by most people during their working life, but it is the constant and

systematic occurrence which implies a negative relation for the wellbeing of people at

work (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996). In fact, Zapf and Einarsen (2005) state that the

theory of conflict is important and useful for explaining why bullying occurs and why it

has such negative consequences on the target.These authors suggest that habitual

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conflict in organisations does not cause any traumatic illness, while bullying may do.

Indeed, evidence suggests that copying with bullying is highly stressful and undermine

one’s physical health and affective state (Lee & Brotheridge, 2006; Matthiesen &

Einarsen, 2004; Mikkelsen & Einarsen, 2002). Therefore, the link between research into

bullying with the tradition of research into conflict seems clear from this perspective, as

does the transfer of findings about how to manage conflicts to the field of coping with

bullying practices.

Conflict types and Bullying

Two types of conflict have been differentiated in the organisational setting: task

conflicts, which are conflicts over ideas, tasks and subjects related to work, and

relational or affective conflicts which are conflicts about the relation in which personal

values or preferences come into play and that to a certain extent threaten personal

identity or values system (Jehn, 1994). Task conflict is a perception of disagreement

among group members or individuals about the content of their decisions, and involves

differences in viewpoints, ideas and opinions. Examples of task conflict are conflicts

about the distribution of resources, about procedures or guidelines, and about the

interpretation of facts. Relationship conflict is a perception of interpersonal

incompatibility, and includes annoyance and animosity among individuals. Examples of

relationship conflict are disagreements about values, personal or family norms, or about

personal tastes. Van de Vliert (1984) states, following Glasl’s (1994) model, that the

last stages of escalation have in common that the opponents deny the other’s human

value, thus clearing the way for manipulation, retaliation, elimination and destruction.

Similarly, bullying involves implicit negative feelings, hostile actions and threats

to the person’s identity, to the point that this is diminished as a consequence of long-

term exposure to bullying (Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003). In this sense, bullying may be

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understood as a conflict that has undergone a process of aggravation or escalation

(Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996; Zapf & Gross, 2001) and that is centered around personal

or relational subjects. As Leymann (1996, p.179) puts it: “Mobbing, in its early stages,

is most often a sign that a conflict around the organization of work tasks has taken on a

private touch”. Therefore, we can predict that relational conflict will be positively

related to bullying (H1).

Managing Workplace Bullying

In the relation established between the parties in conflict, the bullying target

cannot be considered as a mere passive receiver of negative behaviours, instead his/her

responses may provoke the perpetrator to take further action (Hoel & Cooper, 2001).

As Aquino (2000) points out, some targets may participate to a certain extent in their

own victimisation, since certain behavioural styles may invite aggressive action from

others. Zapf and Gross (2001) suggest that, in their ‘fight for justice’, the unsuccessful

target often contributed to the escalation of the bullying conflict. Indeed, the situation of

victimisation may be understood as a process that might be managed with more or less

effectiveness, to the extent that the people affected are aware of the situation of risk and

avoid using styles that worsen that situation, and try in turn to use others that help to

settle it. As Aquino (2000, p.172) mentions, “By identifying the conditions that produce

victims, organizations may be able to affect employees’ vulnerability to mistreatment,

which, in turn, can decrease the likelihood that such treatment will provoke destructive

acts of retaliatory aggression”. Thus the way one copes with conflict in the

organisational setting reflects a general tendency which may have an influence on the

risk of becoming a bullying target. According to Aquino (2000), although the way one

copes with a conflict is not the only individual characteristic affecting ‘victimisation’, it

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might explain, at least in part, why some people seem more vulnerable or may be seen

as more deserving of aggressive behaviours.

On this point, Vartia (1996) demonstrated that the way differences of opinion are

resolved at work seems to be an important variable in the analysis of bullying, with an

important relation existing between the use of authoritarian styles and bullying

practices. Following the same line, Aquino and Byron (2002) found a close link

between dominating behaviours and the tendency to identify oneself as a target of

mistreatment. Different research areas seem to agree on the point that the most active

strategies for coping with these conflict situations are the least appropriate. As some

authors have described (Niedl, 1996; Zapf & Gross, 2001), bullying targets use a wide

range of strategies for coping with a conflict, starting with the most constructive and

finishing with the most passive, with avoiding behaviour being considered as the most

successful. For example, Zapf and Gross (2001) found that the targets that had

successfully overcome the bullying situation were those that had been most skilful in

recognising and avoiding the conflict situation, and that they used active strategies less

often than unsuccessful ones. Similarly, Rayner (1999) and Richman, Rospenda,

Flaherty, and Freels (2001) found that active strategies – such as open discussion or

talking about the situation with the aggressor - increase the probability of negative

actions against the target. In sum, evidence suggests that active coping strategies were

less effective in reducing bullying since targets had little control over the conflict

situation while targets that rely on passive coping strategies such as cognitive

restructuring and avoidance may be better able to lessen their levels of stress and

emotional strain (cf. Lee & Brotheridge).

Similar findings appear in the area of relational conflict management. De Dreu

and Van Vianen (2001) analysed whether certain styles could be more effective than

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others to cope with this type of conflict in work teams. They found that using the

avoiding style produced better results in terms of team effectiveness, while contending

and collaborating styles gave worse results for coping with relational conflict. These

results are supported by previous studies (Murnighan & Conlon, 1991) that showed that

neither collaborating nor contending strategies seem suitable in cases of relational

conflict, and that only avoiding responses stop personal conflicts in groups from getting

out of hand. While some authors such as Druckman and Zechmeister (1973) had

suggested that a certain level of confrontation and contending may help to resolve

conflicts that have gone into the personal terrain, other authors such as De Dreu and

Van Vianen (2001) have indicated that such suggestions seem to ignore the fact that this

type of dispute can easily lead to a spiral of conflict. Both lines of research suggest that

dominating (H2a) and integrating styles (H2b) will be dysfunctional for coping with

bullying. In contrast, we can predict the functionality of avoiding styles for reducing

bullying practices (H2c).

Similarly, there are contingent factors within the group that may make bullying

appear with more or less virulence. An important factor appears to be the type of

climate existing within the group. On this point, Simons and Peterson (2000) found that

the building and maintenance of trust within the group is an important preventive

measure both in the generation and escalation of conflicts, as in reducing the probability

of disputes arising from tasks becoming relational affairs due to a negative

interpretation of the dispute issues. These authors demonstrate that the interpretation of

the adversary’s behaviour in terms of trust is the key for a discrepancy not to become a

relational problem.

Studies into work teams go in the same direction by pointing out that the

dynamics and the climate of these teams may explain the development of aggressive

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behaviours within them. Thus, the findings of Vartia (1996) show that the occupational

climate explains a high percentage of aggressive behaviours that appears in work teams.

Research developed from the area of occupational stress points in the same direction, as

it shows that the climate of support is an important group resource that may reduce the

negative effects of stress (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992). In turn, the studies into bullying

indicate that very low levels of social support from supervisors and equals are found in

the group of bullied subjects (Zapf, Knorz & Kulla, 1996), and that satisfaction with

social climate and group leadership is also virtually inexistent (Einarsen, Raknes &

Matthiesen, 1994). As Zapf and Einarsen (2005) point out, social support seems to be an

important resource that can reduce the otherwise extreme effects of the bullying

behaviour. In effect, the results from Quine’s (1999) study show that a supportive work

environment can protect people from some of the harmful effects of bullying. These

findings suggest that the presence of a high climate of support within the work group

will reduce bullying practices (H3).

Bullying as an asymmetrical conflict

The concepts of control and power are essential in bullying. This context is

characterised by an imbalance of power between the parties, where the situation of the

target is identified with a perceived power deficit in relation to the perpetrator (Keashly

& Nowell, 2003; Rayner & Cooper, 2006; Zapf & Einarsen, 2005). This imbalance of

power situation often mirrors the formal power structure of the organizational context in

which the bullying scenario unfolds (Hoel, Zapf & Cooper, 2002). This would be the

case when someone is on the receiving end of negative acts from a person hierarchically

superior, and is associated with control over rewards and punishment (Aquino, 2000).

Where the bullying is predominantly identified with managerial behaviour the focus is

on the abuse of power, arising from the power structure (Aquino, 2000; Hirigoyen,

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1999). Therefore, as some studies have found (Leymann, 1996; Vartia, 1996; Zapf,

Knorz & Kulla, 1996) the power imbalance demonstrates either a formal power relation

between the parties (superior/subordinate) or the perception of powerlessness resulting

from the bullying process itself .

To understand the different ways in which power can be exercised, French and

Raven (1959) developed different bases of power: reward, coercion, legitimacy,

reference and expertise. Several authors grouped French and Raven’s bases of power in

two general categories: position power and personal power (e.g. Bass, 1960). Position

power arises from a person’s formal position and implies the legitimate authority to use

positive and negative sanctions such as reward and coercion. In that sense, power

position refers to the existing organisational hierarchy that renders management the

ability to control the behaviour of others and to change the organizational structure and

processes (reward, coercion and legitimacy). On the other hand, personal power refers

to expertise, referent power and the kind of relationship established with the other

person (reference and expertise), where his/her sources of power are connected to

particular abilities, skills and experience.

Different research offers support to the fact that bullying is inevitably linked to

an organization’s power and leadership system (Brodsky, 1976; Einarsen, Raknes &

Matthiesen, 1994). Morover, bullying has been linked to bureaucratic organizations,

where the threshold for bullying behaviours may be lower due to less chance of social

condemnation (Hoel & Cooper, 2001). Thus, organizations characterized by an extreme

degree of conformity and group pressure, such as hierarchical power systems, seem to

be particularly prone to bullying (Archer, 1999; Ashforth, 1994; Vartia & Hyyti, 2002).

There is empirical support for the belief that a strict hierarchical organization is a risk

factor in the social group that facilitates the process of work harassment (Leymann

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1986, 1992; Salin, 2003). Conflict research provides some evidence for the relation

between the use of personal power and conflict reduction at work (Peiró & Meliá,

2003). Some authors found a specific negative relation between the uses of personal

power and relationship conflicts and a positive relationship between position power and

relationship conflicts (Medina, Munduate & Guerra, 2005; Yukl, Kim & Falbe, 1996).

According to these findings, we could expect to find a positive relation between

bullying and the use of positional power in an organizational group (H4a) and a

negative relation between bullying and the use of personal power (H4b).

Method

Participants

The study sample consisted of 211 employees from different public health

institutions and commercial enterprises. 51% were male, 59% were under 40 years of

age and 55% had been working in that institution or company for more than four years

although not necessarily in the same post. 44% of participants worked in organisations

of more than 250 employees and 71% were from the public sector.

Procedure

The study was presented to the workers by the researchers as an assessment of

the psychosocial risks of their organisation, thereby avoiding any bias in the selection of

participants related to their experience or opinions concerning workplace bullying. On

the presentation page of the study it was emphasised that all responses would remain

anonymous.

Instruments

Bullying was measured using the inventory of bullying practices developed by

Einarsen and Raknes (1997) in the version revised by Einarsen and Hoel (2001) called

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NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Reviewed). This inventory consists of 29 items

identifying bullying practices that use elements of personal and working life (i.e. “Being

the subject of excessive teasing and sarcasm”). The items are measured with a Likert

type 5-point scale indicating frequency and occurrence of the behaviour (1: never / 5:

daily). The reliability of the scale was 0.91.

Conflict styles were measured using the ROCI-II questionnaire (Rahim, 1983).

In the questionnaire subjects were asked about how the person manages conflict

situations at work (i.e. “I try to bring all our concerns in the open so that the issues can

be resolved in the best possible way”), with a Likert type 1-5-point scale (totally

disagree / totally agree). Scale reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha-test, with

satisfactory results: Integrating (0.73), Dominating (0.62) and Avoiding (0.66).

Support climate was measured using a subscale of the FOCUS-83 (First

Organisational Climate Unified Search). This questionnaire is based on the instrument

of Organisational Climate produced by Van Muijen et al. (1999) and Quinn’s (1988)

alternative values approach. When responding workers were asked to think about their

work team and the people they work with. The 8 items in the subscale were grouped in

two blocks, the first asking about how many people in their team have been in a specific

situation (i.e. “How many people with personal problems are helped?”), and in the

second block they were asked about the frequency with which certain situations occur in

the work team (i.e. “How often do management practices allow freedom in work?”). In

the responses a Likert type scale was used (1. No-one/never; 6. Everyone/always).

Subscale reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha test, giving 0.80.

Relational conflict was measured using Cox’s (1998) organizational conflict

scale, whose questions refer to the relation with equals and immediate superiors (i.e.

“One part frequently undermines the other”). It includes 5 items that respond with a

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Likert type five point scale (1: None / 5: A lot). The reliability obtained with

Cronbach’s alpha test was 0.86.

Position and Personal Power was measured using the Leader Power Inventory

(Rahim, 1988) based on the French and Raven (1959) typology. It has 29 items

measuring -with a Likert scale from 1, totally disagree, to 5 totally agree- the self-

perception of the person about their managers’ sources of power: coercive (i.e. “My

superior can take disciplinary action against me for insubordination”), rewarding (i.e.

“My superior can recommend me for a merit recognition if my performance is

especially good”), legitimate (i.e. “My superior is justified in expecting cooperation

from me in work-related matters”), expert (i.e. “My superior has considerable

professional experience to draw from in helping me do my work”) and referent (i.e.

“My superior is not the type of person I enjoy working with”). These bases of power are

grouped in two general categories, position power –coercive, rewarding and legitimate-

and personal power –expert and referent-. The reliability of these two power bases was

measured with Cronbach’s alpha test, giving 0.79 for position power, and 0.69 for

personal power.

Results

Table 1 provides the number of items, means, standard deviations and correlations of all

the variables of this study

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INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

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As can be seen in Table 1, relationship conflict (r=,39) and dominating (r=,14)

were positively related to bullying, whereas support climate (r=-,28) and personal power

(r=-,32) were negatively related with bullying.

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A multiple regression analysis was computed to test hypotheses, considering

bullying as an outcome variable. In the hierarchical regression analyses, we calculated

firstly the effect of relationship conflict, secondly the effect of conflict styles and

support climate and thirdly the effect of power. Results appear in Table 2.

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INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE

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As we can see in Table 2, relationship conflict predicts bullying (B=0.35,

p<0.01), confirming Hypothesis 1. The second step brings different ways to handle

bullying into the equation, suggesting that integrating style increases bullying practices

(B= 0.15, p<0.05), confirming Hypothesis 2a, whereas avoiding style (B= -0.13,

p<0.05) and support climate (B= -0.17, p<0.01) decrease bullying practices, confirming

Hypothesis 2c and Hypothesis 3 respectively. No relationship was found between

dominating styles and bullying (B= 0.05, ns) disconfirming Hypothesis 2b. Step 3

analyzes superior-subordinate relationships demonstrating that position power increases

bullying practices (B= 0.15, p<0.05), confirming Hypothesis 4a, whereas personal

power decreases these practices (B= -0.26, p<0.01), confirming Hypothesis 4b.

Discussion

The objective of the present study has been to analyse bullying as a relational

and asymmetrical conflict. The results indicate that relational conflict bears a close

relation to bullying practices. Moreover, strategies used by the targets can influence the

development of the escalation or de-escalation of the bullying situation. In this sense,

the uses of integrating style may provoke an increase of negative practices received by

the target. On the other hand, using avoiding style to cope with conflict in a workplace

bullying situation could help to reduce bullying practices. Present research also shows

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that a supportive work climate can help to diminish the number of negative practices

aimed at someone in a workgroup. Finally, this study demonstrates that bullying can be

understood as an asymmetrical conflict, since the use of power structure based on

position power could facilitate the escalation of bullying, whereas the use of personal

power decreases it. We will now comment on these findings in detail.

Bullying as a Relationship Conflict. The results of the study confirm the

existence of a significant relation between relational conflicts and the development of

bullying situations. These results agree with previous findings in conflict literature

about the negative effects of relational conflicts on the work group. Relational conflicts

have been associated to negative emotional reactions, a reduction in organisational

commitment and work satisfaction (Medina, Munduate, Dorado, Martínez & Guerra,

2005).Work groups with relational conflict have shown increased stress, behaviours of

mutual hostility and conflict escalation (De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001). Workplace

settings registering cases of bullying are described as similar to those affected by

relational conflicts (Zapf, Knorz & Kulla, 1996). Therefore, the results of the present

paper allow us to state that the organisations in which there is a high level of relational

conflict will provide fertile ground for the development of bullying practices.

Coping with bullying. Results confirm that target’s coping responses play an

important role in managing workplace bullying. The use of avoiding style to cope with

bullying reduces the number of negative behaviours against the target. Given that the

avoiding style is characterised by the use of escaping behaviours or of ignoring

conflicts, this result implies that successful targets tried to avoid escalating and

worsening the situation and to avoid mistakes in order not to give the bullies additional

grounds to bully them. Targets who use avoiding style take particular care not to

contribute to a greater escalation of the conflict. Instead, by ignoring the conflicts they

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are living with, they try to reduce the intensity of the bullying situation (Hoel, Zapf &

Cooper, 2002). This result is backed up by previous research (De Dreu & Van Vianen,

2001), that found that avoiding responses to relational conflict were effective in

reducing its intensity.

From a cognitive perspective, bullying is the result of a cognitive process of

assessment of a specific situation (Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003). Using avoiding style

to cope with bullying is an element in itself that lessens target’s perception of negative

practices. The avoiding response may be considered a strategy of cognitive

restructuring, which proves to be useful when the target have little control over the

situation given the perpetrator’s power and influence over the target.

In the same way, the results show that target’s attempts to use integrating

behaviours in a workplace bullying situation are positively related to an increase in

bullying practices. In this type of context, the most active strategies for resolving

conflicts involve a direct transaction with the perpetrator. This transaction may be

giving the perpetrator more opportunities for generating aggressive behaviours towards

the target, or make him/her perceive the target’s behaviour as threatening, which causes

a reaction that provokes more aggressive behaviours. Previous research confirms this

interpretation, finding that active coping behaviours seem more often to worsen rather

than improve the overall situation (Zapf & Gross, 2001). Also research in the field of

conflict supports this result stating that problem-solving strategies of conflict

management are not very successful either when the conflicts are no-longer related to

the task (De Dreu & Van Viannen,2001), or when the conflict situation is highly

escalated as it is in bullying (Fisher & Keashly, 1990; Glasl, 1994).

The dysfunctional effect of using integrating style to cope with bullying could

also rely on the same reason that explain the functional effects of avoiding style, the fact

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that the target does not have sufficient power to negotiate. There is some evidence in

conflict research that in order to use a problem solving style efficiently, sufficiently

high levels of forcing behaviour also need to be used (Van de Vliert, Nauta, Giebels &

Janssen, 1999). The lack of power in relation to the perpetrator is a defining

characteristic of a bullying situation; therefore the probability for the target of using a

dominating style is rather low. This may contribute to such negative results of the use of

integration faced with bullying practices. We may conclude that, in agreement with

previous research (Zapf & Gross, 2001), the present study shows that coping with

integrating style, does not by itself leads to a successful resolution.

An unexpected result refers to the fact that the use of domination against

workplace bullying does not influence its development. However, some results have

previously been found in this same direction (Aquino, 2000). An explanation for this

finding may lie in the fact that, as indicated earlier, given that in the nature of bullying

there is an underlying imbalance of power against the target, we might expect the target

to be unable to exercise effective behaviours of domination over the other party in

conflict, which could explain the lack of relation with conflict escalation. Although in

the first stages of a bullying situation, the target may resort to aggressive behaviours, as

an attempt at breaking the escalation of aggressive behaviours, our results show that in

an already accentuated conflict situation, as in bullying, in which the target is clearly in

a situation of inferiority in relation to the aggressor, attempts at domination do not seem

to have any effect on the bullying process itself. In this situation, given the superiority

of the perpetrator over the target, it is probable that s/he will not perceive these attempts

either as threatening or provoking, but as unfitting and unrealistic behaviours which

would not provoke retaliatory actions.

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Social Support Climate in Team Members. Results of the present research

confirm that a supportive work environment exerts some protection over the target

influencing his/her experience of bullying. Previous research has found similar results

(Quine, 1999). When the person on the receiving end of workplace bullying terms this

supportive work environment as ‘helpful’, it seems s/he is identifying two different

situations: a bullying situation in which something has changed and started a process of

deceleration and neutralisation of the perpetrator, and another situation in which the

perpetrator is a supervisor and the target receives support from his/her equals. In both

situations one might expect there to be a reduction in bullying practices aimed at the

target, either due to the improvement in the situation that is occurring or because the

support given by equals helps the target to relativise the situation.

Bullying as an asymmetrical conflict. The results of this study confirm the

positive relation between the use of position power and the presence of bullying

practices. These results are supported by previous research that found greater levels of

harassment in hierarchical structures characterised by an authoritarian leadership style,

such as position power, with a prevailing respect for obedience and where employees

have little control and few possibilities of giving an opinion about their own work

(Archer, 1999; Ashforth, 1994). Literature about conflict also provides findings about

the relation between position power and the increase of relational conflicts (Medina,

Munduate & Guerra, 2005). These results may be explained by the anonymity that

characterized the decision-making process in very bureaucratic organisations, which

reduces the risk of the perpetrator being caught or socially condemned. In effect, the

effect/danger ratio (Björkqvist, Österman & Lagerspetz, 1994), could explain the

relation that the perpetrator has between the wish to produce the greatest possible

suffering to the target and to minimise the risk of being identified as the perpetrator.

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The anonymity provided by bureaucratic organisations would increase the probability of

performing aggressive behaviours, as that context reduces the risk of being identified.

Similarly, the results confirm the negative relation between personal power and

workplace bullying practices. These results are in line with those provided by research

into power, which found that the frequency of relationship conflicts on the job

decreased when personal power bases are used (Munduate & Dorado 1998; Peiró &

Meliá, 2003). This beneficial effect of personal power offers a first explanatory element

of the results of the present study, as by reducing the presence of relational conflicts it

diminishes the probability of these leading to workplace bullying (Zapf & Einarsen,

2005).

Limitations and practical implications. One limitation of the present study

refers to the fact that arguments supporting the influence of the power base on the

bullying process only captures the dimension of supervisor power. Future research also

considering the target’s source of power is needed to contrast the effects on the

workplace bullying situation.

The present study makes an important contribution to the area of bullying

management, as it confirms the effectiveness of management strategies of intractable

organizational conflicts in coping with bullying practices in workplace settings. On this

point, the study underlines pertinent practical implications both for the person on the

receiving end of the harassment behaviours, and for the supervisors running the group.

On the target side, we can say that the results give an optimistic view in the sense that

victimization may be more manageable than is believed. If the person is aware that

specific behaviours evoke mistreatment, then he/ she should be able to avoid such

behaviours. At the same time, the person could exhibit behaviours that are known to

discourage mistreatment. We can conclude that in order to contribute to the de-

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escalation of the bullying process, target should avoid using active behaviours such as

integration and should instead use avoiding behaviours more frequently. From a group

perspective of bullying management, recommendations focus on encouraging a climate

of support in work groups and the use of power strategies that are based on the

capacities, skills and knowledge of the group members.

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Table 1

Descriptive results of different variables of the study.

M SD 1 3 4 5 6 7 8

1.Bullying Practices 1.27 .32

2.Relational Conflict 2.45 .94 .39**

3.Integration 3.84 .54 -.05 -.31**

4.Domination 2.26 .16 .14* .12 -.06

5.Avoiding 3.43 .17 -.05 .09 .15* .06

6.Support Climate 3.27 .87 -.28** -.45** .26** .07 -.02

7.Position Power 3.05 .66 -.10 -.25** .32** -.21 .19** .36**

8.Personal Power 3.30 .81 -.32** -.36** .22** .04 .02 .54** .49**

Comment [CdP2]: Al quitar la diferenciación entre acoso subjetivo y objetivo creo que queda más claro si hablamos de prácticas de acoso.

Coping with Mobbing 29

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Table 2

Hierarchical regression between conflict styles and support climate with bullying

Bullying

Step 1

Relational conflict (RC)

R2

0.35**

0.13**

Step 2

Integrating

Dominating

Avoiding

Support

R2

0.15*

0.05

-0.13*

-0.17*

0.18*

Step 3

Positional Power

Personal Power

Total R2

0.15*

-0.26**

0.22*

* p<0,05; **p<0,01