Abstract
Abstract : Employees’ intention to leave has been cited as a predictor of actual turnover, which consequently leads to several undesirable consequences for organisations. One notable precursor of employees’ intention to leave is the experience of bullying within the work context. While previous research has consistently found a positive relationship between experiences of workplace bullying and employees’ intention to leave, researchers have also motivated the need to look into potential intervening factors of this relationship. As it has been suggested that an individual’s reaction to stressful events is a function of his or her personal resources, the present study sought to draw attention to the role played by the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability as individuals’ personal resources in how they respond (intention to leave) to stressful situations or environments (experiences of workplace bullying). Data on participants’ experiences of workplace bullying, their intentions to leave their current organisations and their perceptions of each of the psychological conditions were collected from South African employees (N = 201). The Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R), the Psychological Conditions Scale (PCS), and the Turnover Intention Scale (TIS-6) were employed for data collection. Mediation analysis was utilised to examine each of the psychological condition’s effect on the workplace bullying-intention to leave link. The results showed experiences of workplace bullying to predict intention to leave, with psychological meaningfulness and psychological safety partially mediating this relationship. Workplace bullying was thus found to have an effect on employees’ experiences of psychological meaningfulness and psychological safety which, in turn, exert an influence on intention to leave. This study contributes to the existing knowledge concerning workplace bullying and intention to leave by indicating the specific role played by the psychological conditions of meaningfulness and safety. Moreover, to practice, this study suggests that organisations can intervene in the relationship between workplace bullying and intention to leave through the development and maintenance of psychological meaningfulness and psychological safety.
M.Com. (Industrial Psychology)