Antecedents of ethical infrastructures against workplace bullying. The role of organizational size, perceived financial resources and level of high-quality HRM practices
| Pages | 672-690 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-10-2017-0303 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Author | Kari Einarsen,Denise Salin,Ståle Valvatne Einarsen,Anders Skogstad,Reidar Johan Mykletun |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Antecedents of ethical
infrastructures against
workplace bullying
The role of organizational size, perceived
financial resources and level of high-quality
HRM practices
Kari Einarsen
UiS Business School, Samfunnsvitskaplege Fakultet,
Universitetet i Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
Denise Salin
Department of Management and Organization,
Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland and
Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Ståle Valvatne Einarsen and Anders Skogstad
Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, and
Reidar Johan Mykletun
UiS Business School, Stavanger, Norway
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing on the resource-based view, the purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to
which the level of the organization’s human resource management (HRM) practices, perceived financial
resources and organizational size predict the existence of a well-developed ethical infrastructure against
workplace bullying.
Design/methodology/approach –The human resource (HR) managers or the main health and safety
representatives (HSRs) in 216 Norwegian municipalities responded to an electronic survey, representing some
50 percent of the municipalities.
Findings –The level of high-quality HRM practice predicted the existence of an ethical infrastructure
against workplace bullying, particularly informal systems represented by a strong conflict management
climate. Perceived financial resources did not predict the existence of such ethical infrastructure.
Organizational size predicted the existence of policies and having training against bullying.
Practical implications –This study informs practitioners about organizational resources associated with
organization having a well-developed ethical infrastructure against workplace bullying. A high level of
high-quality HRM practices seems to be more important for the existence of a well-developed ethical
infrastructure against workplace bullying compared to financial resources and organizational size, at least as
perceived by HR managers and HSRs.
Originality/value –This study provides empirical evidence for the importance of having a high level of
high-quality HRM practices as predictors of the existence of ethical infrastructure to tackle workplace
bullying. An essential finding is that the existence of such an infrastructure is not dependent on distal
resources, such as organizational size and perceived financial resources.
Keywords HRM practices, Workplace bullying, Psychosocial work environment, Ethical infrastructure,
Formal systems, Informal systems
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The study of unethical behavior in organizations and how organizations address such
misbehavior is important, both for internal and external reasons (Crane and Matten, 2016).
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 3, 2019
pp. 672-690
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-10-2017-0303
Received 13 October 2017
Revised 18 April 2018
Accepted 4 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
672
PR
48,3
Unethical behavior is namely about actions by organizational members that may be
harmful to individuals, groups, the organization, the surrounding environment or society at
large, and which is not morally accepted by the larger society ( Jones, 1991; Russell et al.,
2017; Treviño and Weaver, 2003). One of the most prevalent examples of unethical behavior
in organizations is the repeated interpersonal mistreatment of employees by their superiors
and peers, often conceptualized as workplace bullying (see Nielsen et al., 2010; Valentine
et al., 2018), a problem that is even legally addressed in many countries (Yamada, 2011).
The concept of workplace bullying refers to direct or indirect aggressive behavior directed
either deliberately or unintendedly toward organizational member(s) by other members,
perceived as humiliating, offensive and causing severe distress for the victim and in some
cases obstructing job performance and/or causing a general unpleasant work environment
(Einarsen and Raknes, 1997; Glambek et al., 2018). Researchers have argued strongly for
organizations to implement effective measures against workplace bullying (Escartín, 2016;
Einarsen et al., 2011; Hodgins et al., 2014; Vartia and Tehrani, 2012) and for studies
on the potential effectiveness of systems and procedures in use (see Dollard et al., 2017).
Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study focuses on organizational resources
as predictors of an organization’s ethical infrastructure for the prevention and management
of workplace bullying. The concept of ethical infrastructure refers to formal and informal
systems in organizations that prevent organizational members from acting unethically
(e.g. Martin et al., 2014; Tenbrunsel et al., 2003; Treviño, 1990). Formal systems consist of
elements observable within and outside the organization, such as documented ethics and
compliance programs, while informal systems are the subtle messages about the
organization’s actual values and behavior in relation to ethical issues (Tenbrunsel et al.,
2003). The presence of formal and informal ethical systems within an overarching ethical
infrastructure has shown to be associated with less unethical behavior and practices in
organizations ( Jacobs et al., 2014; Kaptein, 2015), increased awareness of unethical
behaviors (Ethics Resource Center, 2014; Rottig et al., 2011), less reports of bullying
(Dollard et al., 2017) and to the successful management of unethical behaviors, in particular
workplace bullying (Einarsen et al., 2017). In this regard, it should be mentioned that former
research has also linked general unethical corporate values with workplace bullying
(Valentine et al., 2018). Focusing on the ethical infrastructure also meets the calls for
developing a system-wide approach to organizational measures against workplace bullying
(e.g. Cooper-Thomas et al., 2013; Escartín, 2016).
Building on the assumption that workplace bullying should be sought prevented and
managed within the framework of an ethical infrastructure, as shown by Einarsen et al.
(2017), we will investigate organizational antecedents of such an infrastructure. In this
respect an RBV suggests that resources are important for an organization in order to
survive, grow, and in general, to be effective (Barney, 1991). While Dollard et al. (2017)
looked at how individual cases of bullying may be related to subsequent better informal
systems to handled cases workplace bullying within the organization, the present study
looks at how three different organizational resources are related to an organization having a
well-developed ethical infrastructure to prevent and handle bullying. Having a well-
developed ethical infrastructure is defined as having a high degree of implemented formal
systems, as well as having informal systems that are assumed to enable ethical behavior
and disable unethical behavior.
More specifically, we investigate the extent to which organizational resources, be it the
proximal factor of the general level of human resource management (HRM) practices and the
more distal factors of financial resources and organizational size, predict the existence of a
well-developed ethical infrastructure against workplace bullying. Specifically, it will explore
whether these three resources are associated with the ethical infrastructure’s formal
systems, be it policies, training, recurrent communication and sanctions, and informal
673
Workplace
bullying
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