Bullying effects on performance and engagement among academics
| Pages | 1205-1223 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-11-2017-0264 |
| Published date | 07 October 2019 |
| Date | 07 October 2019 |
| Author | Matti Meriläinen,Kristi Kõiv,Anu Honkanen |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Bullying effects on performance
and engagement among academics
Matti Meriläinen
School of Educational Sciences and Psychology,
University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Kristi Kõiv
University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, and
Anu Honkanen
University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between perceived bullying, work
engagement and workperformance among Estonian academics. Specifically,it details what forms of bullying
affect work engagement and performance.Moreover, the study exploresthe relationship between engagement
and performance among bullied academics.
Design/methodology/approach –A total of 864 faculty members from nine Estonian universities participated
in an e-mail survey in Spring 2014. Bullying was measured using the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised
(NAQ-R22), and work engagement was assessed using the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale.
Respondents’perceived performance and productivity were measured on a ten-point rating scale. Structural
equation modelling was used to analyse the relationship between bullying, engagement and performance.
Findings –Perceived bullying –especially “professional understating”–decreased work engagement and
work performance among Estonian academics. The decrease in performance preceded the decrease in
engagement or vice versa. The decrease in engagement was followed by lowered performance.
Research limitations/implications –A longitudinal study is needed to prove the specific one-way effect
of (decreased) performance (because of perceived bullying) on engagement.
Practical implications –Preventing bullying and further increasing engagement and performance among
Estonian academics requires getting out of policy of professional understating.
Social implications –The authors need to determine why Estonian academics experience professional
understating, which includes being ordered to perform tasks below one’s level of competence and having key
areas of responsibility removed or replaced with more trivial or unpleasant tasks.
Originality/value –The present results prove that it is possible to differentiate between specific forms of
bullying in a specific context and further reveal those factors specifically that affect work performance and
work engagement. Among Estonian academics –revealed in this study –“professional understating”seems
to be such a factor.
Keywords Higher education, Bullying, Workplace bullying, University, Work performance,
Work engagement
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The purpose of this study is to examine relationships between workplace bullying, work
engagement and work performance among Estonian academics. Identifying bullying in
daily life is not easy at all. In similar situations, one person may feel bullied, whereas another
may not. In addition, conceptions related to bullying vary across different working contexts
and professions, as well as between countries, because of cultural differences. Regardless,
the prevalence of workplace bullying is undeniable in higher education at all levels, among
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 6, 2019
pp. 1205-1223
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-11-2017-0264
Received 10 November 2017
Revised 22 November 2018
27 February 2019
4 April 2019
Accepted 16 April 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
© Matti Meriläinen, Kristi Kõiv and Anu Honkanen. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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Bullying
effects
students, academics, general staff and administrators, and across all disciplines (Henning
et al., 2017; Sinkkonen et al., 2014).
Nielsen and Einarsen (2018, p. 73) define workplace bullying as “situations where an
employee repeatedly and over a prolonged time period is exposed to harassing behavior
from one or more colleagues (including subordinates and leaders) and where the targeted
person is unable to defend him−/herself against this systematic mistreatment”. The various
negative consequences of workplace bullying at an individual level, such as psychological,
psychosomatic and behavioural effects, chronic diseases, and increased absenteeism, which
can lead to dismissal or resignation, are widely known (see e.g. Nielsen et al., 2015).
In addition, workplace bullying affects work engagement and work performance (see e.g.
Rai and Agarwal, 2016; Samnani and Singh, 2012). From the viewpoint of employee
relations, the nature of workplace bullying is twofold. First, poor relations between
employees (i.e. the organisational and social cultures and dynamics of the workplace) may
be an antecedent (cause) of the bullying (see e.g. McKay et al., 2008). Second, we know that
bullying affects (consequences) employee relations (Hauge et al., 2007), and further
performance (Devonish, 2013; Obicci, 2015; Samnani et al., 2013; Schat and Frone, 2011) and
engagement (Goodboy et al., 2017; Park and Ono, 2017).
Intrinsic job characteristics, such as interpersonal workrelationships (e.g. conflicts, social
support and leadership style), career development (e.g. job insecurity and opportunities for
promotion), organisational factors (e.g. organisational structure and office politics) and the
home–work interface (e.g. blurred boundaries between working hours and leisure time) are
typical features that bring on bullying and decrease employee relations (Hauge et al., 2007).
It is noteworthy that the previously mentioned characteristics are related to horizontal as
well as to vertical relations in the workplace. In organisations like universities, the bully may be
a co-worker as well, and bullying is an inter-employee problem (Meriläinen et al., 2016). Besides,
universities are a typical example of organisations in which task-oriented expertise, autonomy
and individualism are emphasised, and that is why the specific nature of academic bullying is
difficult to define (Agervold, 2007). According to Meriläinen et al. (2016), especially among
academics, bullying may manifest as “sophisticated, psychologically emphasized, inappropriate
behaviour which is difficult to label as bullying”, if at all. These specific characteristics make it
more difficult to define specific forms of bullying and further to reveal relations between certain
forms of bullying and certain forms of consequences among academics.
For example, we know that person-related bullying, in general, predicts employees’work
performance (Yahaya et al., 2012). However, we do not know so much about what kind of
bullying ( form) especially affects work engagement and performance, nor how workplace
bullying influences the relationship between engagement and performance. Besides, there is
a lack of detailed information concerning effects such as (decreased) engagement as a
possible mediator (because of perceived bullying) in the bullying–performance relationship,
and (decreased) performance as a possible mediator (because of perceived bullying) in the
bullying–engagement relationship.
In this study, we examine relationships between perceived bullying, work engagement
and work performance among Estonian academics. In addition, our focus is on the details of
what forms of bullying affect work engagement and performance. Moreover, we explore the
nature and direction of relationship between engagement and performance among
academics who experience workplace bullying.
The results are exploitable at individual and at organisational level. Besides decreasing
psychological, psychosomatic and behavioural effects (Nielsen et al., 2015), reducing bullying
increases engagement, motivation and performance at an individuallevel (Trepanier et al., 2013).
At organisation’s level, employees’intentions to leave the organisation (e.g. Berthelsen et al.,
2011; Nielsen and Einarsen, 2012; Hollis, 2015) or the whole profession (Laschinger and Fida,
2014), or even the risk of expulsion from working life altogether, decrease (Glambek et al., 2015).
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