Psychosocial safety climate as a moderator in role stressor- bullying relationships: A multilevel approach

Abstract

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and safety signal theory, we investigate the hypothesis that an organizations psychosocial safety climate (PSC) moderates the well established relationships between individual experience of role stressors (role ambiguity and role conflict) and employees’ exposure to workplace bullying. Multilevel modelling with a sample of 15,524 employees from 69 organizations, aligned with earlier findings: role ambiguity and role conflict were related to reports of exposure to workplace bullying. Furthermore, organization’s PSC was negatively related to reports of exposure to workplace bullying. The main results however was the support for moderation hypotheses. The results showed that an organizatiońs PSC moderated the association between role conflict and workplace bullying across organizations. The association between role ambiguity and workplace bullying were also moderated by the organizatiońs PSC, yet not to the same extent. These cross-level findings expand our knowledge on how organizational level factors may act to prevent workplace bullying. As recently proposed, PSC seem to function as an organizational resource in the organization which is related to a lower prevalence of workplace bullying in the first place. Furthermore it buffers the risks of exposure to bullying associated with role conflict and to some extent the risk associated with role ambiguity. Thus, it is important for management to invest in the psychosocial safety of employees in a way that secures that such a climate prevails in the organization.