Notelaers Guy, Van der Heijden Beatrice, Guenter Hannes, Nielsen Morten Birkeland, Einarsen Ståle Valvetne
Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2018 Oct 9;9:1743. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01743. eCollection 2018.
In this paper, we tackle an important but unresolved research question: How distinct are workplace conflict, aggression and bullying? We study this question by means of latent class (LC) analysis using cross-industry data from 6,175 Belgian workers. We find a two-factor solution (conflict-aggression versus bullying) to provide the best fit to the data. Employees with low exposure to conflict-aggression and bullying perceived the phenomena as mostly overlapping. Employees who were exposed more frequently to the phenomena reported them to be more distinct - especially so for workplace bullying. We also find conflict-aggression and bullying to have distinct relationships with well-being and strain outcomes. These findings entail that a simple unifying approach or a single label for all three phenomena is not appropriate, at least from a measurement point of view and from the perspective of those exposed. Our results have important implications for the theoretical understanding of conflict, aggression and bullying, and for practitioners who provide support to affected employees including policymakers who help prevent and manage these problems at the workplace.
在本文中，我们探讨了一个重要但尚未解决的研究问题：工作场所冲突、攻击行为和欺凌行为有多大区别？我们通过潜在类别（LC）分析，使用来自6175名比利时工人的跨行业数据来研究这个问题。我们发现一个两因素解决方案（冲突-攻击行为与欺凌行为）最能拟合数据。接触冲突-攻击行为和欺凌行为较少的员工认为这些现象大多相互重叠。接触这些现象更频繁的员工报告说它们更具区别性——工作场所欺凌行为尤其如此。我们还发现冲突-攻击行为和欺凌行为与幸福感和压力结果有不同的关系。这些发现意味着，至少从测量角度以及从受影响者的角度来看，对这三种现象采用简单统一的方法或单一标签是不合适的。我们的结果对冲突、攻击行为和欺凌行为的理论理解，以及对为受影响员工提供支持的从业者（包括帮助预防和管理工作场所这些问题的政策制定者）具有重要意义。
