Malik Omer Farooq, Pichler Shaun, Shahzad Asif, Jawad Nazish
Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA.
BMC Psychol. 2025 Aug 12;13(1):900. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-03239-1.
In the post-COVID-19 era, more work is being done online; more people are working remotely; and communication has shifted online. Increased concerns about workplace cyberbullying (WCB) have accompanied these changes in work, but the scholarly literature is limited in terms of understanding the characteristics of organizations and individual perpetrators that shape WCB behavior. Drawing upon social exchange theory and the literature on organizational politics, we proposed and tested a multilevel moderated mediation model to examine the cross-level direct and indirect relationships between political climate and WCB perpetration mediated through psychological contract violation, and we also investigated the moderating role of toxic online disinhibition in this process.
We collected multiphase and multilevel data from 416 white-collar employees nested within 30 organizations in the service sector in Islamabad, Pakistan. We used a multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) technique in Mplus to analyze the data.
We found a direct and positive cross-level relationship between political climate and WCB perpetration. Multilevel mediation analysis revealed that psychological contract violation mediates the cross-level relationship between political climate and WCB perpetration. Moreover, multilevel moderated mediation analysis suggested that the conditional cross-level indirect effect of political climate on WCB perpetration via psychological contract violation was stronger and significant at higher levels of toxic online disinhibition, whereas it was weaker and non-significant at lower levels of toxic online disinhibition.
Studies exploring the situational antecedents of WCB perpetration are scarce, particularly at the organizational level. We proposed and tested a multilevel model of WCB perpetration indicating that political climate leads individuals to engage in WCB perpetration directly as well as indirectly through its impact on psychological contract violation. We outline a number of practical implications and suggest future research directions.
在新冠疫情后的时代，线上工作增多；更多人远程办公；沟通也转向了线上。随着这些工作方式的变化，人们对职场网络欺凌（WCB）的担忧日益增加，但学术文献在理解塑造WCB行为的组织和个体实施者特征方面较为有限。借鉴社会交换理论和组织政治文献，我们提出并检验了一个多层次调节中介模型，以考察政治氛围与通过心理契约违背介导的WCB实施之间的跨层次直接和间接关系，我们还研究了有害网络去抑制在这一过程中的调节作用。
我们从巴基斯坦伊斯兰堡服务业的30个组织中的416名白领员工那里收集了多阶段、多层次的数据。我们在Mplus中使用多层次结构方程建模（MSEM）技术来分析数据。
我们发现政治氛围与WCB实施之间存在直接且正向的跨层次关系。多层次中介分析表明，心理契约违背介导了政治氛围与WCB实施之间的跨层次关系。此外，多层次调节中介分析表明，政治氛围通过心理契约违背对WCB实施的条件性跨层次间接效应在有害网络去抑制水平较高时更强且显著，而在有害网络去抑制水平较低时较弱且不显著。
探索WCB实施情境前因的研究很少，尤其是在组织层面。我们提出并检验了一个WCB实施的多层次模型，表明政治氛围会导致个体直接以及通过其对心理契约违背的影响间接参与WCB实施。我们概述了一些实际意义并提出了未来的研究方向。
