Social capital and workplace bullying

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Workplace bullying is a serious stressor with devastating short- and long-term consequences. The concept of organizational social capital may provide insights into the interactional and communicative dynamics of the bullying process and opportunities for prevention. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the association between organizational social capital and being a target or observer of workplace bullying. METHODS:Based on self-reported cross-sectional data from a large representative sample of the Danishworking population (n = 10.037), logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore at the individual level the associations between vertical and horizontal organizational social capital with being a target or observer of workplace bullying. RESULTS: In the fully adjusted models, loworganizational social capital (vertical and horizontal)was associated with significantly increased odds ratios of both self-labelled (vertical: OR= 3.25; CI = 2.34 - 4.51; horizontal: OR= 3.17; CI = 2.41 - 4.18) and observed workplace bullying (vertical: OR= 2.09; CI = 1.70 - 2.56; horizontal: OR= 1.60; CI = 1.35 - 1.89), when compared with high organizational social capital. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports that characteristics of the psychosocial work environment are of importance in the development of workplace bullying, and provides focus on the importance of self-reported organizational social capital.