Quality of the working life and risk of mobbing: the moderating effect of social climate

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to identify the psychosocial factors that are more related to the risk of workplace bullying in the organizational contexts. According to the work environment hypothesis, job demands, job control, perception of equity and leadership have been considered. It has been hypothesized that all these variables infl uence directly negative acts and also their effects are moderated by perception of colleagues. In order to investigate these relationships, a self-report questionnaire has been administered to 148 participants who represented all the population of a structure of private health care. The main results showed that job demands and leadership are the organizational antecedents more related to workplace bullying. Furthermore, the perception of colleagues has a moderating effect especially between job characteristics, like job demand, and negative acts, while this effect is weaker between relational antecedent, as leadership, and bullying. The data seem to con- fi rm that mobbing prevention can be implemented starting from the psychosocial work environment and management of relationships involving leader and colleagues.