Abstract

VILAS-BOAS, Madalena. Relationship between the Perception of Organizational Culture and Ethical Climate and the Perception of Workplace Bullying. CES Psicol [online]. 2019, vol.12, n.2, pp.103-125. ISSN 2011-3080.  https://doi.org/10.21615/cesp.12.2.8.

Workplace bullying takes place in many organizations and it has serious consequences on individuals, organizations and economy. The main aim of this study is to contribute to the field of workplace bullying by empirically testing the theoretically defined relation between socio-organizational variables (organizational culture and ethical climate) and bullying, using two theoretical models well-grounded in organizational studies. The findings, from a sample of 984 Portuguese workers, suggest that there is a strong relation between organizational culture/ethical climate and bullying: the “benevolent” and “principled” climates are negatively related (or even an obstacle) to bullying, as well as the cultural orientation of “support”. The opposite is the result of the climate “self-interest” and the cultural orientations of “rules” and “goals”. As organizational culture and ethical climate explain 20% of the variance of the negative behaviours perceived by the members of the organization, what shows that managers can achieve changes to a significant organizational, individual and societal problem just by manipulating those two variables.

Keywords : Ethical Climate; Ethical Climate Questionnaire; Organizational Culture; Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument; Psychosocial Work Conditions; Workplace Bullying.

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