Coyne2019_Article_BystanderResponsesToBullyingAt.pdf (537.39 kB)
Bystander responses to bullying at work: the role of mode, type and relationship to target
journal contribution
posted on 2016-11-09, 10:49 authored by Iain CoyneIain Coyne, Alana-Marie Gopaul, Marilyn Campbell, Alexandra Pankasz, Robyn Garland, Frances CousinsThe current paper examines bystanders’ intervention intention to workplace negative acts across three studies based on international employee samples (N=766). Using a vignettebased design, we examined the role of bullying mode (offline vs. online), bullying type (personal vs. work-related), organisational action (presence/absence of bullying policy) and
target closeness (friend vs. work colleague) on bystanders’ behavioural intentions to respond, to sympathise with the victim (defender role), to reinforce the perpetrator (prosecutor role) and to be ambivalent (commuter role). Results illustrated a pattern of the influence of mode and type on bystander intentions. Bystanders were least likely to support the victim and more likely to agree with perpetrator actions for cyberbullying and work-related acts. Tentatively, support emerged for the effect of target closeness on bystander intentions. Although effect
sizes were small, when the target was a friend, bystanders tended to be more likely to act and defend the victim and less likely to reinforce the perpetrator. No significant main effects or interactions emerged for organisational action of providing a bullying policy. Implications for
research and the potential for bystander education are discussed.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Business
Published in
Journal of Business EthicsVolume
157Issue
3Pages
813-827Citation
COYNE, I.J. ... et al, 2019. Bystander responses to bullying at work: the role of mode, type and relationship to target. Journal of Business Ethics, 157 (3), pp.813–827.Publisher
Springer (© The Authors)Version
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2017-09-03Publication date
2017-09-14Notes
This article was published as Open Access by Springer and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.ISSN
0167-4544eISSN
1573-0697Publisher version
Language
- en