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Running Head: MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 1
Workplace Mistreatment Climate and Potential Employee and Organizational Outcomes:
A Meta-Analytic Review from the Target’s Perspective
Liu-Qin Yang David E. Caughlin Michele W. Gazica
Portland State University University of South Florida
Donald M. Truxillo
Portland State University
Paul E. Spector
University of South Florida
Address all correspondence to:
Liu-Qin Yang, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Portland State University
P.O. Box 751
Portland, OR, 97207
Fax: 503-725-3904
Please cite
Yang, L.-Q., Caughlin, D.E., Gazica, M.W., Truxillo, D. M., & Spector, P.E. (In Press).
Workplace mistreatment climate: A review of contextual influence from the target’s
perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 2
Abstract
This meta-analytic study summarizes relations between workplace mistreatment climate—MC
(specific to incivility, aggression, and bullying) and potential outcomes. We define MC as
individual or shared perceptions of organizational policies, procedures, and practices that deter
interpersonal mistreatment. We located 35 studies reporting results with individual perceptions
of MC (psychological MC) that yielded 36 independent samples comprising 91,950 employees.
Through our meta-analyses, we found significant mean correlations between psychological MC
and employee and organizational outcomes including mistreatment reduction effort (motivation
and performance), mistreatment exposure, strains, and job attitudes. Moderator analyses revealed
that the psychological MC-outcome relations were generally stronger for perceived civility
climate than for perceived aggression-inhibition climate, and content contamination of existing
climate scales accentuated the magnitude of the relations between psychological MC and some
outcomes (mistreatment exposure and employee strains). Further, the magnitudes of the
psychological MC-outcome relations were generally comparable across studies using dominant
(i.e., most commonly used) and other climate scales, but for some focal relations, magnitudes
varied with respect to cross-sectional vs. prospective designs. The three studies that assessed MC
at the unit-level had results largely consistent with those at the employee level.
Key Words: organizational climate civility climate violence prevention climate bullying
meta-analysis
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 3
Workplace mistreatment represents an interpersonal situation under which at least one
member initiates counternormative negative actions or stops normative positive actions towards
another member in the same workplace (Cortina & Magley, 2003). Workplace mistreatment in
its various forms, ranging from rudeness (i.e., incivility; Andersson & Pearson, 1999) to
physical aggression, has received an increasing amount of attention in the organizational
literature (for reviews see Aquino & Thau, 2009; Barling, Dupre, & Kelloway, 2009; Bowling
& Beehr, 2006; Branch, Ramsay, & Barker, 2012; Brees, Mackey, & Martinko, 2013; Estes &
Wang, 2008; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010; Hershcovis et al., 2007; Leiter, 2013; Samnani,
Singh, & Ezzedeen, 2013; Schat, Frone, & Kelloway, 2006). The present paper focuses on three
forms of commonly occurring workplace mistreatment: incivility, aggression, and bullying.
Specifically, we conceptualize workplace incivility as low-intensity mistreatment, which has
ambiguous intent to harm the target and violates norms for mutual respect in the workplace
(Andersson & Pearson, 1999). We define workplace aggression as overt physical or
nonphysical behavior that harms employees (Neuman & Baron, 2005). Finally, we define
bullying as a situation in which targets are exposed to abusive and offensive workplace acts
repeatedly and over a period of time, and from which they have difficulties defending
themselves (Einarsen, 2000; Rayner, 1997).
These forms of mistreatment differ in terms of intensity: incivility is expressed with the
lowest intensity (e.g., being ignored or excluded from professional camaraderie), physical
aggression has the highest intensity (e.g., being kicked), whereas nonphysical aggression and
bullying falls in between incivility and physical aggression in terms of intensity. They also
differ in terms of intent to harm, as incivility is expressed with ambiguous intent whereas
nonphysical aggression, physical aggression, and bullying all have clear intent to harm. Prior
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 4
literature has supported the conceptual distinction among these forms of mistreatment (e.g.,
Tepper & Henle, 2011).
Various forms of workplace mistreatment have been found to be prevalent and
consequential. Findings from a U.S. national survey showed that 41% of employees reported
experiencing nonphysical aggression, while 6% reported being physically attacked at work in
the prior year (Schat et al., 2006). The majority of studies conducted in Europe and North
America found that 10-15% of the workforce experiences workplace bullying (Keashly &
Jagatic, 2011; Zapf, Escartin, Einarsen, Hoel, & Vartia, 2011). Consequences of mistreatment
for employees, organizations, and society include decreased employee health (e.g., Lim & Lee,
2011), employee performance (Schat & Frone, 2011), and (in healthcare) quality of patient
services (Lanza, 2006), as well as increased worker compensation claims (Boyd, 1995).
Given the aforementioned consequences of workplace mistreatment, it is imperative to
identify its potential antecedents, especially those factors that may ameliorate this issue. The
majority of research on mistreatment’s antecedents has focused on the employee's individual
characteristics and experiences such as stress and unfairness, from the perspectives of both
perpetrators (Barling et al., 2009; Hershcovis et al., 2007) and targets (Aquino & Thau, 2009;
Bowling & Beehr, 2006). More and more research, however, has suggested that organizational
contextual factors (e.g., organizational culture and leadership) predict occurrences of workplace
mistreatment either by themselves or through interacting with other antecedents, such as
individual characteristics or experiences (Aquino & Lamertz, 2004; Barling et al., 2009; Leiter,
2013). Specifically from the target’s perspective, Bowling and Beehr (2006) stated:
Some specific variables in the [proposed] model [about antecedents and consequences
of workplace harassment] still need empirical research to link them to workplace
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 5
harassment [or mistreatment]. These include the organizational variables of culture and
climate, the nature of human resource systems... (p. 1007)
In response to this call, there has been a burgeoning stream of research on organizational
climate specific to mistreatment, which we define as employees’ individual or shared
perceptions of organizational policies, procedures and practices focused on deterring
mistreatment (i.e., psychological or unit-level mistreatment climate; MC). Yet, there has been
no clear understanding regarding the specific roles MC may play in the mistreatment process.
Given the complexity of the interpersonal mistreatment processes (e.g., influenced by the
relationship dynamics between various social partners; Leiter, 2013), one cannot assume that
MC will function in the same way as does workplace climate in other organizational domains
such as safety climate (Zohar, 2000) or innovation climate (Anderson & West, 1998).
Specifically, MC is regulated by norms related to interpersonal work relationships (e.g.,
treating each other in nice instead of unpleasant ways), which are often subject to individual
interpretations and the influence of dynamic relationship quality. Because it is embedded in a
subjective and dynamic interpersonal context, MC is less likely to be implemented consistently
or monitored objectively. In contrast, other types of commonly studied climates like safety
climate or innovation climate are typically influenced by more clearly defined organizational
rules and policies and driven by more objective criteria like safety records or the number of
patents granted (e.g., Bain, Mann, & Pirola-Merlo, 2001; Zohar, 2010). Admittedly, MC may
somewhat overlap with other social-interaction-related climates such as service climate
(Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998), in that both MC and service climate involve policies,
procedures, and practices focused on maintaining positive social interactions with others in the
work environment. These two climates, however, differ conceptually because service climate
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 6
emphasizes ways of ensuring employee efforts and skills to deliver high-quality customer
service, whereas MC emphasizes ways of reducing negative social interactions between any
parties in the workplace. Because service quality can be tied to objective indicators (e.g.,
number of customers retained), presumably policies, procedures, and practices central to the
formation of service climate are likely to be more measurable and less susceptible to personal
interpretation than those for MC.
Given the unique and complex nature of MC, it is important to review and synthesize
the existing literature on MC by focusing on both general and mistreatment-specific outcomes,
and to suggest directions for future research. We focus on incivility, aggression, and bullying
because conceptually these three forms of mistreatment encapsulate various forms of workplace
mistreatment in terms of intensity and intent of the perpetrator. Therefore, findings from our
qualitative and quantitative reviews on MC could generalize to other forms of mistreatment that
fall on similar spectrums of intensity and intention, such as abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000).
The present paper has the following research purposes. First, we review and summarize
the conceptualizations and measures of existing MC constructs in the domains of incivility,
aggression, and bullying. Second, informed by context theory (Bamberger, 2008; Johns, 2006;
Rousseau & Fried, 2001), we meta-analyze the relations of psychological MC with employees’
mistreatment exposure and other potential employee and organizational outcomes—specifically,
employee motivation and performance in reducing mistreatment, strains, and job attitudes.
Finally, we examine possible moderators of the relations between mistreatment climate and
focal outcomes. The conceptual and methodological moderators include climate across the three
forms of mistreatment, content deficiency and contamination of the MC scales used, dominant
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 7
vs. other climate scales used (i.e., the most commonly used scale vs. others), and types of study
design used (i.e., cross-sectional vs. prospective).
This paper extends the mistreatment literature in at least three ways. First, it provides a
conceptual synthesis of the MC literature. Specifically, it clarifies the different units of theory
corresponding to the constructs of unit-level vs. psychological climate, as applied to the three
focal forms of mistreatment. The prior literature has not conceptualized climate consistently
across these forms of mistreatment, and thus our synthesis is critical for guiding the field
forward. Such conceptual clarification and synthesis could further enhance future investigations
of climate in the context of workplace mistreatment including the forms beyond the present
review, such as abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000) and emotional abuse (Keashly, 1998).
Second, it integrates existing evidence supporting the role of psychological MC as a
contextual antecedent of mistreatment. As Johns (2006) states: “In comparison to intrapsychic
personal constructs, one less often finds reviews of the literature or meta-analyses based around
contextual variables” (p. 393). Our effort constitutes one of the few meta-analyses that is
focused on contextual variables, and thus extends previously published meta-analyses and
empirical reviews on antecedents of mistreatment exposure that mostly focused on intrapsychic
personal variables such as personalities or attribution (e.g., Aquino & Thau, 2009; Bowling &
Beehr, 2006). As such, it contributes to the empirical understanding of contextual effects on
workplace mistreatment and should inform future efforts (e.g., targeted interventions to
improve climate) to reduce mistreatment, an issue consequential to employees, organizations,
and society (Aquino & Thau, 2009; Schat et al., 2006).
Finally, the present study examines conceptual and methodological moderators to
understand the boundary conditions for psychological MC, thereby furthering our
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 8
understanding of what factors may enhance the positive effects of psychological MC and what
factors may inhibit such effects. Specifically, findings about the differential effects of
psychological MC types (e.g., climate specific to incivility vs. aggression) can inform future
research and interventions about whether one specific type or multiple types of psychological
MC should be the focus. Furthermore, findings related to methodological moderators such as
measurement quality and rigor of research design will not only point out methodological factors
that may limit understanding of climate’s effects, but also suggest methodologies that will
enhance understanding.
Psychological and Unit-Level Mistreatment Climate
Consistent with the literature on general organizational climate (e.g., Glick, 1985; James
& Jones, 1974), we differentiate psychological and unit-level MC because they represent
different units of theory. Psychological MC represents individuals’ unique perceptions of
organizational- and group-level attributes associated with workplace mistreatment, while unit-
level MC represents shared understandings of the same organizational- and group-level
attributes. In this paper, group-level refers to a general meso level within the organization, which
may include the work team level or department level. That is, psychological and unit-level MC
are closely related yet distinct because psychological MC captures employees’ personal
interpretations of workplace policies, procedures and practices aiming at deterring mistreatment,
whereas unit-level MC captures the consensual interpretations of these policies, procedures and
practices among multiple employees within the same unit (group or organization). Regardless of
the units of theory, a positive MC reflects employees’ favorable perceptions of available policies,
procedures, and practices that discourage mistreatment towards employees; conversely, a
negative MC indicates that employees perceive a lack of appropriate policies, procedures, and
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 9
practices to discourage mistreatment, or even the existence of policies, procedures, and practices
that worsen workplace mistreatment.
Scholars in the field of workplace mistreatment have not conceptualized MC consistently
across the different forms of mistreatment—notably incivility, aggression, and bullying. We
located 10 MC constructs that each represented one domain of mistreatment. Civility climate has
been labeled as Civility, Respect, Engagement at Work (CREW) climate (Meterko, Osatuke,
Mohr, Warren, & Dyrenforth, 2007), perceived workplace civility climate (Ottinot, 2008, 2010),
and workgroup climate for civility (Walsh et al., 2012). Aggression-inhibition climate includes
perceived violence policy adequacy (Hegney, Plank, & Parker, 2003), organizational
(in)tolerance of aggression (Schat, 2005), violence prevention climate (Kessler, Spector, Chang,
& Parr, 2008; Spector, Coulter, Stockwell, & Matz, 2007), perceived organizational sanctions [of
aggression] (Inness, LeBlanc, & Barling, 2008), and perceived prevention of violence (Mueller
& Tschan, 2011). Climate of bullying is measured both positively and negatively, as climate of
[tolerating] bullying (e.g., Hutchinson, Jackson, Wilkes, & Vickers, 2008) and perceived anti-
bullying policy (Baillen, Neyens, & De Witte, 2011). Across these 10 MC constructs, only two
were conceptualized and measured at both the individual and unit level (i.e., perceived
workplace civility climate; Ottinot, 2008, 2010; violence prevention climate; Chang, Eatough,
Spector, & Kessler, 2012; Spector et al., 2007). Table 1 presents the conceptualizations and
measurements of the aforementioned MC constructs.
Mistreatment Climate, Context Theory, and Potential Employee and Organizational
Outcomes
In the present meta-analytic review, we include only studies reporting results on
psychological MC. As shown in Figure 1, the focal employee and organizational outcomes
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 10
utilized in our meta-analytic review include motivation and behavior to reduce mistreatment (i.e.,
mistreatment-reduction motivation and performance), mistreatment exposure, and other potential
outcomes (i.e., employee strains and job attitudes). Mistreatment-reduction motivation represents
employees’ motivation to reduce their exposure to mistreatment. As such, it includes both
employees’ mistreatment-prevention motivation (e.g., violence- and aggression- prevention
motivation; Chang et al., 2012) and their awareness of the workplace mistreatment. An
awareness of mistreatment represents employees' understanding of the inherent risks of
mistreatment and a readiness to follow appropriate procedures and practices (e.g., aggression
awareness; Yang & Caughlin, 2012). Mistreatment-reduction performance refers to employees’
behaviors aimed at reducing the number of mistreatment occurrences, which include actions of
participation (e.g., volunteer to help coworkers handle mistreatment incidents) and compliance
(e.g., follow correct procedures and practices to prevent mistreatment incidents). One example of
this construct is violence- and aggression-prevention performance proposed and tested by Chang
and colleagues (2012). Regarding types of mistreatment exposure, we investigated incivility,
physical aggression, nonphysical aggression, and bullying. We separated physical and
nonphysical aggression to be consistent with prior literature (e.g., Schat et al., 2006; Spector,
Zhou, & Che, 2014). Regarding employee strains, we included emotional strains (e.g., anxiety,
depression) and physical strains (e.g., psychosomatic symptoms, musculoskeletal disorder
symptoms). Finally, in the domain of employee job attitudes, we included organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.
Context theory (Bamberger, 2008; Johns, 2006; Rousseau & Fried, 2001) posits that
work context factors, including social context, provide opportunities or constraints that allow or
limit employees to form certain attitudes and cognitions, and to demonstrate certain behaviors.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 11
Johns (2006) argues that social context constitutes a critical part of the work context and that it
includes three aspects, of which social influence (i.e., influences from others one interacts with)
is the most relevant to the present review. Social influence involves discretionary social
interactions and is believed to be an aspect of social context critical for understanding workplace
phenomena of an interpersonal nature—workplace mistreatment in our case. Because
psychological MC is based on employees’ observations of management and coworker practices
to deter or tolerate workplace mistreatment, we contend that it constitutes a psychological proxy
for social influence. In other words, psychological MC should be a critical psychosocial
environmental antecedent of the target employee’s experiences of and reactions to mistreatment
(e.g., Glick, 1985; James & Jones, 1974).
Because psychological MC is part of the psychosocial context in which employees make
sense of their interpersonal environment (Johns, 2006; Weick, 1995), we contend that MC
(perceived social cues) helps guide them to take appropriate actions with respect to the perceived
relative priority of multiple work goals. That is, with positive psychological MC, employees may
perceive that making efforts to reduce mistreatment exposure has as high a priority as (or even a
higher priority than) performing their job tasks well. Following the expectancy theory of
motivation (Vroom, 1964), positive psychological MC provides psychosocial cues that may
strengthen employees’ efficacy expectations, outcome expectancy, and outcome valence related
to mistreatment reduction (Chang et al., 2012). When perceiving positive MC, employees believe
policies, procedures, and supportive practices are available in their immediate work environment.
Accordingly, they may feel more efficacious in taking actions to reduce mistreatment exposure,
believe mistreatment reduction performance will lead to positive outcomes (e.g., reduced
mistreatment exposure or recognition by the supervisor), and value the importance of these
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 12
outcomes. In other words, positive psychological MC is expected to contribute to stronger
mistreatment reduction motivation. As such, compared to their counterparts who perceive
negative psychological MC, these employees should be more motivated to reduce mistreatment
occurrences, to better comply with mistreatment reduction policies and procedures, and to
participate more frequently in mistreatment reduction (including prevention) efforts.
Furthermore, positive psychological MC indicates employees’ awareness of and having
access to available organizational resources pertaining to managing mistreatment (e.g., policies
and procedures, management support, relevant training programs), which should directly
contribute to these employees’ reduced exposure to mistreatment and reduced emotional and
physical strains. Specifically, positive psychological MC may directly help employees manage
their strains and attitudes through signaling available organizational resources in support of
preventing and/or coping with the mistreatment issue; it may relate to lower employee exposure
to mistreatment incidents through better preparing employees for mistreatment prevention (e.g.,
going through pertinent training and asking for assistance from appropriate colleagues). In
contrast, when employees perceive negative psychological MC, they may experience more
pressure and strains at work because they need to prioritize getting the work done while knowing
that they have to handle frequent mistreatment incidents without support. Such pressure and
strains may be reinforced by perceiving a lack of organizational support such as few
organizational policies and procedures related to mistreatment and management’s delayed
actions to address mistreatment incidents. Further, the pressure from having to handle demands
from both work deadlines and mistreatment incidents could contribute to employees’ increased
exposure to mistreatment (Yang, Spector, Chang, Gallant-Roman, & Powell, 2012) and
increased strains (Chang et al., 2012). Finally, following context theory (Johns, 2006), perceived
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 13
social cues associated with positive psychological MC (e.g., the management and coworkers care
about reducing mistreatment incidents) should also help shape employees’ attitudes towards their
job or the entire organization. Thus, we contend that there will be direct relations between
psychological MC and the target employee’s mistreatment reduction motivation and performance,
mistreatment exposure, strains, and job attitudes.
Hypothesis 1: Psychological MC will positively relate to mistreatment reduction
motivation and performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, and
negatively relate to mistreatment exposure, emotional and physical strains, and
turnover intentions.
Moderators
Types of psychological MC in relation to incivility, aggression, and bullying. We
posit a research question regarding whether different types of MC (incivility, aggression, and
bullying) will moderate the magnitude of the MC-outcome relations. Consistent with context
theory (Johns, 2006), psychological MC reflects a psychosocial influence that shapes employees’
attitudes towards workplace mistreatment and their job and organization at large, and directs
their attention to managing interpersonal mistreatment, regardless of the forms of mistreatment.
Thus, following context theory, psychological MC pertaining to the three different forms of
mistreatment may have a similar magnitude of relations to various outcomes of the mistreatment
target and the organization.
Where the number of primary studies is sufficient, we compare the magnitudes of the
MC-outcome relations across domains of psychological MC. Notably, due to an inadequate
number of available primary studies focused on perceived climate of bullying (k = 1), we are
only able to compare the effect sizes of psychological MC pertaining to incivility vs. aggression.
Research Question 1: Will psychological MC pertaining to incivility and aggression have
comparable effect sizes in relation to focal employee and organizational outcomes?
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 14
Differences in usage of MC scales. With regard to the measurement of psychological
MC, we investigated whether our meta-analytical findings are influenced by the over-
representation of primary studies using Kessler et al.’s (2008) scale of violence prevention
climate and Ottinot’s (2008) perceived workplace civility climate scale for assessing perceived
aggression-inhibition climate and perceived civility climate, respectively. This moderator
analysis is important because these two dominant climate scales were used in no fewer than half
of the primary studies included in the analysis of the psychological MC-outcome relations. As
such, we pose a research question targeted at the potential moderating effect of the climate scale
types (dominant vs. other) on the focal psychological MC-outcome relations.
Research Question 2: Will effect sizes for the psychological MC-outcome relations differ
between those studies using the dominant climate scale and those using other scales?
Content deficiency and contamination of MC scales. Based on our review of the
literature (see Table 1), there is large variability across existing MC scales in terms of
dimensionality, ranging from unidimensional (e.g., perceived anti-bullying policy; Baillen et al.,
2011) to multidimensional (e.g., violence prevention climate scale with three dimensions;
Kessler et al., 2008). As such, we anticipate some degree of variability across MC scales
regarding the extent to which a particular MC scale sufficiently reflects the complete content
domain of psychological MC. For example, Hegney and colleagues’ (2003) scale of violence
policy adequacy includes only the component of policies for deterring violence, which should
have a higher level of content deficiency than Ottinot’s (2008) perceived workplace civility
climate scale, which includes three components of climate (i.e., policies, procedures, and
practices). Further, our examination of the existing MC scales suggests that there is variability in
the degree of item content contamination across scales (i.e., including content beyond the
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 15
intended MC construct). For example, the CREW civility climate scale (Meterko et al., 2007)
includes some items that clearly measure constructs beyond civility climate, such as “A spirit of
cooperation and teamwork exists in my work group” and “This organization does not tolerate
discrimination.” Following Messick (1995), content deficiency (i.e., construct
underrepresentation) and contamination are two of the major threats to construct validity of focal
phenomena, which could contribute to biased estimates of the relations between the focal
construct (psychological MC in our case) and other variables. In the present case, scales of
psychological MC that include only one or two of the three climate components of policies,
procedures, and practices (Reichers & Schneider, 1990) should be considered to have greater
content deficiency than those that include all three climate components. Further, a MC scale with
a higher portion of its items measuring content beyond climate (e.g., 75% for the CREW scale;
Meterko et al., 2007) is considered to have greater content contamination than a scale with a
lower portion or none of its items measuring content beyond climate (e.g., 0% for the scale of
perceived organizational sanctions [of aggression]; Inness et al., 2008). MC scales’ content
deficiency and contamination may distort the estimates of focal relations (Messick, 1995) and yet
the direction of distortion cannot be predicted; thus, we pose the following research question:
Research Question 3: Will the content a) deficiency and b) contamination of MC scales
used by primary studies significantly moderate the magnitudes of MC-outcome relations?
Study design. Prior research indicates that studies using cross-sectional designs tend to
have higher correlations than those using time-lagged or longitudinal designs due to factors such
as potentially higher common method variance in cross-sectional studies (Lindell & Whitney,
2001; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003) and the natural decrease of effect sizes as
time lag between measurements increases (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). We, however, want to
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 16
acknowledge that there also are arguments and evidence supporting that effect sizes reported by
cross-sectional studies (including those using self-report measures) are not necessarily inflated.
That is, the extent of inflation of effect sizes in such studies depends on the nature of study topics
and to what extent the attenuation effect of measurement errors offsets the upward biases
resulting from the same-time and/or same-source responses (Conway & Lance, 2010; Lance,
Dawson, Birklebach, & Hoffman, 2010; Spector, 2006). Taking into account the majority of
research evidence in the literature, we pose a hypothesis regarding the moderating role of
research design in relation to the magnitude of the MC-outcome relations.
Hypothesis 2: Among studies using prospective designs (time-lagged or longitudinal
designs), psychological MC will relate to potential outcomes to a weaker extent than
those studies using cross-sectional designs.
In summary, the current study reviewed empirical studies focused on psychological
and/or unit-level MC pertaining to incivility, aggression, and bullying; meta-analyzed the
relations between psychological MC and its potential outcomes (i.e., mistreatment exposure,
employee motivation and performance in reducing mistreatment, strains, and job attitudes); and
examined the potential effects of five conceptually and methodologically important moderators.
Finally, it is important to note that in our study we chose not to include sexual harassment as
another form of workplace mistreatment for the following reason: Sexual harassment is
qualitatively different from the forms of workplace mistreatment we defined above because it is
motivated by the target’s gender and is influenced by legislative regulations. Indeed, empirical
studies indicate that sexual harassment is conceptually different from the forms of workplace
mistreatment defined above (Fendrich, Woodward, & Richman, 2002; Hershcovis & Barling,
2010).
Method
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 17
Literature Search
Existing studies on MC and their potential consequences were identified using six
methods: (a) computer-based searches of electronic databases, (b) manual searches of selected
empirical journals, (c) manual searches of selected conference programs, (d) manual searches of
reference lists of relevant articles, (e) requests for unpublished empirical work posted on the
listservs of relevant professional associations, and (f) email correspondence with known scholars
of MC. Through PsycINFO, GoogleScholar, and other ProQuest databases (e.g.,
PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, or PsycCRITIQUES), we searched electronic databases for
studies on MC published through 2013. Our search terms included mistreatment, aggression,
violence, assault, bullying, mobbing, incivility, and civility, along with climate, culture, or norms.
Methods b and c were intended to supplement the electronic searches and we searched the past
five years, 2007 through 2013. The first set of manual searches was conducted by searching
journal publications in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health
Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Academy of Management Journal,
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology, Work and Stress, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,
Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment, and Health, and Human Relations. The second set
of manual searches involved searches of the five most recent years of conference programs for
the Academy of Management, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Work,
Stress, and Health conferences. Furthermore, we posted requests for unpublished work on the
listservs of Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Academy of Management
(including both the human resources and organizational behavior divisions), and Society for
Occupational Health Psychology. Finally, to identify unpublished and un-presented work, we
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 18
emailed 36 authors who had previously published or presented empirical work related to MC.
For those studies in which usable effect size information were suspected but not reported, we
contacted the authors to request the relevant information.
In total, we identified and retrieved 6,488 journal articles, book chapters, theses,
dissertations, and unpublished manuscripts. From these sources, we applied the following
inclusion/exclusion criteria. First, we included only those samples from studies that empirically
investigated some form of climate specific to workplace mistreatment and at least one of the
focal relations between psychological MC and potential outcomes (e.g., the psychological
MCemotional strains relation). Second, effect sizes were included only if the potential
outcomes (e.g., mistreatment exposure, emotional strains) of psychological MC were assessed
from the mistreatment target’s perspective; we identified only one study that assessed MC from
the mistreatment perpetrator’s perspective. Third, we included only studies reporting an effect
size that could be converted to a correlation coefficient; for those cases in which an unusable
effect size was reported (e.g., regression coefficient), we contacted the study authors to request a
zero-order correlation for the bivariate relation. Fourth, samples were excluded when an effect
size was reported based on the same sample as a prior work; for instance, Bertello (2012) and
Machin, Bertello, and Gillespie (2013) both reported the same data from the same sample;
ultimately, we included Machin et al. and excluded Bertello, as the former had been formally
presented at a conference on a more recent date. Fifth, we excluded one sample in which an
intervention targeting topics beyond MC (i.e., Civility, Respect, Engagement at Work [CREW])
was applied within a prospective design (i.e., the same CREW intervention group from Leiter,
Laschinger, Day, & Oore, 2011 and Leiter, Day, Laschinger, & Gilin-Oore, 2012). Specifically,
we included the effect sizes derived from the prospective correlation matrix associated with the
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 19
control group from Leiter et al. (2011, 2012). We excluded, however, the prospective correlation
matrix derived from the intervention group, because the relations between MC and relevant
outcomes were influenced by the CREW intervention applied between the two time points.
After applying the above inclusion/exclusion criteria, 36 independent samples from 35
sources were retained for meta-analytic purposes because they provided effect sizes for the
psychological MC-outcome relations. Two studies (i.e., Schat, 2005; Walsh et al., 2012) each
provided two independent samples while two studies (i.e., Leiter et al., 2011, 2012) were based
on the same independent sample. Of these 36 samples, 19 were from unpublished sources (e.g.,
conference presentations and dissertations) and 4 used time-lagged or longitudinal design (for the
complete list, see studies marked with “*” in the reference list). Of the included samples, the
most commonly used measures for perceived aggression-inhibition climate and perceived civility
climate were the violence prevention climate scale (Kessler et al., 2008; 15 samples) and the
perceived workplace civility climate scale (Ottinot, 2008; 6 samples), respectively. In terms of
coding, the second and third authors coded all 36 samples independently, and all discrepancies
were resolved after careful discussion. In addition, our literature search process identified four
studies focused on unit-level MC, including three on group-level MC (i.e., Chang & Golubovich,
2012; Gallus, Walsh, van Driel, Gouge, & Antolic, in press; Ottinot, 2010) and one on dyadic-
level MC—shared between the focal employee and one coworker (Chang et al., 2012). Because
there was only one study reporting results on the relation between unit-level MC and most focal
outcomes, we did not include these four studies in the meta-analytic review; instead we will
describe them narratively in the discussion section.
Finally, we conducted additional searches for studies about climate specific to other
forms of mistreatment through 2013 by using the following methods: (a) electronic database
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 20
searches, (b) manual searches of the aforementioned journals, and (c) manual searches of the
aforementioned conference programs. For the electronic searches we used the following
combinations of search terms: abusive supervision, emotional abuse, ostracism, social
undermining, workplace harassment (excluding the sexual component), counterproductive work
behavior toward individuals (CWBI), and interpersonal deviance, along with climate, culture, or
norms. We did so because these other forms of mistreatment are commonly studied (e.g., Tepper
& Henle, 2011) and empirical studies on climate specific to these forms may enrich our present
meta-analytical review. Interestingly, using the additional search terms, we were unable to locate
any studies that met our inclusion criteria.
Meta-Analytic Strategy and Analysis
We applied the psychometric meta-analytic method proposed by Hunter and Schmidt
(2004) which results in random effects models. To conduct the analyses, we extracted the zero-
order correlations1, sample sizes, predictor and outcome reliabilities, publication status (i.e.,
published, unpublished), and research design (i.e., cross-sectional, prospective), where available.
When any of the aforementioned information was not included in a published or unpublished
manuscript, we requested the information from the study’s author(s). When a reliability for a
predictor or outcome variable was not available for a given sample (e.g., single-item measure),
we imputed the value by averaging the other available sample reliabilities for the given variable,
which is consistent with past practices (e.g., Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Reliability imputation was
1 Because the four studies on unit-level MC also provided correlations for our meta-analyses of
psychological MC’s effects, we re-ran all pertinent meta-analytical models by using pooled
within-unit correlation matrices from these studies (only applicable to the three studies on group-
level MC), for the purpose of removing the data nesting effects. Results indicated that all
population-level estimates only differed by a magnitude of .01-.03 from those reported in this
manuscript and all significance levels of these estimates remained the same (e.g., whether
corresponding confidence intervals included zero).
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 21
only necessary for approximately 10% cases relative to the total number of available reliability
estimates. For primary studies using multi-dimensional psychological MC scales such as the
three-dimensional violence prevention climate scale (Kessler et al., 2008) and the three-
dimensional workplace civility climate scale (Ottinot, 2008), we used one of the following
approaches to retrieve necessary information: (a) from the authors, we requested the estimated
reliability for an overall climate variable and effect sizes based on an overall climate score, or (b)
using Hunter and Schmidt’s (2004) suggested formulas, we estimated effect sizes and the
reliability for an overall climate variable based on the available climate variable subdimensions
and their effect sizes. Estimates of the population effect size (ρ) of the focal relations were
calculated by computing the sample-weighted average of correlations across samples after
correcting the correlations for the unreliability in both the predictor and the outcome. Confidence
and credibility intervals were calculated using the Hunter and Schmidt (2004) approach.
Moderator Analysis
When applicable and consistent with Research Questions 1-3 and Hypothesis 2, a series
of moderator analyses were conducted for each of the focal relations between psychological MC
and potential outcomes. The Q test (Rosenthal, 1991) was used as an indicator of between-
sample heterogeneity such that a significant Q suggested the likely presence of moderators. We
used an additional indicator of between-sample heterogeneity to determine the likelihood of
moderators. Specifically, a 95% credibility interval that includes zero served as an indicator that
the population estimate likely reflected the presence of more than one underlying subpopulation
(resulting from moderators) as opposed to a single population (Whitener, 1990). For all MC-
outcome relations suggesting significant heterogeneity (based on one or both of the indicators),
we used sub-group analysis and independent-sample t-test to examine effects of categorical
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 22
moderators (Neter, Wasserman, & Whitmore, 1993; Hunter & Schmidt, 2004), and used
weighted least squares multiple regression to examine effect of continuous moderators (Steel &
Kammeyer-Mueller, 2002). For categorical moderators, we investigated whether psychological
MC type (perceived civility climate vs. perceived aggression-inhibition climate), study design
(cross-sectional vs. prospective design), and MC scale type (dominant vs. other) served as
moderators when at least three studies were available for each level of the moderator variables. It
is important to note that due to the small number of studies that used prospective designs, we
conducted subgroup analyses when only two prospective studies were available, so as to better
explore the moderating role of study design and inform future research. One additional
categorical moderator was tested for the relations between psychological MC and emotional
strains. Specifically, a sufficient number of samples were identified to investigate the relations
between overall psychological MC and specific forms of emotional strains (i.e., anxiety, anger,
and depression).
With regard to continuous moderators (i.e., MC scales’ content deficiency and
contamination), the first and second authors independently rated the extent to which specific MC
scales were deficient in measuring policies, procedures, and practices components of
organizational climate as defined by James and Jones (1974), and the proportion of items of
these scales that had content contamination (reflecting constructs beyond the focal MC, such as
perceived civility climate). Specifically, the authors rated content deficiency as 0 if all three
climate components were included in a specific scale, as 1 if two components were included (one
missing component) and as 2 if one was included (two missing). After independently rating all
psychological MC scales, there were two discrepancies between raters for content deficiency and
three discrepancies for contamination—these were resolved via careful discussion. The
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 23
converged content deficiency and contamination ratings were then submitted to weighted least
squares regression analysis (Steel & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2002), which has been shown to be
robust to multicollinearity for meta-analytic moderator analysis. To ensure adequate sample size
(i.e., k) and statistical power for such regression analyses, we examined the effects of MC scales’
content deficiency and contamination on the relations of psychological MC with overall
mistreatment exposure (incivility, aggression, and bullying), employee strains (emotional and
physical strains), and job attitudes (organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover
intentions), with the corresponding k values equal to 28, 25, and 24, respectively2.
Outlier Analysis
Consistent with the meta-analytic reporting standards (APA Publications and
Communications Board, 2008; Kepes, McDaniel, Brannick, & Banks, 2013), we ran outlier
analyses by reporting the meta-analytical results with and without Warren et al.’s (2008) sample.
Warren et al.’s sample included 75,595 participants who all worked in the healthcare industry
and, more specifically, in Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. Given that Warren et al.’s sample was
over 30 times larger than the second largest sample, we were concerned that the it might over-
represent one specific industry (i.e., healthcare) and, moreover, one specific type of hospital
systems (e.g., VA hospitals). As such, we ran the MC-exposure analyses with and without
Warren et al.’s sample. This outlier analysis is only relevant to the MC-exposure relation found
in Table 2 for two reasons: (a) Warren et al. only investigated civility climate in relation to
nonphysical aggression which precluded it from the subsequent subgroup analyses involving
2 Due to a small sample size (k = 5), we did not run regression models to examine the potential
effect of these two continuous moderators on the relations of MC with mistreatment
mistreatment-reduction motivation and performance.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 24
mistreatment exposure, and (b) Warren et al. did not investigate the relations between civility
climate and our other focal outcomes.
Supplementary Analysis
We ran a supplementary path analysis based on the population-level correlations between
focal variables (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1995) to detect potential indirect effects of
psychological MC on focal outcomes. In particular, psychological MC can predict the target
employee’s mistreatment exposure, which then accounts for downstream employee strains and
job attitudes. Indeed, a fair amount of prior evidence has supported the implications of
mistreatment exposure for the target employee’s strains and job attitudes (Aquino & Thau, 2009;
Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Further, we identified four empirical studies including one
intervention-based and three survey studies that found evidence for the indirect effects of
psychological MC on the target employee’s strains and job attitudes through incivility or
bullying exposure (i.e., Hutchinson et al., 2008; Hutchinson, Wilkes, Jackson, & Vickers, 2010;
Leiter et al., 2011; Machin et al., 2013).
It is important to meta-analytically examine whether psychological MC has potential
indirect effects on the target employee’s strains and job attitudes independent of its direct effects,
for the following two reasons. First, results from such analyses could aid conceptual clarification
of the possibly independent pathways psychological MC takes in shaping downstream employee
strains and attitudes. That is, positive psychological MC may directly help employees to better
manage strains and form more positive work attitudes via signaling and fostering organizational
support, and negative psychological MC (lack of organizational support for the mistreatment
issue) could serve as a stressor that strains employees (e.g., Chang et al., 2012). Further, it could
indirectly help manage employees’ strains and attitudes via a pathway of better preparing them
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 25
for reducing or coping with mistreatment incidents. Second, findings from such analyses could
inform future research and interventions regarding possible direct and indirect consequences of
shaping psychological MC for employee outcomes.
We used Mplus 5.21 (Muthén & Muthén, 2006) to run a path model based on the
estimates of population-level correlations between psychological MC, overall exposure, overall
mistreatment reduction effort (including motivation and performance), overall strains, and
overall job attitudes (all variables coded as positive). As part of the analysis, we requested
estimates of indirect effects of psychological MC on overall strains and job attitudes. The
population-level correlations of overall exposure with overall strains and overall job attitudes
were estimated from Bowling and Beehr’s (2006) meta-analytical study, that between overall
strains and overall job attitudes was estimated from Clarke’s (2010) meta-analytical study, while
the rest of correlations were based on our present meta-analytic review3. In other words, all focal
categories of variables were included in the correlation matrix and entered into the path model;
we specified mistreatment exposure as the mediator between psychological MC and overall
strains and job attitudes, with mistreatment reduction effort specified as a covariate predicting
overall exposure in accordance with the literature (e.g., Chang et al., 2012; Gazica & Spector,
2013; Yang & Caughlin, 2012). Finally, we used a sample size of 352—a harmonic mean
estimated based on sample sizes of the studies included in the path analysis, which is consistent
with the prior literature (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1995).
Results
Hypothesis 1 posited that psychological MC (averaged across all forms of mistreatment)
would positively relate to mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction
3 The population-level correlation matrix is available from the first author.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 26
performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, and negatively relate to
mistreatment exposure, emotional and physical strains, and turnover intentions. As shown in
Table 2, the estimated population-level effect size of the psychological MC-outcome relations
varied from -.25 (e.g., for physical strains) to .56 (for organizational commitment). Specifically,
there were significant positive relations of psychological MC with organizational commitment
(ρ = .56), job satisfaction (ρ = .52), mistreatment-reduction motivation (only available in the
domain of aggression; ρ = .51), and mistreatment-reduction performance (only available in the
domain of aggression; ρ = .50), as the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of their effect sizes did
not include zero. Additionally, there were significant negative relations between psychological
MC and mistreatment exposure (ρ = -.42 vs. ρ = -.30 with Warren et al., 2008 included vs.
excluded, respectively), emotional and physical strains (ρ = -.33 and ρ = -.25, respectively), and
turnover intentions (ρ = -.42). In other words, more positive psychological MC was related to
higher mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction performance, organizational
commitment, and job satisfaction, as well as less mistreatment exposure, lower emotional and
physical strains, and turnover intentions. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported.
Further, we note that there was large between-sample variability in the psychological
MC-outcome relations across all presumed outcome variables (see Table 2). Such large
variability was indicated by either a significant Q-statistic (Rosenthal, 1991) or a 95%
credibility interval that includes zero (Whitener, 1990).
Research Question 1 was concerned with whether psychological MC pertaining to
incivility and aggression would have comparable effect size magnitudes in relation to potential
employee and organizational outcomes. The number of available studies was sufficient for
comparisons related to mistreatment exposure, job attitudes (organizational commitment, job
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 27
satisfaction, and turnover intentions), and emotional strains. According to results of independent
sample t-tests, we found the effect size comparison across civility climate and aggression-
inhibition climate to be significant for all potential outcomes except turnover intentions and
emotional strains. Specifically, in Table 3 we show that civility climate and aggression-inhibition
climate had comparable population effect size estimates in relation to turnover intentions (ρ = -
.40 vs. ρ = -.41) and emotional strains (ρ = -.38 vs. ρ = -.32), as t-tests between the effect sizes
for the two types of climate were nonsignificant for turnover intentions (t[13] = -.32, ns) and
emotional strains (t[18] = -1.60, ns).
In contrast, across perceived civility climate and aggression-inhibition climate, we found
significant differences between their relations with regard to organizational commitment (ρ = .59
vs. ρ = .42; t[8] = 2.96, p < .05), job satisfaction (ρ = .53 vs. ρ = .43; t[23] = 2.94, p < .01), such
that, when compared to aggression-inhibition climate, civility climate had stronger relations with
organizational commitment and job satisfaction. With regard to the psychological MC-exposure
relations, the effect sizes for nonphysical and physical aggression exposure were each contrasted
with that for incivility exposure. The civility climate-incivility exposure relation (ρ = -.40) was
significantly stronger than the relation of aggression-inhibition climate with nonphysical
aggression exposure (ρ = -.25; t[22] = -4.21, p < .01) and physical aggression exposure (ρ = -.21;
t[25] = -5.52, p < .01). Hence, in response to Research Question 1, compared to aggression-
inhibition climate, civility climate had a similar effect size in relation to turnover intentions and
emotional strains; stronger effect sizes in relation to organizational commitment, job satisfaction,
and mistreatment exposure.
To address Research Question 2, we examined whether the magnitude of the
psychological MC-outcome relations was contingent upon the type of scale used (dominant vs.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 28
other). As shown in Table 4, t-tests of the MC-outcome relations’ effect sizes across subgroups
of the dominant and other (non-dominant) scales were all nonsignificant, except for between the
dominant (i.e., Ottinot) vs. non-dominant (i.e., scales other than the Ottinot) civility climate
scales in relation to job satisfaction. Specifically, compared to the non-dominant civility climate
scales, the civility climate-job satisfaction relation was weaker for those studies using the Ottinot
scale (ρ = .50 vs. ρ = .59; t[8] = 2.63, p < .05). Thus, our estimated population effect sizes of the
MC-outcome relations were largely uninfluenced by the overrepresentation of the dominant
climate scales (i.e., Kessler et al., 2008; Ottinot, 2008), with the aforementioned exception of the
civility climate-job satisfaction relation.
To address Research Question 3 regarding potential moderating effects of MC scales’
content deficiency and contamination on the psychological MC-outcome relations, Table 5
presents results from the weighted least squares regression analysis. We did not find evidence
for the moderating effect of scale content deficiency; that is, MC scales’ content deficiency did
not seem to influence the magnitude of psychological MC-outcome relations. Further, we found
that MC scales’ content contamination significantly increased the magnitude of the
psychological MC-exposure and psychological MC-strain relations (β = .40 and β = .43,
respectively, p < .05), but not the magnitude of the MC-job attitude relation (β = .08, p = .73).
Thus, MC scales’ content contamination moderated the magnitudes of the psychological MC-
exposure and psychological MC-strain relations.
To address Hypothesis 2 on the potential moderating effect of study design (cross-
sectional vs. prospective) on the psychological MC-outcome relations, Table 6 presents results
from subgroup analyses for various psychological MC-outcome relations. We found
comparable (i.e., not significantly different) magnitudes for the relations of psychological MC
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 29
with emotional strains, physical strains, and incivility exposure, across cross-sectional and
prospective studies, as indicated by nonsignificant t-tests across the corresponding subgroups.
In contrast, we found significant differences in the magnitudes of psychological MC-job
attitudes and MC-physical aggression exposure relations with respect to cross-sectional vs.
prospective designs: organizational commitment (ρ = .59 vs. ρ = .37; t[8] = 4.32, p < .01), job
satisfaction (ρ = .53 vs. ρ = .43; t[21] = 4.02, p < .01), turnover intentions (ρ = -.43 vs. ρ = -.36;
t[12] = -2.58, p < .05), and physical aggression exposure (ρ =- .21 vs. ρ = -.26; t[16] = -2.50, p
< .05). That is, the psychological MC-job attitudes relations were significantly weaker across
those studies using prospective designs, but the psychological MC-physical aggression
exposure relation was stronger across those studies using prospective designs. As such, we
found partial support for Hypothesis 2. Thus, different study designs did result in effect sizes of
varying magnitudes for psychological MC in relation to job attitudes (organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions) and physical aggression exposure,
although unexpectedly prospective designs resulted in stronger MC-physical aggression
exposure relations than cross-sectional designs. We suggest a cautious interpretation of the
aforementioned significant subgroup analyses, primarily because of the small number of
prospective studies available for these analyses (i.e., k = 2-3).
Finally, regarding the supplementary path analysis, we found that psychological MC had
significant direct effects on employee strains and positive job attitudes (β = -.16 and β =.41, p
< .01, respectively) and significant indirect effects on these outcomes through mistreatment
exposure (β = -.14 and β = .10, p < .01, respectively). The path model had adequate fit (χ2 =
3.71; df = 2; comparative fit index = .99; non-normed fit index = .98; root mean square error of
approximation = .05; standardized root mean square residual = .01).
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 30
Discussion
The present paper reviewed studies of psychological and unit-level MC in the domains of
incivility, aggression, and bullying. Through our meta-analyses, we showed that psychological
MC was significantly related not only to mistreatment exposure but also to seven other potential
outcomes, namely mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction performance,
emotional strains, physical strains, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover
intentions. This meta-analytic study also explored the role of five moderators of the
psychological MC-outcome relations, and found evidence for the moderating effect of a
conceptual moderator (psychological MC in the incivility vs. aggression domain) and a
methodological moderator (content contamination of MC scales). Finally, we also found meta-
analytical evidence for the indirect effects of psychological MC on employee strains and job
attitudes via the mediation of mistreatment exposure. Thus, this paper makes important
contributions to the literature on workplace mistreatment.
The Relations between Psychological MC and Employee and Organizational Outcomes
The present meta-analytic review shows that better psychological climate pertaining to
mistreatment is associated with less mistreatment exposure, less emotional and physical strains,
and better job attitudes. The effect size of the above relations (i.e., population-level estimates as
absolute values) ranged between -.25 and .40 for the psychological MC-strains and psychological
MC-exposure relations, and between .42 and .51 for the psychological MC-motivation,
psychological MC-performance, and psychological MC-job attitudes relations. These effect sizes
are comparable to the magnitude of climate-outcome relations in the safety literature (e.g.,
Christian, Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011). Further,
the relations of psychological MC with job attitudes and mistreatment reduction effort (including
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 31
motivation and performance) seem to be stronger than those of psychological MC with employee
strains and mistreatment exposure.
Consistent with context theory (e.g., Johns, 2006), psychological MC may exert
contextual influence on employees by providing psychosocial cues related to the priority of
managing mistreatment (as compared with work productivity). When perceiving positive
psychological MC, employees understand reducing mistreatment is set by their management as
high a priority as meeting work deadlines, and thus judge their work environment as supportive
(Chang & Golubovich, 2012). Indeed, there is evidence suggesting that violence prevention
climate is positively related to perceived supervisor support (Yang & Caughlin, 2012). With such
perceived support, employees tend to form positive attitudes about their job, feel motivated, and
actually expend effort to reduce mistreatment occurrences (e.g., prevention). Further, they may
experience less mistreatment exposure and fewer strains due to high-level role clarity regarding
prioritizing demands from handling mistreatment vs. central job tasks (Chang et al., 2012). Yet
the contextual influence of psychological MC on various employee and organizational outcomes
varied significantly across studies, which led to our investigation of multiple potential
moderators described below.
Conceptual and Methodological Moderators of the Psychological MC-Outcome Relations
The first moderator we examined was the different mistreatment domains to which
psychological MC is applied. Our analysis found evidence for comparable magnitude of relations
of psychological MC with turnover intentions and emotional strains, across civility climate and
aggression-inhibition climate. This finding is consistent with context theory because employees
working in an organization with more positive civility climate and aggression-inhibition climate
tend to receive more psychosocial cues regarding how to prioritize demands from mistreatment
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 32
reduction vs. from central tasks. Such higher role clarity owing to cues for priorities could have
contributed to employees’ lower turnover intentions and emotional strains, regardless of whether
it is in the context of reducing incivility or aggression. From the standpoint of organizational
management, fostering either positive civility climate or positive aggression-inhibition climate
may be an effective way to reduce employee emotional strains and turnover intentions through
exerting positive contextual influence. Conversely, tolerating negative civility climate or
negative aggression-inhibition climate may account for employees’ higher emotional strains and
intention to quit. Indeed, Leiter and colleagues (2011) conducted an intervention among a group
of healthcare workers that targeted enhancing civility climate and other climates as well (e.g.,
management’s commitment to enhancing respect between employees and facilitating employee
engagement at work); that intervention significantly reduced participating employees’ emotional
exhaustion and turnover intentions.
Interestingly, we did find evidence showing that civility climate is more strongly related
to employees’ organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and mistreatment exposure, than is
aggression-inhibition climate. In other words, fostering positive civility climate in the
organization may be effective in enhancing employees’ organizational commitment and job
satisfaction and reducing their exposure to incivility; fostering positive aggression-inhibition
climate may also improve these outcomes, but with a lesser effect.
One possible explanation for the aforementioned differences between the two types of
psychological MC is related to the systematic differences in conceptualizations of different types
of psychological MC. Specifically, our review of all existing psychological MC constructs across
the domains of incivility and aggression suggests that civility climate constructs include both
foci of discouraging mistreatment (incivility) and encouraging positive treatment (civility). In
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 33
contrast, aggression-inhibition climate constructs focus solely on discouraging mistreatment
(aggression). Thus, incivility- and civility-related policies, procedures, and practices not only
direct employees’ attention and effort to reducing incidents of uncivil interpersonal interactions,
but also offer alternatives for them to foster positive and respectful social interactions (e.g.,
Sypher, 2004). In contrast, aggression-inhibition climate solely emphasizes policies, procedures,
and practices pertaining to discouraging mistreatment (aggression). Following Higgins (1997),
discouraging mistreatment is aligned with the tenets of prevention-focused regulation because it
is focused on reducing losses and minimizing errors (e.g., incivility incidents); in contrast,
encouraging positive treatment (e.g., civility) is aligned with promotion-focused regulation
because it is focused on increasing gains (positive social interactions). Because civility climate
has the potential to trigger both foci of regulatory processes among employees in terms of
reducing negative consequences of incivility and enhancing benefits of civility, it could then
exert stronger influence on employees’ levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction,
emotional strains, and incivility exposure. In contrast, aggression-inhibition climate might only
trigger prevention-focused regulatory processes among employees through an emphasis on
discouraging aggression, and thus demonstrates a somewhat weaker influence on those employee
outcomes. Future research should empirically test the potential mechanism of self-regulatory foci
(Higgins, 1997) underlying the differential effects of civility vs. aggression-inhibition climate by
simultaneously including the two types of climate in the same study and actually measuring
employees’ self-regulatory foci.
Another possible explanation for the differential relations of perceived civility and
aggression-inhibition climates with outcomes stems from context theory (Johns, 2006; Rousseau
& Fried, 2001). That is, perceived civility climate (as conceptualized in the literature) may offer
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 34
a richer set of psychosocial cues regarding what will be punished (incivility) and what will be
rewarded (civility), and thus exerts a stronger contextual influence than perceived aggression-
inhibition climate. In contrast, perceived aggression-inhibition climate only offers cues regarding
what will be punished, and thus exerts a relatively weaker contextual influence on various
employee and organizational outcomes than civility climate. Future research should empirically
investigate specific possible mechanisms underlying context theory that account for the stronger
magnitude of civility climate-outcome relations than that of aggression-inhibition climate-
outcome relations. For example, it might be informative to examine whether civility climate is
linked to both punishment contingency of incivility and reward contingency of civility as
perceived by employees, as well as whether aggression-inhibition climate is only related to their
perceived punishment contingency of aggression; as such, the mechanisms of social influence
suggested by context theory can be explicitly tested in the context of MC. Indeed, in the safety
literature, research has demonstrated a close linkage between supervisors’ contingent rewarding
of safety behavior and safety climate perceived by employees (Zohar, 2000; Zohar & Luria,
2003).
The last plausible explanation for the differential relations of perceived civility and
aggression-inhibition climates with outcomes lies in the potentially different base rates (e.g., Lim
& Lee, 2011; Schat et al., 2006) and different levels of salience of incivility and aggression
occurrence. That is, when there is a lower base rate of physical or nonphysical aggression
relative to incivility, the measure of exposure to aggression tends to have more range restriction
than that of incivility, which could partially account for weaker psychological MC-exposure
relations (e.g., correlations) for either form of aggression than for incivility. Further, relative to
perceived aggression-inhibition climate perceived civility climate might have been more salient
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 35
due to the higher prevalence rate of incivility, which could also explain the found differential
relations.
Furthermore, although findings from the moderator analysis did not offer evidence for the
moderating effect of MC scales’ content deficiency on the magnitude of MC-outcome relations,
they did show that MC scales’ content contamination significantly increased the magnitude of
the psychological MC- mistreatment exposure and psychological MC-strain relations. One
possible explanation for the non-significant effect of content deficiency is its restricted variance
across the number of primary studies available for corresponding regression analysis (see Table
5). We did a close examination of the ratings of scale content deficiency included in the
weighted least squares regression analysis (three regression models), and found that only three to
eleven studies (out of 24-28 studies) used scales with content deficiency issues. As such, content
deficiency does not seem to be a prevalent issue for MC scales used by the majority of studies on
MC.
Regarding the significant accentuating effect of MC scales’ content contamination, there
is at least one explanation that is consistent with Messick’s (1995) discussion about what
constitutes as variance “irrelevant” to the focal construct in the case of content contamination.
Specifically, the contaminating items of some MC scales measure non-MC constructs that have
unique validity in predicting our focal outcomes, or measure a psychological MC construct that
is broader than the intended form of mistreatment. In other words, the MC scales with higher
content contamination tend to measure multiple constructs (psychological MC and others) which
uniquely relate to the same employee outcomes, or measure a broader psychological MC
construct which relate to the focal outcomes more strongly than the intended psychological MC
construct specific to a particular form of mistreatment (e.g., perceived climate of bullying;
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 36
Baillien et al., 2011). For example, as described earlier the CREW civility scale includes items
measuring group cohesion and diversity climate in addition to items measuring civility climate;
as such, CREW scale scores reflect all three constructs mentioned above and tend to relate to
incivility exposure and employee strains more strongly than scores of other civility climate
scales with less or no contamination (i.e., their construct domain mostly or completely focused
on civility climate). Interestingly, MC scales’ content contamination only had a weak
(statistically non-significant) influence on the psychological MC-job attitude relation.
Considering the potentially low statistical power of the pertinent weighted least squares
regression analysis (with only 24 available primary studies), we suggest future research to
continue examining the role of MC scales’ content contamination. In summary, as MC research
moves forward, we contend it is important for future research to employ MC scales with no
content contamination in order to have less biased estimates of focal relations.
Further, our findings suggest that the psychological MC-outcome relations generally had
similar magnitudes across studies using dominant and other climate scales, and across studies
employing cross-sectional and prospective designs. It is reassuring that the estimated population
effect sizes of focal relations seemed to remain robust to potential biases that can be attributed to
the over-representation of dominant climate scales used (i.e., Kessler et al.’s [2008] violence
prevention climate scale and Ottinot’s [2008] perceived workplace civility climate scale).
However, we do want to note one small but significant moderator analysis related to scale type;
that is, the magnitude of the civility climate -job satisfaction relation was statistically lower for
studies using the Ottinot scale than those using other scales (ρ = .50 vs. .59; t(8) = 2.63, p < .05).
Finally, we want to note a few significant differences across studies using cross-sectional
vs. prospective designs. That is, the magnitude of the psychological MC-job attitude relation was
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 37
generally higher for cross-sectional than in prospective studies, which stresses the need for future
research to use more prospective designs in examining the psychological MC-job attitude
relations. Interestingly, the magnitude of the relation between psychological MC and physical
aggression exposure was somewhat higher among prospective studies than that among cross-
sectional studies. It is plausible that it takes time for the contextual effect of psychological MC to
manifest itself in terms of preventing or reducing the physical aggression occurrence rate. We,
recognize, however, that the moderator analysis regarding study design may be under-powered
due to the small number of prospective studies available for most of the subgroup analyses (i.e.,
k = 2 or 3). In order to shed more light on the lasting effects of psychological MC on various
employee and organizational outcomes, we urge scholars in the area of workplace mistreatment
to conduct more studies using prospective designs.
Psychological and Unit-Level MC
We identified three empirical studies that examined unit-level MC’s direct effect on
individual-level variables and/or its potential moderating effect on individual-level relations.
More positive unit-level MC (either in the domain of aggression or incivility) has been shown to
predict better employee job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and affective commitment; Ottinot,
2010), higher employee mistreatment reduction motivation and performance (Chang et al., 2012;
Chang & Golubovich, 2012), fewer employee emotional strains (Chang et al., 2012) and less
exposure to mistreatment (incivility; Ottinot, 2010). Further, Chang and Golubovich’s (2012)
study found certain dimensions of group-level violence prevention climate (e.g., management’s
prevention practices) moderated the relation between employee strains (cognitive failure and
emotional strains) and aggression reduction performance (aggression prevention behavior). For
example, more cognitive failure was related to less aggression prevention behavior only under
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 38
more negative group climate, but not under more positive climate. Thus, we call for more
research to empirically test the cross-level relations between unit-level MC and various
individual-level variables and relations. Only through such multi-level empirical research will we
be able to further understand the social contextual influence of MC on employees’ experiences of
and reactions to mistreatment.
Limitations and Strengths
The present paper has a few limitations that are worth mentioning. First, given only three
available multi-level empirical studies, we were unable to use meta-analytic methods to examine
the role of unit-level MC in the mistreatment-related processes. Although we were able to meta-
analyze the potential contextual effects of psychological MC on presumed outcomes, we do
recognize the focal effect sizes may be inflated due to the measurement of psychological MC as
individual perceptions. Specifically, because the individual ratings of psychological MC can be
influenced by survey respondents’ own experiences of mistreatment, the magnitudes of
correlations between psychological MC and employee outcomes may be inflated (e.g., due to a
common source of measurement). Such a state of research identified by our review, however,
suggests an urgent need for future multi-level studies on MC that measure unit-level MC and
address the limitation of individual psychological MC ratings.
Second, the number of studies on psychological MC might have limited the statistical
power of our categorical moderation analysis and did prevent us from testing some of proposed
moderating effects for certain psychological MC-outcome relations (e.g., inability to include
perceived climate of bullying in moderator analyses). However, the number of studies (k)
available in our study for each level of most moderators (in the range of 3 to 18) is not atypical
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 39
as compared to previously published meta-analytical studies in the literature of workplace
mistreatment (e.g., Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010).
Third, the present meta-analytical review did not examine the potential moderation
effects of source of mistreatment (e.g., from coworkers or customers) on the relations between
psychological MC and presumed outcomes. Conceivably, many organizations have policies,
procedures and practices in place regarding deterring mistreatment from customers or clients, but
often have few resources available to deter mistreatment between employees or from supervisors
to employees due to the sensitive nature of these sources of mistreatment, which could account
for more salient contextual effects MC has on customer mistreatment than on coworker or
supervisor mistreatment. Future research will be more fruitful by simultaneously examining the
relations between psychological or unit-level MC targeted at different sources of mistreatment
and outcomes related to different sources of mistreatment (e.g., group-level MC specific to
customer incivility relates to exposure to customer incivility).
Last, we did not include behavioral strains or objective physical health as a well-being
outcome in our meta-analytical review because, to the best of our knowledge, there exists only
one study each that respectively investigated behavioral strains and objective physical health as
an outcome. Specifically, Ottinot (2010) included self-reported counterproductive work behavior
(CWB) as an outcome and found among a sample of school teachers that school-level civility
climate was negatively related to CWB, while Leiter et al. (2011) included illness-related
absenteeism as an outcome and found among a sample of healthcare workers that the CREW
intervention (targeted at civility climate and beyond) led to reduced absenteeism in the
intervention group more so than in the control group.
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 40
Directions for Future Research
As informed by the results of our meta-analytic review, we suggest the following
directions for future research. Of most importance, more work needs to be done in
conceptualizing and measuring unit-level MC constructs. As Glick (1985) pointed out,
“Organizational and subunit climate provide the context in which psychological climate may be
understood” (p. 603). Accordingly, both individual- and unit-level MC should be measured and
examined simultaneously in order to enhance our understanding of differential and unique roles
these two sources of contextual influence may have in shaping the mistreatment experiences and
outcomes of employees, groups, and organizations.
Second, given the biasing effect of MC scales’ content contamination on the relations
between MC and mistreatment exposure and employee strains, future research on MC should
employ existing MC scales with no contamination (e.g., Kessler et al., 2008; Spector et al., 2007).
Alternatively, researchers could improve existing MC scales by removing or revising their
contaminating items or by developing new MC scales free of content contamination. Specifically,
one way of reducing existing MC scales’ content contamination is to replace broad terms used in
scale items with terms specific to the type of mistreatment of interest to the scale. For example,
in Ottinot’s (2010) perceived workplace civility climate scale, seven contaminated items can all
be improved by replacing the terms about mistreatment or interpersonal relationships in general
with terms specific to incivility.
Third, much more empirical research on MC is needed in the domain of bullying.
Although we initially identified three eligible studies on perceived climate of bullying, we had to
exclude two from the meta-analyses due to unavailable effect sizes and were only able to include
one single study in the overall analysis (Table 2). Such a low number of empirical studies (three
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 41
in the entire literature) is unfortunate, and we urge scholars interested in studying bullying to
expend much more future effort to investigate the role of climate of bullying in predicting
bullying targets’ exposure and reactions to bullying. Along the same line, we call for more
empirical research on MC specific to forms of mistreatment other than incivility, aggression, and
bullying, especially in light of the fact that no qualified studies were identified via our systematic
literature searches of available databases. Many studies in the literature define and measure
climates specific to certain mistreatment as the prevalence of mistreatment occurrences instead
of policies, procedures and practices for deterring such mistreatment (e.g., hostile climate as
prevalence of hostile/aggressive behavior in work groups; Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, &
Marinova, 2012). Thus, future research on MC specific to the forms of mistreatment beyond the
present review could significantly further our understandings of the roles MC plays in the
mistreatment processes through conceptualizing and measuring MC in the way we suggest.
Fourth, since we were only able to identify one empirical study on psychological MC and
employee outcomes from the perpetrator’s perspective (Inness et al., 2008), we strongly
recommend that scholars study the perpetrator’s perspective by itself or together with the target’s
perspective, in accordance with prior theoretical work (e.g., Aquino & Lamertz, 2004; O'Leary-
Kelly, Griffin, & Glew, 1996). Lastly, because we identified only three prospective studies on
the topic of psychological MC, we encourage more time-lagged or longitudinal research designs
in future research on mistreatment and MC. We believe that such studies are able to more
rigorously test the causal relations between psychological MC and various presumed employee
and organizational outcomes. For example, Yang and colleagues’ (2012) study used a
longitudinal study to examine whether violence prevention climate led to changes in physical
aggression exposure or aggression exposure led to climate change, and they found evidence for
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 42
the impact of climate on aggression exposure instead of the other way around. Furthermore,
studies using prospective or intervention-based designs should also be better able to investigate
potential indirect effects of MC, such as psychological MC’s indirect effect on employee and
organizational well-being through mistreatment exposure as supported by results from our
supplementary path analysis. For example, Leiter and colleagues’ (2011) intervention study
found evidence that enhanced civility climate (CREW climate in their case) in the intervention
group reduced occurrences of incivility, which then accounted for employees’ improved job
attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and reduced strains (e.g.,
cynicism and absences).
Practical Implications
The present review has some important practical implications. First, our findings on the
potential contextual effects of psychological and unit-level MC may inform future intervention
programs aimed at managing mistreatment issues via changing workplace climate specific to this
domain. Conceivably, such interventions can target not only reducing mistreatment occurrences
but also enhancing employees’ job attitudes and aggression prevention effort. Second, although
more research is needed, our findings seem to suggest that future interventions aimed at
improving MC may generally have stronger benefits on presumed employee and organizational
outcomes if they are designed to focus on civility climate as opposed to aggression-inhibition
climate.
In conclusion, the present paper underscores the roles of MC pertaining to three prevalent
and consequential forms of workplace mistreatment, namely incivility, aggression, and bullying.
More importantly, the psychological MC-outcome relations were generally stronger for civility
climate than for aggression-inhibition climate, and MC scales’ content contamination seems to
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 43
have somewhat accentuated the magnitude of the relations between psychological MC and
mistreatment exposure and employee strains. Further, findings from the present study suggest
that many existing studies focused on psychological MC are cross-sectional and studies focusing
on unit-level MC are sorely lacking. We hope such findings will stimulate more research on both
psychological and unit-level MC that use high-quality MC scales and employ more rigorous
study designs, such as longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs. Organizations may
significantly benefit from findings of more rigorous research on MC as such findings can inform
effective ways of reducing mistreatment occurrences and managing employees’ attitudinal and
behavioral reactions to mistreatment incidents.
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MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 56
Figure 1. Conceptual model of mistreatment climate (MC).
Psychological Climate (MC)
Perceived civility climate
Perceived aggression-inhibition climate
Perceived climate of bullying
Mistreatment Reduction
Performance
Compliance
Participation
Mistreatment Reduction
Motivation
Mistreatment awareness
Mistreatment prevention
motivation
Mistreatment
Reduction Effort
Employee Strains
Emotional strains
Physical strains
Employee Job Attitudes
Organizational commitment
Job satisfaction
Turnover intentions
Employee and
Organizational Well-being
Incivility
Physical aggression
Nonphysical aggression
Bullying
Mistreatment Exposure
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 57
Table 1
Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs
Source Form of
Mistreatment
Type of
Climate
Level of
Theory Definition
Level of
Measurement Measurement Dimensionality
Meterko,
Osatuke,
Mohr,
Warren, &
Dyrenforth,
(2007)
Incivility CREW civility
climate
Individual-
level
Perceptions of workplace
civility within a work
group and across an
organization
Individual-
level
8 items;
Examples: 1) a spirit of
cooperation and teamwork exists
in my work group; 2) this
organization does not tolerate
discrimination
An overall dimension
Ottinot (2008,
2010)
Incivility Workplace
civility climate
Individual-
and unit-
level
Employees' (shared)
perceptions of how
management uses
policies, procedures, and
practices to maintain a
civil workplace
Individual-
and unit-level
12-24 items;
Examples: 1) supervisors has a
low tolerance for disrespectful
behavior among employees; 2)
supervisors discuss with
employees how to improve the
quality of interpersonal treatment
among coworkers
3 dimensions:
1) Intolerance of
incivility by
management;
2) management
responses to incivility;
3) incivility-related
organizational policies
and procedures
Walsh et al.
(2012)
Incivility Workgroup
climate for
civility
Individual-
level
Employee perceptions of
norms supporting
respectful treatment
among workgroup
members
Individual-
level
4 items;
Examples: 1) rude behavior is not
accepted by your coworkers; 2)
your coworkers make sure
everyone in your unit/workgroup
is treated
with respect
An overall dimension
Hegney,
Plank, &
Parker (2003)
Aggression Violence
policy
adequacy
Individual-
level
Perceived adequacy of
anti-violence policy
Individual-
level
1 item: do you feel this policy
(i.e., policy for dealing with
violence from ___) is adequate in
dealing with this issue?
An overall dimension:
Tailored for staff and
non-staff violence
respectively
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 58
Table 1 (Continued)
Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs
Source Form of
Mistreatment
Type of
Climate
Level of
Theory Definition
Level of
Measurement Measurement Dimensionality
Schat (2005) Aggression Organizational
(in)tolerance
of aggression
Individual-
level
A constellation of
organizational climate
elements that influence
organizational members’
perceptions regarding the
extent to which
aggressive behavior is
(in)tolerated —implicitly
or explicitly, in their
organization
Individual-
level
44 items;
Examples: 1) information about
my organization's workplace
aggression policy was
communicated to employees; 2)
my co-workers were concerned
about preventing mean or
aggressive behaviour at work; 3)
my supervisor took steps to deal
with someone who behaved
aggressively in our workplace
3 dimensions:
1) workplace
aggression policy
(enforcement and
communication);
2) coworker
intolerance of
aggression;
3) supervisor
intolerance of
aggression
Spector,
Coulter,
Stockwell, &
Matz (2007);
Chang,
Eatough,
Spector, &
Kessler
(2012)
Aggression Violence
prevention
climate
Individual-
and unit-
level
Employees’ (shared)
perceptions regarding the
extent to which
management emphasizes
control and elimination
of violence and verbal
aggression
Individual-
and unit-level
7 items (Spector et al., 2007);
12-18 items (Kessler et al., 2008);
Examples: 1) my employer
provides adequate
assault/violence prevention
procedures; 2) management
encourages employees to report
physical violence;
3 dimensions:
1) aggression
prevention-related
organizational policies
and procedures; 2)
management responses
and practices;
3) pressure against
prevention
Inness,
LeBlanc, &
Barling
(2008)
Aggression Perceived
organizational
sanctions [of
aggression]
Individual-
level
Employee perceptions
that aggressive behavior
towards others will be
sanctioned by the
organization
Individual-
level
4 items;
Examples: 1) In this organization
there would be negative
consequences for someone who
behaved in a physically
aggressive or threatening manner
towards ______ ; 2) In this
organization an individual would
be sanctioned or reprimanded for
behaving aggressively towards
______
An overall dimension:
Tailored for four types
of social target,
respectively (i.e.,
supervisor,
subordinate, peer, or
service provider)
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 59
Table 1 (Continued)
Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs
Source Form of
Mistreatment
Type of
Climate
Level of
Theory Definition
Level of
Measurement Measurement Dimensionality
Mueller &
Tschan
(2011)
Aggression Perceived
prevention of
violence
Individual-
level
An employee's
perception that his or her
employer is committed
to dealing appropriately
with workplace violence
Individual-
level
4 items;
Examples: 1) my employer takes
the necessary measures to prevent
violence in the workplace; 2)
more safety precautions or
preventive measures are needed
urgently (to reverse code).
An overall dimension
Hutchinson,
Dip, Jackson,
Wilkes, &
Vickers
(2008)
Bullying Climate of
bullying
Individual-
level
Workplace climate that
enables or perpetuates
bullying behavior
Individual-
level
24 items;
Examples: 1) you are summoned
to meetings without notice and
intimidated; 2) there is a
hierarchy of bullies who support
each other; 3) regardless of what
they do bullies get promoted
3 dimensions:
1) Misuse of
legitimate
organizational
processes and
procedures;
2) organizational
tolerance and reward
of bullying;
3) informal
organizational
alliances (between
instigators)
Baillen ,
Neyens, & De
Witte (2011)
Bullying Climate of
bullying
Individual-
level
Perceived anti-bullying
policy
Individual-
level
7 items;
Examples: 1) this organisation is
concerned with avoiding and
solving incidents of workplace
bullying. 2) this organization
provides efficient measures to
avoid and solve incidents of
bullying, aggression, or
harassment from colleagues and
superiors.
An overall dimension
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 60
Table 2
Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between Overall MC and Presumed Outcomes
Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q
Mistreatment Reduction Motivation
Overall Mistreatment Climate 5 1463 .42 .51 .10 26.73 .39 .63 .32 .71 3.07
Mistreatment Reduction Performance
Overall Mistreatment Climate 5 1377 .42 .50 .06 52.57 .39 .62 .39 .61 10.61**
Organizational Commitment
Overall Mistreatment Climate 10 6182 .47 .56 .13 7.65 .49 .64 .31 .82 247.11**
Job Satisfaction
Overall Mistreatment Climate 23 9536 .44 .52 .08 26.86 .43 .61 .37 .67 103.20**
Turnover Intentions
Overall Mistreatment Climate 14 3889 -.35 -.42 .08 37.21 -.54 -.30 -.58 -.26 45.04**
Emotional Strains
Overall Mistreatment Climate 20 4777 -.24 -.33 .13 24.49 -.48 -.19 -.59 -.08 96.02**
Anxiety
Overall Mistreatment Climate 13 2645 -.20 -.28 .15 26.18 -.46 -.10 -.58 .02 51.29**
Anger
Overall Mistreatment Climate 12 2854 -.22 -.27 .11 34.42 -.42 -.12 -.48 -.05 37.95**
Depression
Overall Mistreatment Climate 10 1934 -.30 -.40 .11 39.45 -.57 -.23 -.61 -.19 25.55**
Physical Strains
Overall Mistreatment Climate 15 4106 -.20 -.25 .07 50.53 -.39 -.10 -.39 -.11 27.28**
Mistreatment Exposure
Overall Mistreatment Climate 29 88790 -.37 -.42 .06 7.39 -.45 -.38 -.54 -.29 1197.13**
Overall Mistreatment Climate (Without
Warren et al.)28 13195 -.25 -.30 .12 15.73 -.40 -.20 -.54 -.07 246.81**
95% CI 95% CR
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 61
Table 3
Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between Different Types of MC and Presumed Outcomes
Note: For the relation between MC and mistreatment exposure, t-tests were conducted between incivility exposure and each of the two
types of aggression exposure, respectively, as shown by the superscripts of the corresponding t-statistics.
Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )
Organizational Commitment
Civility Climate 6 5317 .49 .59 .12 5.85 .53 .65 .34 .83 203.09** 2.96*(8)
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 4 865 .35 .42 .06 58.34 .28 .56 .30 .54 8.13**
Job Satisfaction
Civility Climate 10 6439 .46 .53 .07 22.03 .46 .61 .40 .67 47.43** 2.94**(23)
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 15 3728 .38 .43 .10 26.42 .31 .55 .23 .64 60.90**
Turnover Intentions
Civility Climate 5 1333 -.33 -.40 .00 100.00 -.53 -.27 -.40 -.40 8.33 -.32(13)
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 10 2819 -.35 -.41 .10 26.12 -.53 -.29 -.61 -.21 40.02**
Emotional Strains
Civility Climate 4 1182 -.33 -.38 .00 100.00 -.50 -.26 -.38 -.38 1.11 -1.60(18)
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 16 3595 -.25 -.32 .15 21.09 -.47 -.16 -.62 -.02 87.87**
Mistreatment Exposure
Civility Climate &
Incivility Exp.1
10 4837 -.36 -.40 .09 19.56 -.49 -.32 -.58 -.23 64.21**
Aggression-Inhibition Climate &
Nonphys. Aggression Exp.2
14 3845 -.20 -.25 .08 45.19 -.40 -.11 -.41 -.09 28.03** -4.21**(22)12
Aggression-Inhibition Climate &
Phys. Aggression Exp.3
17 8373 -.17 -.21 .08 34.61 -.32 -.10 -.37 -.06 50.39** -5.52**(25)13
95% CI 95% CR
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 62
Table 4
Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between MC and Outcomes across Dominant and Other MC Scales
Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )
Job Satisfaction
Civility Climate 10 6439 .46 .53 .07 22.03 .46 .61 .40 .67 47.43**
Climate (Ottinot scale) 6 3846 .44 .50 .04 44.90 .43 .58 .43 .58 24.89** 2.63*(8)
Climate (other scales) 4 2766 .49 .59 .06 28.57 .52 .66 .48 .70 31.17**
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 15 3728 .38 .43 .10 26.42 .31 .55 .23 .64 60.90**
Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 12 3149 .37 .43 .10 25.53 .31 .55 .23 .63 51.16** .14(13)
Climate (other scales) 3 579 .39 .44 .11 30.85 .30 .58 .23 .65 9.77**
Turnover Intentions
Civility Climate 5 1333 -.33 -.40 .00 100.00 -.53 -.27 -.40 -.40 8.33
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 10 2819 -.35 -.41 .10 26.12 -.53 -.29 -.61 -.21 40.02**
Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 7 2015 -.35 -.40 .11 22.02 -.52 -.28 -.62 -.18 32.20** -.69(8)
Climate (other scales) 3 804 -.35 -.44 .07 51.69 -.57 -.31 -.57 -.31 7.88**
Physical Strains
Civility Climate 3 960 -.15 -.18 .05 57.54 -.30 -.05 -.28 -.07 5.33
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 14 3777 -.21 -.26 .07 53.48 -.40 -.11 -.39 -.12 23.47**
Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2775 -.20 -.24 .08 46.56 -.39 -.10 -.40 -.09 18.87** -2.04(12)
Climate (other scales) 4 1002 -.23 -.30 .03 85.14 -.46 -.15 -.37 -.24 4.60
Emotional Strains
Civility Climate 4 1182 -.33 -.38 .00 100.00 -.50 -.26 -.38 -.38 1.11
Aggression-Inhibition Climate 16 3595 -.25 -.32 .15 21.09 -.47 -.16 -.62 -.02 87.87**
Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2181 -.25 -.33 .15 23.08 -.49 -.17 -.62 -.04 56.65** .37(14)
Climate (other scales) 6 1414 -.24 -.30 .16 18.78 -.45 -.15 -.61 .01 34.07**
Mistreatment Exposure
Civility Climate & Incivility Exposure 10 4837 -.36 -.40 .09 19.56 -.49 -.32 -.58 -.23 64.21**
Climate (Ottinot scale) 7 4096 -.36 -.40 .10 14.05 -.48 -.32 -.60 -.21 69.41** .53(8)
Climate (other scales) 3 741 -.36 -.42 .00 100.00 -.54 -.29 -.42 -.42 1.43
Aggression-Inhibition Climate & Nonphy. Aggression Exposure 14 3845 -.20 -.25 .08 45.19 -.40 -.11 -.41 -.09 28.03**
Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2843 -.20 -.24 .09 39.35 -.39 -.10 -.42 -.07 19.98** 1.41(12)
Climate (other scales) 4 1002 -.21 -.28 .00 100.00 -.43 -.13 -.28 -.28 8.00**
Aggression-Inhibition Climate & Physical Aggression Exposure 17 8373 -.17 -.21 .08 34.61 -.32 -.10 -.37 -.06 50.39**
Climate (Kessler et al scale) 11 3019 -.16 -.19 .09 41.65 -.33 -.05 -.36 -.03 24.72** 1.02(15)
Climate (other scales) 6 5354 -.17 -.23 .07 28.42 -.31 -.14 -.36 -.09 42.94**
95% CI 95% CR
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 63
Table 5
Results for Moderating Effects of MC Scales’ Content Deficiency and Contamination on Focal MC-Outcome Relations
Variable k M SD β R2
Psychological MC-exposure relation Measurement deficiency .66 .90 .10
Measurement contamination .25 .31 .40*
Overall model 28 .17
Psychological MC-strain relation
Measurement deficiency .20 .58 -.20
Measurement contamination .20 .30 .43*
Overall model 25 .18
Psychological MC-job attitude relation
Measurement deficiency .42 .78 .33
Measurement contamination .26 .30 .08
Overall model 24 .13
MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 64
Table 6
Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between MC and Presumed Outcomes across Different Study Designs
Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )
Organizational Commitment
Cross-sectional 7 5522 .49 .59 .12 7.01 .52 .65 .35 .82 176.93** 4.32**(8)
Prospective 3 660 .30 .37 .04 77.03 .22 .52 .29 .45 3.03
Job Satisfaction
Cross-sectional 20 8876 .44 .53 .08 26.08 .44 .61 .38 .67 88.68** 4.02**(21)
Prospective 3 660 .35 .43 .03 81.33 .29 .57 .36 .50 2.49
Turnover Intentions
Cross-sectional 11 3229 -.36 -.43 .09 30.98 -.55 -.31 -.61 -.25 41.40** -2.58*(12)
Prospective 3 660 -.29 -.36 .00 100.00 -.51 -.21 -.36 -.36 .18
Emotional Strains
Cross-sectional 18 4312 -.27 -.34 .14 22.79 -.48 -.19 -.60 -.07 91.52** .46(18)
Prospective 2 465 -.28 -.32 .04 78.22 -.46 -.18 -.39 -.25 4.16**
Physical Strains
Cross-sectional 13 3827 -.20 -.25 .08 43.69 -.39 -.11 -.40 -.09 27.11** .00(13)
Prospective 2 279 -.17 -.25 .00 100.00 -.49 -.01 -.25 -.25 .27
Incivility Exposure
Cross-sectional 8 4280 -.36 -.40 .10 15.62 -.49 -.32 -.60 -.21 69.27** .28(8)
Prospective 2 557 -.34 -.39 .00 100.00 -.52 -.27 -.39 -.39 .17
Physical Aggression Exposure
Cross-Sectional 16 8423 -.16 -.21 .08 31.30 -.31 -.10 -.36 -.05 51.74** -2.50*(16)
Prospective 2 279 -.18 -.26 .00 100.00 -.50 -.03 -.26 -.26 .05
95% CI 95% CR