Dynamic and Multi-Party Approaches to Interpersonal Workplace Mistreatment Research

Abstract

When employees share and compete for resources through their daily interactions, friction is likely to occur. Such friction can become a breeding ground for interpersonal workplace mistreatment, which is characterized by interpersonal actions that cause severe harm to persons who are motivated to avoid such harm (Pearson, Andersson, & Wegner 2001). Most employees encounter some manifestations of workplace mistreatment throughout their career (Barling, Dupré, & Kelloway 2009), and this mistreatment carries tremendous costs for individuals as well as the organization, including increased stress and reduced performance (for a review, see Dhanani & LaPalme, 2019). It is therefore not surprising that scholars have increasingly become interested in interpersonal mistreatment topics spanning across multiple disciplines and covering an array of constructs, including incivility (e.g., Cortina, Hershcovis, & Clancy 2022), injustice and unfairness (e.g., Fortin, Cropanzano, Cugueró-Escofet, Nadisic, & Van Wagoner 2020), bullying (e.g., Notelaers et al., 2019b), cyberbullying (Vranjes, Baillien, Erreygers, Vandebosch, & De Witte 2021), harassment (e.g., Hershcovis, Vranjes, Berdahl, & Cortina 2021), and organizational and interpersonal deviance (Griep & Vantilborgh, 2018). The proliferation of interpersonal workplace mistreatment research has helped us to better understand individual and contextual antecedents as well as consequences of workplace mistreatment. For instance, previous research found that a stressful work environment leads to mistreatment (for a metaanalysis, see Bowling & Beehr, 2006), especially for people who lack selfregulatory capabilities (McAllister & Perrewe, 2018). This in turn can lead to a plethora of negative outcomes, including reduced employee and organizational wellbeing and performance (for a review, see Dhanani & LaPalme, 2019).