Consequences of workplace bullying on hotel employees: a three-wave longitudinal approach

Purpose Workplace bullying has appalling fallouts for organizations and employees. While the association between bullying and employees’ exit intentions has been sufficiently established in research, the underlying conditions remain overlooked. Using the affective events and conservation of resources theories as the theoretical lens, the purpose of this study is to probe work alienation and emotional exhaustion as sequential mediators in the association between bullying and employees’ exit intentions. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mediation model was examined using three-wave longitudinal data gathered from 406 employees working with hotels situated in tourist destinations of India. Findings Work alienation serves as a significant mediator between bullying and emotional exhaustion. More importantly, work alienation and emotional exhaustion emerged as sequential mediators in the association between bullying and exit intentions. Originality/value Research on workplace bullying is often cross-sectional, and researchers have called for time-lagged and/or longitudinal examination. While responding to the frequent calls made by researchers to examine underlying conditions, this three-wave longitudinal study advocates for holistic cognizance, i.e., how workplace bullying results in employees’ exit.