Workplace bullying, psychological distress, job performance and employee creativity: the moderating effect of psychological resilience

ABSTRACT This study tests a model exploring the direct effect of workplace bullying on employee creativity and performance using psychological distress as the mediator and psychological resilience as the moderator based on the JD-R theory. PLS-SEM was applied to analyze data collected from both employees and supervisors of 4 – and 5-star hotels. The main findings reveal that workplace bullying affects employee creativity negatively, and psychological distress positively. While psychological distress has a negative effect on employee creativity, the latter exerts a significantly positive effect on job performance. Resilience moderates the relationships between workplace bullying and employee creativity, and psychological distress and employee creativity. This study makes a significant, original contribution to the hospitality literature as it is the first to investigate the moderator role of psychological resilience on employee creativity and performance in reaction to bullying behavior.