Relationships among three aspects of harmful behaviours, orgsanisational health, and employment wellbeing

Relationships among three aspects of harmful behaviours, orgsanisational health, and employment wellbeing

The study of harmful behaviours in the workplace which incur substantial costs for organisations and for employees is a salient topic of research. The current study investigated the relationships among frequency, source, and response severity aspects of harmful behaviours in the workplace and relevant organisational and individual factors. Online and paper versions of a self-report inventory, Better Workplaces, were completed by 5889 employees of a large, Queensland health organisation, in 2008. The sample comprised 4,575 females (77.69%) and 1,257 (21.34%) male employees who ranged in ages from under 21 years to over 60 years with a majority of 31.5% aged between 41 to 50 years. An adapted Job Demands-Resources (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) model of job stress and the Triadic Reciprocal Determinism Model of Workplace Aggression were used to conceptualise the relationship between harmful behaviours and scale measures and the perceptual processes involved in an escalating spiral of harmful behaviours. Preliminary analysis confirmed the structure of the questionnaire by a Principal Component Analysis which revealed 16 principal components that defined the scale measures. The main analyses involving multiple regression utilised Generalized Linear Models because multivariate assumptions of linearity and homogeneity of variance were violated. The main findings included a prevalence rate of 26.83% of harmful behaviours and significant differences (p = .05) between harmful behaviour exposed and non-exposed groups on reliable scale measures. Each of the three aspects of harmful behaviours were important risk factors for organisational and individual measures. Higher frequencies, patient’s visitors or relatives sources, and behaviours that elicit fears for safety were the most detrimental to measures. Interactions revealed the different characteristics of the relationships between and among measures and aspects of harmful behaviours. The findings had implications for the development of and commitment to organisational policy and procedures and supervisor training.