Charting a Semantic Jungle: A Novel Method for Examining the Moderators of Workplace Aggression.

摘要

Workplace aggression has attracted increasing research interest over the past 20 years, due to both its prevalence and the severity of outcomes. As our knowledge has increased, term proliferation accompanying newly identified elements of workplace aggression experiences runs the risk of fracturing the theoretical development of workplace aggression research as a whole. This project answered several calls for research unification by developing and establishing initial evidence of validity for a measure of workplace aggression that captures behaviors represented on numerous workplace aggression scales. Additionally, scales were developed to measure the nuances identified in the literature that are expected to influence the impact of workplace aggression, including the intensity of the experience, the intention attributions made by the target, the relationship power between the perpetrator and the target, and the perceived visibility of the aggression. Additionally, a theoretical model proposed by Herschovis, in which nuances of workplace aggression experiences operate as moderators of workplace aggression-strain relationships, was examined. This study used subject matter experts (SMEs) in workplace aggression research for scale development, cross-sectional data from 361 employees from a variety of industries for initial validation, and cross-sectional data from 444 employed nurses to examine main and moderation effects. Results indicated that the workplace aggression scale and measures of intensity, intention attribution, relationship power, and perceived visibility were all positively related to depression, irritation, anxiety, physical symptoms, musculoskeletal injuries, job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, workplace aggression, intention attributions, and relationship power were positively related to contagious disease exposure for nurses. Although limited evidence was found for moderation effects, intensity seemed to exacerbate the relationships between workplace aggression with depression and musculoskeletal injuries. Likewise, perceived visibility seemed to exacerbate the relationship between workplace aggression and depression. Overall, the Workplace Aggression and Moderators Scale (WAAMS) is a promising new measure that uniquely allows researchers to explicitly examine the underlying nuances of workplace aggression and represents a step toward theoretically unifying research in the workplace aggression domain.