From schoolyard to workplace: The impact of bullying on sales and business employees' machiavellianism, job satisfaction, and perceived importance of an ethical issue

• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Sean Valentine,Gary Fleischman
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21834

HR SCIENCE FORUM

From schoolyard to workplace: The impact of bullying on sales

and business employees' machiavellianism, job satisfaction,

and perceived importance of an ethical issue

Sean Valentine

1

| Gary Fleischman

2

1

Department of Management, University of

North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota

2

School of Accounting, Rawls College of

Business, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

79409–2101

Correspondence

Sean Valentine, Professor of Management,

Robert Page Endowed Professor of

Leadership and Ethics, Department of

Management, University of North Dakota,

293 Centennial Drive, Mailstop 8377, Grand

Forks, North Dakota 58202-8377,

Ph: (701) 777-3632,

Email: sean.valentine@mail.business.und.edu

Bullying can precipitate many negative outcomes at work, but previous research does not ade-

quately address how such misbehavior affects employee dispositions and attitudes; how these

characteristics impact ethical decision making is also underexplored. Given these research gaps,

the purpose of this study is to assess (1) the impact of bullying on Machiavellianism and job

satisfaction, and (2) the influences of Machiavellianism and job satisfaction on perceived ethical

issue importance, a measure of ethical decision making. Three hundred eighty-four sales and

business employees working for different firms operating in the United States answered a self-

report questionnaire. The findings showed that, after accounting for social desirability bias,

workplace bullying was positively associated with Machiavellianism and negatively associated

with job satisfaction. Machiavellianism was negatively related to the perceived importance of

an ethical issue embedded in a vignette highlighting Machiavellianism and latent bullying

behaviors. In addition, job satisfaction was positively related to ethical issue importance. Finally,

both Machiavellianism and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between bullying experi-

ences and importance of an ethical issue, as evidenced by their significant indirect effects. HR

professionals should minimize bullying and Machiavellianism to reduce the corrosive effect on

the ethical environment and enhance work attitudes and ethical decisions.

KEYWORDS

bullying, ethics, job satisfaction, Machiavellianism

1|INTRODUCTION

There is growing recognition in research and practice that bullying,

especially a latent form that correlates highly with the manipulative

tendencies of Machiavellianism, represents a key global concern for

human resource (HR) management. This is important because

employees who masterfully utilize latent bullying through impression

management, passive aggression, and/or ignoring, excluding, or isolat-

ing others can become toxic influences on the organizational ethical

environment. Similarly, employees who display Machiavellian tenden-

cies are often willing to manipulate and take advantage of employees

to achieve an award or other personal aspiration (Christie & Geis,

1970; Ricks & Fraedrich, 1999). Reports of mistreatment vary, but as

a whole, such latent workplace bullying is common in many organiza-

tions and professions. For instance, past work reports significant rates

of bullying in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Scandinavia (where

much of bullying research has been spearheaded), leading to the

development of legislation as a means for reducing such misbehavior

(Vega & Comer, 2005). There are also concerns about workplace bul-

lying in China as firms move away from a family-based model of busi-

ness to a more cosmopolitan managerial approach (Sims & Sun,

2012). Global organizations could endure latent bullying and Machia-

vellianism due to greater workplace cultural diversity, autonomous

job assignments, and varying employee legal protections in different

nations (Harvey, Treadway, Heames, & Duke, 2009).

1

Despite being an emerging issue that is gradually being recog-

nized in the United States, evidence suggests that latent bullying

occurs frequently in American businesses, and in some cases at

higher rates than what is experienced in other countries (LaVan &

Martin, 2008; Lutgen-Sandvik, Tracy, & Alberts, 2007; Vega & Comer,

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21834

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:293–305. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 293