Abstract

The bureaucratic and impersonal nature of public management can fertilize workplace bullying and risks for psychological health and safety. Psychological safety climate (PSC) is an important indicator to reduce psychological hazards. Yet, there have been few studies conducted to examine the existence of PSC in the public sector in non-Western economies. This study examined the implementation of PSC and its effects on 274 employees from six branches of a Vietnamese public sector organization. The results suggest that senior management in organizations should
consider positive work conditions and an effective system of policies, procedures, and practices for the prevention of psychosocial hazards.

Introduction

Vietnam’s public sector is heavily bureaucratic and has a high power distance.  People in high power distance contexts are likely to view bullying behaviours as acceptable and standard behaviours.  A significant body of related research conducted to date has been done in private sector in Western countries.

This study sought to examine the combined influence that Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) and Perceived Organisational Commitment (POC) have on perceptions of bullying, and the positive impacts on employee wellbeing and engagement.

The highly bureaucratic and power imbalance of the Vietnamese public sector provides a great test of the impact that PSC and POS have on organisational performance, despite high bureaucracy and power imbalance.

Public sector workers are at a higher risk of bullying than their private-sector colleagues.

Bullying is one of the biggest causes of poor psychological health in the workplace.  Harm can include PTSD, depression, anxiety, and anger.  This results in reduced productivity, higher absenteeism and turnover, and disengagement.

The PSC construct relates to the perceived level of management commitment and support for the management of issues that relate to psychological health and safety equally to organisational productivity goals.  That is, employees feel that management is as concerned with providing a workplace that is psychologically healthy and safe as they are about achieving their productivity goals.  IN high-PSC settings, managers understand that psychological health and safety is an important factor in achieving high performance.  These managers seek to optimise working conditions and reduce the risks to the psychological health and safety of their staff.  They ensure staff have adequate resources (tools, budget, time, training, work environment, etc.) to perform their work in a safe, healthy and productive fashion.  In turn, according to Social Exchange Theory, employee perceptions of this commitment and support result in lower negative work emotions and increases in productivity.

POS is a component of Social Exchange Theory that is concerned about employee perceptions of how much the organisation cares about employee wellbeing and values employee performance.  It posits that employees who feel that the organisation has a high level of care about their wellbeing and values their performance are more likely to ‘repay’ the organisation by being more engaged and committed in their work which results in better work.

Employee engagement is about an employee’s feelings of devotion, fascination and energy towards work and the organisation.

Method

• Survey of 274 employees across 6 different branches of a public sector agency in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam.
• PSC was measured using Hall, Dollard & Coward’s (2010) PSC-12
• POS was measured using a modified version of Eisenberger’s (1997) 8-item scale
• Bullying was measured using Notelaers & Einarsen’s (2008) 9-item scale
• Employee Engagement was measured using a modified version of Schaufeli & Bakker’s (2003) 9-item scale.
• Wellbeing was measured using Brunetto, Farr-wharton & Shacklock’s (2011) 4-item scale.

Results & Discussion

Hypothesis 1: PSC is negatively related to workplace bullying.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had high PSC reported low incidence or bullying.

Hypothesis 2: PSC is positively related to perceived organizational support, employee engagement, and well-being.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had a high PSC also had higher perceived organisational support, employee engagement, and wellbeing

Hypothesis 3: Perceived organizational support is positively related to employee engagement and well-being.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had high perceived organisational support reported having higher employee engagement & wellbeing.

Hypothesis 4: Perceived organizational support is negatively related to workplace bullying.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had higher perceived organisational support also reported a lower incidence of bullying

Hypothesis 5: Workplace bullying is negatively related to employee engagement and well-being.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had a higher prevalence of workplace bullying also reported having lower

Hypothesis 6: Employee engagement is positively related to well-being.

Result = Supported – Workers who reported having higher employee engagement also reported higher wellbeing.

Hypothesis 7: PSC moderates the relationship between bullying and employee engagement and well-being, such that the relation reduces as PSC increases.

Result = Supported – Workplaces that had high PSC maintained higher employee engagement, even when high bullying was reported. Interesting to note, and not mentioned in the paper, is that as the prevalence of bullying increases, engagement also decreases, as does the mediating effect of PSC (as can be seen from the following graph:

What does it mean on the ground?

Organisations should take a system-wide approach to promote a high psychosocial safety climate and protect their staff from psychological health and safety risks.

This will involve developing and implementing policies and procedures for the protection of psychological health at work, and investing in management training.

Management should ensure that open and honest two-way communication channels exist between staff and management that ensure a shared understanding of the care and protection of all staff’s (including management’s) psychological health and safety and for productivity within the organisation.

Management needs to ensure that workers’ job demands do not exceed their job resources.  Workers must always have more resources available than job demands require.  This may involve reducing job demands and/or increasing job resources.

Employees should be given the freedom to discuss their psychological health and wellbeing with their peers and management, while management must be adequately skilled to deal with reports of exhaustion, stress, anxiety, depression, etc. from staff when it is reported.  Training for managers in how to identify early signs of poor psychological health will also help them to intervene early before their health deteriorates further.

Reference

Nguyen DTN, Teo STT, Grover SL, Nguyen NP. Psychological safety climate and workplace bullying in Vietnam’s public sector. Public Management Review. 2017;19(10):1415-36.