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The Effects of Ethical Climates on Bullying Behaviour in the Workplace

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Journal of Business Ethics (2009) 86:273–295 DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9847-4

Ó Springer 2008

The Effects of Ethical Climates on Bullying Behaviour in the Workplace

¨ Fusun Bulutlar ¨ ¨ Ela Unler Oz

ABSTRACT. Various aspects of the relationship between ethical climate types and organizational commitment have been examined, although a relationship with the concept of bullying, which may be very detrimental to an organization, has not attracted significant attention. This study contributes to the existing research by taking the effects of bullying behaviour into consideration. The aim of this study is to explore the effects of bullying behaviour upon the relationship between ethical climate types and organizational commitment. It …show more content…

Leymann (1996, p. 168) gave the operational definition of mobbing (bullying) as:
Psychological terror or mobbing in working life involves hostile and unethical communication, which is directed in a systematic way, by one or a few individuals mainly towards one individual who, due to mobbing is pushed into a helpless or defenceless position, being held there by means of continuing mobbing activities. These actions occur on a very frequent basis (statistical definition: at least once a week) and over a long period of time (statistical definition: at least 6 months of duration).

Most of the studies related to the constructs explored in this study were completed in Western countries, reflecting Anglo/individualized cultural values (Yousef, 2002). Due partly to this, differences in the range of variables and the mobility of literature across different cultures (Glazer and Beehr, 2005) still remains relatively unexplored. Bearing this in mind, we will examine whether ethics is related to employee attitudes and behaviour, and investigate the factor structure of the Ethical Climate Questionnaire developed by Victor and Cullen (1988) within Turkish culture.

Definitions of bullying During the

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