1. Introduction
Today’s contemporary organisations have a particular focus on workplace bullying. Workplace bullying attributed to systematic power abuse may be adopted in various forms, including predatory, job-related, and individual-related bullying; direct or indirect harassment; and dispute-related bullying, either face-to-face or online known as cyberbullying [
1,
2]. Workplace bullying (WB) has been described by Salin [
3] as ‘repeated and persistent negative acts towards one or more individual(s), which involve a perceived power imbalance and create a hostile work environment’. The prevalence of workplace bullying varies considerably. Based on country, industrial sector and method of measurement [
4,
5], bullying rates of 25% in Portugal [
6], 13.6% in the Czech Republic [
7], 16.2% in the telecom sector of Canada [
8] and 30% face-to-face bullying victimisation among adults [
9] have been reported. Both face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying were detected in the educational settings in Spain [
10].
It was revealed by Privitera and Campbell [
11] that cyberbullying is a new form of harassment that has emerged with technological advancement. Still, practices to use these resources have not evolved simultaneously. Cyberbullying is defined as ‘inappropriate, unwanted social exchange behaviours initiated by a perpetrator via online or wireless communication technology and devices’ [
11]. It also indicates the modern world has fewer boundaries when it comes to personal contact, even in the sphere of harassment [
12]. Zhao et al. [
13] depicted that cyberbullies can reach their targets in any location, at any time, through different means, like phone, e-mail, social networking sites and text messaging. With the excessive use of technology, bullies are inevitable, so technology usage is essential for work and family communication [
14,
15]. Workplace bullying involves frequent contact by peers, managers, or direct accounts over a period of at least six months to carry out acts of maltreatment and abuse and show aggressive behaviour [
1,
16].
Most organisations are deploying and promoting technology at workplaces. The organisational climate has been altered with excessive technology use that allows workers to use social media at the workplace. The role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is significant in the personal development of individuals and organisations and boosts the economy. Besides its benefits, it also reshapes the behaviours of employees at the workplace, which directly affects the traditional norms of the organisation. On the other hand, it is becoming a challenging job for organisations to continuously update and revise their rules and regulations to overcome cyberbullying in a dynamic technological environment.
Workplace bullying has become a global issue that needs urgent attention, as it may have harmful effects on workers’ emotional, psychological and physical health. Victims of bullying have an increased possibility of mental and psychological health damage, like anxiety, depression, increased alcohol usage, high levels of blood pressure, insomnia and headache [
17,
18]. Corney [
19] stated that workplace-bullying victims are more inclined towards suicidal attempts in extreme cases.
Braun [
20] indicated that nearly 30% of the participants surveyed had experienced face-to-face harassment at work at some point in their careers. A survey showed that 27% of workers faced harassment [
21], and 30% reported face-to-face bullying among middle-aged employees at work [
9]. At the same time, somewhere between 9% and 20% of workers from various occupations reported victimisation through cyberbullying at work [
11,
22,
23]. As technology is playing an increasingly significant role at work, because of its improved abilities, harassment and specifically cyberbullying are becoming a more pressing problem [
12]. Modern organisations are consistently witnessing behaviour adaptations due to ever-increasing access to digital technologies. Thus, it has become quite challenging for organisations to come up with measures to tackle this situation effectively and mitigate workplace bullying.
Workplace bullying, either face-to-face bullying or cyberbullying, is becoming a global issue [
24] and resulting in physical and psychological health issues for employees in organisations [
25]. The organisational climate tends to make its employees vulnerable to face-to-face bullying and even cyberbullying. However, the evidence claiming that organisational climate and technology usage at the workplace can damage an employee’s physical and emotional health through both face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying is not sufficient. For this reason, we aimed to investigate the mediating effect of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying on the relationship of organisational climate and technology usage with an employee’s physical and emotional health damage.
The second fundamental question is, how do you reduce workplace bullying? Organisations must take care of the emotional health damage among their employees because this will reduce the job burnout ratio. Further, emotional intelligence helps understand workers’ and employees’ sensitivity and reduces health damage. Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that can act as an affinity within the working environment [
24]. Thus, we aimed to investigate the moderating effect of emotional intelligence on the relationship between workplace bullying and an employee’s physical and emotional health damage.
3. Methodology
3.1. Measures
Measures were adapted from previous studies (standardised questionnaires) and amended according to the current study’s requirements. The Majer D’Amato Organizational Questionnaire 10 (MDOQ10) [
56] was used to measure organisational climate, the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) by Giorgi [
57] was used for face-to-face bullying and the Cyberbullying Scale (CBS) by Çetin, Yaman and Peker [
58] was used for cyberbullying.
The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is a well-known measure of current mental health since Goldberg’s development [
59] in the 1970s. It has been used in a variety of organisational settings in various cultures extensively. Initially, the questionnaire was developed as a 60-item instrument, but currently, a range of shortened versions of the questionnaire, like GHQ-30, GHQ-28, GHQ-20 and tGHQ, is available. In this study, the researcher adopted some of the items from the shortest version, GHQ-12 (with a 12-item scale), adapted from the General Health Questionnaire by Goldberg [
59].
The Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ), a self-report scale, was adapted (some items according to the study) to measure physiological health in the current study. The Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a somewhat brief measure of physiological health. The scale was adapted from the Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ) by Schat, Kelloway and Desmarais [
60].
Emotional health damage was measured based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory Scale [
61]. The Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) [
62] was adapted to assess emotional intelligence. The items for technology usage were self-developed and pre-tested accordingly. Technology usage refers to the use of computer and ICT for official purposes and is provided by organisations to their employees to perform their jobs at the workplace.
A 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire was used to collect data. Before conducting the final survey, the questionnaire was pilot-tested to test the instrument’s validity and reliability. Data were collected by two means of communication, that is, online and face-to-face. Schillewaert [
63] described that for more general topics, such as consumer goods and lifestyle issues, living habits, attitudes, opinions and interests, off-line and online samples seem to generate results that are not significantly different from one another. Hence, it was not problematic to use both online and off-line data collection methods in the current research; the questions are related to the attitudes and perceptions of workers working in the service sector.
3.2. Population and Sample
This study’s target population was the workforce in the service sector, mainly Pakistan’s telecommunications, banking, hoteling and education sectors. A random sampling technique spread over various stages was applied. The sampling framework constituted all public sector banks, telecommunication organisations, hotels with a rating above four stars and educational institutions recognised by the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan. A multistage sampling technique was applied. In the first stage, a random sampling technique was used for the choice of each subsector. In Pakistan, the service sector consists of four natural sectors (distributive, producer, personal and social services), with many subsectors in each. One subsector from each of the four natural sectors was selected randomly.
In the second stage of multistage sampling, disproportionate stratified sampling was used. There are 6 telecommunication companies, 33 banks, 29 hotels and 179 universities situated in various regions in Pakistan. Each subsector/subgroup is non-overlapping, with a different number of companies, hence forming four strata. In this sampling stage, five companies were selected from each stratum based on disproportionate sampling. The sampling fraction to be applied in the telecommunication sector was 1 in 1 approximately, the sampling fraction applied in the banking stratum was around 1 in 7 and the sampling fraction to be used in hotels and education was 1 in 6 and 1 in 35 (approximately), respectively. Hence, disproportionate stratified random sampling allowed five telecommunication companies, five banks, five hotels, and five higher educational institutes to be selected. In the third stage, 500 officials from Head Quarters were selected based on purposive sampling. Workplace bullying was measured based on bullying occurrences during the past six months or more, so the questionnaires were circulated among respondents who had been working in that organisation for more than six months in the main branches. Furthermore, most of the main offices are situated in Pakistan’s capital cities, like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and can be considered true representatives of the population due to the ethnic diversity in the major cities.
5. Conclusions
The empirical evidence proves that organisational climate and technology usage at the workplace are precursors of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying among Pakistan’s service sector employees. Weak leadership, poorly defined job descriptions, tough working conditions, time pressure, uncontrolled technology usage and social networking through digital technologies are the major reasons that create and promote an organisational climate that inculcates both face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying behaviour at the workplace. Abuse of ICT and digital technologies at the workplace has increased the vulnerability to cyberbullying. Technology usage at the workplace is largely attributed with shaping individual behaviour at the workplace. If it is not used appropriately, it may induce hostile actions that lead a person to becoming involved in face-to-face bullying. Research has also revealed that cyberbullying might happen at work using different technology mediums, including ICT, digital technologies and online social networking. Management should recognise that though technological tools are essential for doing business, it is equally important to effectively incorporate them into business actions and prevent them from distorting personal and work limitations.
Keeping in view that studies in the past have examined the outcomes of only one type of bullying at a time and mostly examined the effects of face-to-face bullying only, the focus of the current study was broader. It analysed the impact of both types of bullying (face-to-face and cyber) jointly on emotional and physical health outcomes. So, face-to-face bullying causes emotional and physiological distractions, but cyberbullying also has the same negative ramifications and stimulates feelings of disappointment, anger and despair and causes emotional and physiological disruptions. This study reinforced the findings of an earlier study by Katzer [
73], which indicated the psychological and emotional effects of cyberbullying, like lower self-esteem, and another study, by Didde et al. [
74], that concluded depression as a worker health consequence of cyberbullying.
Conversely, suppose the workers are emotionally intelligent, self-aware of their emotions, have a high degree of self-regulation, are self-motivated and are equipped with social skills and empathy. These abilities are crucial in preventing the adverse effects of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying on employee health. Conclusively, bullying victimisation will not affect a worker’s health if the worker is emotionally intelligent.
Previous researchers have suggested that emotional intelligence enhances an individual’s skills, helping in dealing with challenging circumstances that might be damaging emotionally [
55]. Likewise, Tsaousis and Nikolaou [
44] also emphasised that organisations must endeavour to prevent emotional health issues among their workers, and emotional intelligence seems to reduce the possibility of emotional distress. Oginska-Bulik [
75] also proposed that emotional coping might reduce occupational stress and alleviate work and organisational stress [
54]. Some of the past research has also suggested that an emotionally intelligent person may have control over his/her emotions, which will induce behaviours that may help in stress reduction [
76], conflict management and ethical concerns [
50]. Though researchers have not studied emotional intelligence as a coping strategy to reduce the adverse health effects of workplace bullying, it is verified that emotional intelligence acts as a coping strategy to reduce the adverse health outcomes of workplace bullying, i.e., emotional and physical impact, by way of its moderating effects.
The study concluded that in the context of 500 organisations operating in four service sectors of Pakistan, workplace bullying originates from a hostile and antagonistic organisational climate, such as incompetent leadership of management, unclear job descriptions, role conflicts and high time pressure. As in the digitalisation era, technological use is also increasing day by day. Rapid technology adaptation in an organisation’s workplace also acts as a precursor/predecessor of cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying. This bullying victimisation leads workers towards emotional and physiological distractions, supported by Parkins et al. [
42] and Quine [
77]. Workplace bullying (either face-to-face bullying or cyberbullying) severely affects worker health and produces severe emotional and physiological health damage.
Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between workplace face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying and worker health outcomes in terms of emotional and physiological health. Workers with strong emotional intelligence are most likely to have higher levels of self-awareness, a good sense of self-regulation, high motivation, empathetic skills and instilled social skills. These abilities are vital in coping with adverse effects of bullying victimisation in a more positive manner. So, emotional intelligence helps in mitigating the negative health effects of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying.
Future Agenda
Although the study provides a detailed analysis of the direct and moderating effects of variables, the cross-sectional nature of the research limits the generalisability of the conclusions, and results might be biased until or unless a longitudinal design for data collection is adopted. Though a larger sample of officials was taken for the current study, the research is limited to the headquarters/main branches of 20 service sector organisations in different cities due to time constraints. Further research may include the rest of the service sector organisations as well as the manufacturing sector. Although face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying are facets of workplace bullying, each concept is multidimensional and multifold. It is essential to investigate these concepts in a technological context to provide a broader set of rules and regulations that will help reduce such practices at the workplace.