Bullying and Organisational Commitment: Common antecedents?

The paper’s aim is to provide new theoretical insights by examining whether organisational commitment and workplace bullying co-vary, and if this is due to direct effects and/or indirect effects of their organisation and supervision environment. From a survey of all uniform officers in a UK police agency the author analyses the bullying behaviours experienced by police officers and if the organisational and managerial factors that are known to influence organisational commitment also change the extent of these bullying behaviours. The findings show that the supervision environment was found to be a substantial predictor of the degree of bullying experienced, as well as a dominant influence on organisational commitment levels. In contrast, the direct influence of bullying on organisational commitment (or vice versa) was not found.