Gender and age differences in the psychosocial risk factors of workplace bullying

Bullying at work means harassing, offending, or socially excluding someone or negatively affecting someone's work. Bullying affects all kinds of organizations, although organizations in the public sector are some of the worst affected. To date, no studies have examined how the combination of psychosocial risk factors leads to bullying. Using a sample of Spanish prison employees (n=488) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study analyzed how five combined effects (role conflict, role ambiguity, social support, esteem, and work overload) lead to bullying at work. Two classification variables (gender and age) were also considered. Based on these classification variables, four models were proposed. In the first, third, and fourth models (young man, old man, and old woman, respectively), no conditions were found to be necessary to lead to bullying at work. In the second model (young woman), a lack of esteem was identified as a necessary condition for bullying at work. Seven conditions across the four models were identified as sufficient to lead to bullying among prison employees. Two antecedents (work overload and lack of esteem) were present in all seven configurations. These findings reinforce the need for prison managers to be vigilant to ensure that job descriptions are properly defined and that the work environment is egalitarian and collaborative.