Justifying the Inevitable: How Observers of Mistreatment Can Perpetuate Mistreatment

Observers of workplace mistreatment are embedded within organizations—the same organizations in which mistreatment has occurred. Importantly, organizations represent social systems: they provide structure, create predictability, and offer resources to its employees. Attributes of the organizational system may guide observers’ reactions to mistreatment. Drawing on system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994), the current research examines how perceiving the mistreatment incident as inevitable may shape observers’ reactions towards the mistreatment incident and the target of mistreatment. Specifically, I propose that perceived mistreatment inevitability can trigger system justification tendencies, which may prompt observers’ behaviors aimed at maintaining or even perpetuating mistreatment within the organizational system. I also explore the role of perceived mistreatment tolerance climate as an antecedent of perceived mistreatment inevitability and the role of perpetrator power relative to the target in augmenting this relationship. I begin by developing and validating a psychometrically robust measure of perceived mistreatment inevitability. Next, I adopt a multi-method approach to test my proposed model across two studies: an online experiment and a time-lagged critical incident technique. The findings indicate that perceived mistreatment inevitability relates positively to observer evaluations of mistreatment legitimacy and negatively to evaluations of target legitimacy. In turn, these legitimacy evaluations have implications for observer reactions to the mistreatment incident and the target of mistreatment. Perceived mistreatment tolerance climate serves as an antecedent of perceived mistreatment inevitability. While I did not find support for the augmenting role of perpetrator power, findings from supplemental analyses revealed that females (but not males) may be disadvantaged as targets in climates characterized by perceived mistreatment tolerance. Taken together, these findings provide important theoretical implications including why observers may justify workplace mistreatment, how this can impact their behaviors, what may prompt observers’ system justification tendencies, and who is most likely to experience these detrimental effects. This research also provides practical insights into how to mitigate the effects of mistreatment in the workplace.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business, Haskayne School of Business

Grantor

Haskayne School of Business

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Lyubykh, Zhanna

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Hershcovis, Sandy
• Turner, Nicholas

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Barclay, Laurie Jeanne
• Pogacar, Ruth Ellen Kouril
• Weatherhead, Julie
• MacInnis, Cara C
• O'Reilly, Jane

Language dc:language.iso

English

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/dspace/41332

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/116488