Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand how workplace bullying affects knowledge sharing among employees in Chinese scientific and technological enterprises.
Methodology
A convenience sampling method was employed to survey 275 employees from scientific and technological enterprises of Yangtze River Delta, China. The survey utilized a general information questionnaire, a workplace bullying scale, an organizational belonging scale, a knowledge sharing scale, and a forbearance scale. A moderated mediation model was set up, and the hierarchical regression and the bootstrapping method were applied.
Findings
The empirical results indicated that workplace bullying has a negative effect on the knowledge sharing, and organization belonging has played mediating effect. Furthermore, Forbearance not only moderated the effect of workplace bullying on organizational belonging, but also moderated the mediated effect of organization belonging, and the effect will be stronger when employees are at a lower level of forbearance.
Implications
This study offers important implications for scientific and technological enterprises. The findings imply that enterprises should discourage person-related workplace bullying to increase employees’ intention to engage in knowledge-sharing behavior. Moreover, the manager of these firms should develop a culture of family so that they can care for the organization belonging.
Keywords: Workplace bullying, Knowledge sharing, Organizational belonging, Forbearance, Scientific and technological enterprises
Introduction
Technological innovation has become a new driving force for economic development, and the essence of innovation is the process of creating new knowledge through knowledge integration and consolidation [1]. The complete sharing of knowledge among technologists is pivotal to the success of technological innovation. Existing research has also shown that knowledge sharing can effectively promote employees’ innovative behaviors [2] and increase the employees’ innovative performance [3]. Regarding on knowledge sharing, the academia has accumulated many valuable achievements. Although the mechanism of knowledge sharing has not been fully explored, it is generally believed that knowledge sharing is not a spontaneous activity and is context-dependent [4]. Social exchange norms and related interpersonal factors such as social exchange relationships and interpersonal fairness have been verified as important factors that influence employees’ knowledge sharing, while interpersonal conflicts are considered to be a key antecedent that hinders employees’ knowledge sharing [5–9]. As a special type of interpersonal conflict, workplace bullying may also hinder knowledge sharing among employees. Although scholars have been involved in this field, it is still underexplored and there is still a black box between the two [10–12]. Therefore, this study will focus on the black box between workplace bullying and knowledge sharing.
Previous studies on workplace situations have focused on organizational culture [13], leadership behavior [14], job stress [15] and other perspectives to explore the promoting factors of knowledge sharing, while less attention has been paid to the hindering factors of knowledge sharing. In recent years, with the increasing phenomenon of workplace bullying, scholars have begun to pay attention to this workplace cold violence. Workplace bullying mostly arises from competitive relationships in the workplace. Workplace bullying is like a kind of spiritual shackle, which locks the victim’s enthusiasm for work, causing the victim to have negative perceptions such as frustration and even depression [16], which leads to the reduction of their organizational commitment and work engagement, and even anti-production, serious negative behaviors such as resignation [17–19].
While significant progress has been made in understanding workplace bullying, there are still critical gaps in the current research landscape. While workplace bullying remains a pervasive issue across regions and cultures [20, 21], its manifestations and mechanisms vary significantly under different cultural contexts. Each culture possesses a unique understanding of the world, and the preexisting cultural framework imposes upon individuals, providing them with interpretations of the social, problem-solving methods, and established patterns of behavior. Consequently, human behavior is inevitably influenced by the social and cultural environment, exhibiting distinct characteristics that differ from other cultural backgrounds [22].
In Chinese organizations, guanxi plays a pivotal role, employees’s innovative work behavior and work engagedment would be impacted by supervisor-subordinate guanxi [23]. Chinese employees’ responses to workplace bullying are likely to differ from those in Western countries, where individualism is more prevalent. However, the majority of existing studies on workplace bullying have been conducted in Western organizational settings, with limited attention given to the specific challenges faced in Chinese organizations [24]. Therefore, the applicability of these findings in China remains to be validated.
Furthermore, the specific context and individual characteristics of those involved in workplace bullying can significantly influence the outcomes. Individuals with diverse personality traits may respond differently when confronted with bullying, yet this field has received inadequate attention in previous research. Additionally, most studies have focused primarily on the impact of workplace bullying on organizational and employee performance [25, 26], with limited exploration into its effects on employee knowledge sharing. Therefore, this study aims to bridge these gaps by examining the impact of workplace bullying on employee knowledge sharing in the context of Chinese organizations. By doing so, we contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and consequences of workplace bullying; especially in non-Western settings. The study will examine workplace bullying based on Chinese culture.
According to social identity theory, when an individual identifies with the goals and values of a specific organization, they would be willing to prioritize the realization and defense of the organization’s interests and goals over their own or the direct interests of the small group they belong to, and wish to maintain their membership to promote the achievement of organizational goals. Previous studies have found that workplace bullying would destroy the social connection between the bullied and other members and weakens the victim’s sense of group belonging, which may reduce employees’ willingness to share knowledge [24, 27]. However, existing research results do not provide strong support for this conclusion. Therefore, this study will focus on the role and mediating mechanism of the negative effects of workplace bullying, especially the role of workplace bullying on employees’ knowledge sharing in Chinese social culture.
Workpalce bullying can be impacted by personality traits [28]. Forbearance is not only a social and cultural tradition, but also an important manifestation of the Chinese personality traits [29]. Forbearance not only represents an emotional control strategy, but also a basic pattern of Chinese behavior. Workplace bullying is a form of interpersonal conflict. In the face of conflict, the East and the West show completely different emotional expression and coping styles. Although Westerners also emphasize self-control, they have a strong individualism color, while the East forbearance is not only a means of self-cultivation and socialization for Chinese people, but also a way of dealing with conflicts. In the face of workplace bullying, employees at different levels of forbearance may have different ways of dealing with them [30]. When employees are at a high level of forbearance, employees will respond positively to bullying, and even if they encounter bullying, they will not easily change their altruistic work attitudes and behaviors; on the contrary, when employees’ forbearance is at a low level, employees are easily affected by external adverse factors and change their original altruistic behavior. However, few scholars have examined the moderating effect of forbearance on the negative impact of workplace bullying. In view of this, the study will examine the regulating effect of forbearance.
Based on the above analysis, this study will focus on the following four key aspects: Firstly, it will investigate the impact mechanism of workplace bullying on the knowledge sharing of employees in Scientific and Technological Enterprises based on Chinese culture. Secondly, combining social identity theory, this study introduces organizational belonging as a mediating variable to explore its mediating role between workplace bullying and knowledge sharing of employees in Scientific and Technological Enterprises. Additionally, considering that the tolerance or coping mechanisms for workplace bullying may vary among individuals, we incorporate the Chinese cultural trait of forbearance as a moderating variable into the research model and study its moderating effect between workplace bullying and organizational belonging. Finally, integrating the mediating role of organizational belonging and the moderating role of forbearance. The study constructs a moderated mediation model to better explore the mechanism of how workplace bullying affects the knowledge sharing of employees in Scientific and Technological Enterprises in Chinese organizations.
Theoretical review and research hypotheses
Workplace bullying and knowledge sharing
Although workplace bullying has attracted widespread attention, scholars have significant differences in understanding it, and a complete analytical framework has not yet been formed. Different scholars define the connotation of workplace bullying from the perspectives of situations, behaviors, and parties involved. However, scholars generally believe that workplace bullying is unwanted, hostile, and unethical behavior directed at specific individuals or groups by a single person or a few people in the workplace. It is a systematic persecution stemming from work relationships, characterized by repetition and persistence [31–33]. Regarding the dimension of workplace bullying, Einarsen argues that it includes work-related, personal-related, and physical threat-related dimensions [34]. Reviewing existing literature, workplace bullying has a significant negative impact on employees’ organizational loyalty and job satisfaction, leading to negative work attitudes and behaviors such as intentional absence, job burnout, and loss of innovative potential. It may even lead to a decrease in work morale, job performance, and an increase in resignations [35–37].
Knowledge sharing refers to the activity of an individual actively transferring their knowledge to others, considered an extra-role behavior [38]. Some research has found that there are many antecedent variables that affect the willingness to share knowledge, such as knowledge characteristics, individual characteristics, and organizational characteristics [39–42]. Bock pointed out that the destruction of interpersonal atmosphere in the organizational climate can significantly inhibit the knowledge sharing behavior of members within the organization [43]. In addition, some scholars have pointed out that knowledge sharing always occurs in a certain social relationship network, and the trust between team members has a significant positive impact on an individual’s willingness to share knowledge [44]. This trust can increase the cohesion among members and enhance their willingness to share knowledge with each other. Workplace bullying’s negative attributes are bound to lead to negative outcomes in the organization [45]. When individuals perceive workplace bullying, they may develop a perception of hostility towards the organizational climate and a psychological suggestion that their interpersonal relationships are poor, reducing their trust in the organization or team. Workplace bullying destroys individual interpersonal relationships, reduces trust between individuals, and further triggers negative work behaviors and attitudes. Employees may adopt a more conservative approach to handle their knowledge sharing to strengthen self-defense [46]. Knowledge sharing is the exchange of knowledge between employees, and employees are willing and able to learn and create knowledge through exchange and sharing only under appropriate conditions [47]. Some studies have also found that workplace bullying is significantly positively correlated with knowledge hiding [48].Based on the above analysis, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H1
Workplace bullying negatively affects knowledge sharing.
The mediating role of organizational belonging
Organizational belonging is a special form of social identity and a type of individual social need. Scholars have defined organizational belonging from sociology, cognition, and emotionality [24]. It is generally believed that organizational belonging refers to the level of commitment and identification that employees have towards the organization they belong to, which can also be called as “organizational commitment” or “organizational loyalty.” From an employee’s perspective, organizational belonging manifests as a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values, as well as a willingness to exert effort for the benefit of the organization [49, 50]. There are two main sources of obtaining organizational belonging: one is the feeling of being valued, needed, and respected by others or the organization, and the other is the harmony and consistency achieved through the process of sharing or complementarity with others or the organization [51, 52].
Employees with a higher level of organizational belonging tend to view themselves as insiders of the organization [53]. They tend to evaluate people and events in the organization positively, strive to achieve organizational goals, and maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships within the organization. Employees with higher organizational belonging are more likely to demonstrate altruistic behavior by thinking from the perspective of the organization [54]. They not only gain psychological satisfaction but also develop a strong emotional attachment to the organization. As a result, they actively complete their work while seeking to help others in the organization [55], willingly sharing their unique knowledge and skills with others. This further promotes the establishment of trust relationships among colleagues and encourages further knowledge sharing. Rutte et al. [56] found that trust in colleagues would promote employees’ explicit and tacit knowledge sharing.
Based on the above analysis, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H2
Organizational belonging positively affects the knowledge sharing.
The organizational belonging is the result of long-term interaction between employees and organizations. In the process of interaction, when employees often feel bullied by colleagues, they will have a sense of isolation from others. If the sense of isolation exists for a long time without organizational care, it will cut off the social relationship between employees and colleagues, and gradually evolve from isolation to abandonment, thus reducing the sense of belonging to the organization. This is because workplace bullying interferes with people’s four basic needs: (1) The need for belonging. People have not only biological attributes but also social attributes, and workplace bullying cuts off the social connections between the bullied and other members of the organization, thus weakening the sense of belonging [57]; (2) The need for self-esteem. Workplace bullying can trigger various emotions in employees, including shame for the victims, and these emotions may make employees remain silent [58], hurt their self-esteem; (3) The need for control. In order to reduce the adverse effects caused by environmental uncertainty, everyone wants to control the environment on which they rely for survival [59], and workplace bullying suppresses the bullied individual’s ability to control surrounding interpersonal relationships; (4) The need for meaningful existence. Individuals who suffer from workplace bullying tend to lack a sense of existence, and their value is often overlooked, making them “invisible” in the organization.
In addition, some scholars pointed out that workplace bullying would undermine the harmony and intensify hostility within the organization [60]. Higher levels of workplace bullying were predictive of counterproductive behaviors such as purposely wasting company material and supplies, purposely doing one’s work incorrectly and purposely damaging a valuable piece of property belonging to the employer [48]. Based on this, this study puts forward the following hypothesis:
H3
Workplace bullying negatively affects the organizational belonging.
H4
Organizational belonging plays a mediating role between workplace bullying and knowledge sharing.
The moderation effect of forbearance
Previous studies have shown that personality traits are an important factor for individual behaviors [24]. The current research on personality traits mainly focuses on the Big Five factors that constitute personality: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to experience, and Neuroticism, but ignores the social and cultural attributes of personality trait. Forbearance is a unique personality trait of Chinese people. It not only reflects an individual’s emotional stability, but also embodies their ability to regulate emotions [18]. The reason why we choose forbearance as a personality variable is that forbearance is the embodiment of individuals’ emotional management ability, and also has typical Chinese cultural characteristics.
Forbearance is endowed with the meaning of conflict coping in Chinese culture, and affects almost every Chinese behavior pattern through the process of individual socialization. Forbearance has two meanings of morality and practice. Moral forbearance refers to the cultivation of “self-restraint and rites” in Confucianism, which is a kind of kung fu theory; practical forbearance usually refers to the way of coping with conflicts in interpersonal life. The forbearance discussed in this study mainly refers to the latter. For the Chinese, forbearance is not only reflected in the “should be” in theory, but also a set of “actually” social psychological phenomena [61], which is a strategic psychological mechanism or process that makes the original specific psychological intention not put into practice. In this process, in order to avoid adverse consequences, or to anticipate beneficial consequences for themselves, others or the public, the parties have to do what they do not want or suffer physical and mental pain that they do not want.
Forbearance is a kind of worldly wisdom in Chinese society. It emphasizes that disputes, difficulties or misfortunes in the world can be resolved by yielding or non-demanding. Therefore, it is also a coping strategy to resolve interpersonal conflicts and pain [62]. Forbearance is an indirect emotional expression that requires the ego to resolve conflicts in a non demanding way [63]. Through correct emotional expression, forbearance can achieve multiple positive functions, such as promoting interpersonal harmony, avoiding disasters, and promoting personal survival. The emotional processing mechanism of forbearance can be divided into three levels: self suppression, cognitive transformation and homeopathic detour [62]. Self suppression is the first level of the expression of forbearance. Most of them are forced to suppress or be forced to suffer from the helplessness of others. This forbearance is a negative coping strategy. Cognitive transformation is the second level of forbearance, which refers to the mental health mechanism that individuals achieve positive illusion by reinterpreting cognition to enhance their sense of benefit or moral advantage. Homeopathic detour is the highest level of forbearance. It is a temporary emotional adjustment taken by individuals in order to obtain greater benefits in the future. This behavior is most likely to be manipulated in the process of advancing and retreating, flexing and stretching, and finally achieve integration and problem solving.
Forbearance is not only the negative restraint, but also the inner vigilance and control. From the perspective of practical process, forbearance is the process of self-development and even control of the situation [64]. If an individual endures bullying blindly or consistently, it will cause physical and mental damage to him. Although it will not lead to the rupture of harmonious interpersonal relationship in the short term, it will produce the feeling of being isolated by the surrounding people and abandoned by the organization in the long term, which to some extent strengthens the negative impact of workplace bullying on employees’ organizational ownership; On the contrary, if the individual can show the flexibility of forbearance in adapting to the situation, although the individual also has the behavior of forbearance, such a forbearance model will lead to good physical and mental adaptation [65], showing positive behavior at work, thus easing the tense interpersonal relationship and enhancing mutual trust, which weakens the negative impact of workplace bullying on employees’ organizational ownership. Based on this, this study puts forward the following hypothesis:
H5
Forbearance regulates the relationship between workplace bullying and employees’ organizational belonging.
It is assumed that the relationship contained in H4 and H5 can be further expressed as a moderated mediating effect, that is, the mediating effect of organizational belonging on workplace bullying and employee knowledge sharing is moderated by the level of employee forbearance. Based on this, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H5
Forbearance moderates the mediating effect of organizational belonging between workplace bullying and employees’ knowledge sharing.
The above hypothesis can be further integrated into a theoretical framework as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Theoretical framework
Research methods and data collection
Data collection
The data were collected by questionnaire to test the proposed research hypotheses. In the process of data collection, we selected the scientific and technological enterprises certified by the Chinese government. The certified enterprises need to meet at least three of the following conditions: (1) the enterprises mainly engage in the research and development of high-tech achievements, the production and operation of high-tech products, and the main products conform to the High-tech Fields with National Key Support; (2) the proportion of scientific and technological personnel directly engaged in research and development in the total number of employees is not less than 5%; (3) the sum of technical income and sales income of high-tech products (services) accounts for not less than 30% of the enterprise’s operating income; (4) the proportion of the enterprise’s annual research and development expenses in the total sales revenue is not less than 3%; (5) the enterprise owns intellectual property rights such as patents, copyrights, integrated circuit layout design rights, and new plant varieties rights, or masters proprietary technology.
Before the formal survey, we conducted a pre-survey on 30 employees from a scientific and technological enterprise in Jiangsu Province, China. Based on the results of the pre-survey, we revised the structure and wording of the questionnaire, and initially tested its reliability and validity. The revised questionnaire was then used for the formal survey, which focused on the Yangtze River Delta region. To minimize the impact of common method bias on the research results. First, during the questionnaire design, we utilized well-established scales with high reliability and validity, and made efforts to ensure that the item statements conform to Chinese expressions during translation. Second, a longitudinal tracking research design was employed to establish a sample database, and data collection for different variables was conducted at three separate time points, with a one-month interval between each. The first questionnaire survey collected data on employees’ personal characteristics (gender, age, education, position) and workplace bullying. The second questionnaire survey collected data on employees’ organizational belonging and forbearance. The third questionnaire survey obtained data on employees’ knowledge sharing. A total of 570 questionnaires were distributed through field visits and emails, and 327 were actually returned. After excluding incomplete and homogenized questionnaires, 275 valid questionnaires were finally collected. The sample characteristic is shown in Table 1.
Table 1.
Sample characteristic(N = 275)
| Category | Characteristics | Sample Size | Proportion(%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | 189 | 68.7 |
| Female | 86 | 31.3 | |
| Age/Years | <35 | 158 | 57.1 |
| ≥ 35 | 117 | 42.9 | |
| Position | General Staf(Employee) | 227 | 82.5 |
| Middle to Junior Manager | 48 | 17.5 | |
| Education | < Bachelor Degree | 66 | 24.0 |
| = Bachelor Degree | 137 | 49.8 | |
| > Bachelor Degree | 72 | 26.2 |
Variable measurement.
The study mainly involved four variables: workplace bullying, organizational belonging, knowledge sharing and forbearance. When compiling the questionnaire, the existing mature scales were referred to, and the relevant words were revised to make it more in line with the setting of this study. The questionnaire uses a five-point Likert scale, with “1” representing strongly disagrees and “5” representing strongly agree. Workplace bullying mainly refers to the questionnaire of Einarsen [34], which includes 6 items, such as “I am often teased, insulted and ridiculed by others at work”. Organizational belonging mainly refers to the scales of Dukerich [66], Sheng-Tsung Hou, and Hsueh-Liang Fan [67], and 6 items are designed, such as “I feel that I am part of the company”. Knowledge sharing mainly refers to the scales of Bock etc [43]. and a total of 6 items are designed, such as “I usually share my newly acquired knowledge with colleagues” and so on. The measurement of forbearance mainly refers to the research results of Yi-Ceng Lin [65], Tsui-Shan Li, Ying-Ling Hsiao [68], Li-Li Huang [62], and designed 6 items, such as “When there is a conflict with my colleagues, I will be tolerant, considerate, and don’t care about them”, “I will not blindly endure frequent verbal insults”, etc. Demographic variables such as age, gender, and position were also added to the formal questionnaire to control the impact of these variables on the results of the study. The study was conducted by employees of enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta, who understood and volunteered to participate in the survey. The study was funded by Suqian University. The Institutional Review Board approved all ethical issues of Suqian University.
Empirical analysis
Descriptive statistical analysis
Descriptive statistical analysis was performed on the samples using SPSS 20.0, and the results are shown in Table 2. The average score of workplace bullying is 3.05, indicating that workplace bullying is common under the current circumstances. In terms of demographic variables, females scored slightly higher than males, but the independent sample T-test showed no significant difference; young employees under the age of 35 scored significantly higher than those over 35, indicating that bullying was more common among young employees; common employees scored significantly higher than managers; no significant differences were shown in terms of education. The average organizational belonging is 3.12, and there is no significant difference in terms of gender, but the sense of organizational belonging of older employees is significantly higher than that of young employees, and the sense of belonging of managers is significantly higher than that of ordinary employees, and there is no significant difference in education. The average score of knowledge sharing is 3.57, the score of men is significantly higher than that of women, the score of managers is significantly higher than that of ordinary employees, and the difference in education is not significant. The average score of forbearance is 3.25, indicating that the forbearance of employees in the current workplace is generally in the transition stage from the second level to the third level. The score of men is significantly higher than that of women, indicating that men’s forbearance is more rational than that of women; The score of employees over 35 years old is slightly higher than that of employees under the age of 35, but the difference is not significant; the score of managers is significantly higher than that of ordinary employees, indicating that managers with rich interpersonal experience are more able to follow the trend than ordinary employees.
Table 2.
Descriptive statistics of variables
| Standard deviation | Mean value | Gender | Age | Position | Education | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | Female | ≤ 35 | > 35 | Employee | Manager | < bachelor | bachelor | > bachelor | |||
| W.B | 1.207 | 3.05 | 3.03 | 3.09 | 3.32 | 2.69 | 3.10 | 2.81 | 3.07 | 3.04 | 3.05 |
| O.B | 1.205 | 3.12 | 3.13 | 3.09 | 3.07 | 3.19 | 3.05 | 3.45 | 3.16 | 3.15 | 3.04 |
| K.S | 1.221 | 3.57 | 3.62 | 3.47 | 3.52 | 3.64 | 3.49 | 3.95 | 3.60 | 3.58 | 3.54 |
| F.O | 1.217 | 3.25 | 3.37 | 2.98 | 3.23 | 3.28 | 3.17 | 3.62 | 3.22 | 3.26 | 3.27 |
Note W.B: workplace bullying O.B: organizational belonging K.S: knowledge sharing F.O: forbearance
Correlation analysis
Before the correlation analysis, the reliability and validity of the scale were tested by SPSS20.0. The test results show that the Cronbach’s α values of workplace bullying, organizational belonging, knowledge sharing and forbearance are 0.675, 0724, 0.817, and 0.712, which are all greater than 0.6, and the KMO values are 0.887, 0.901, 0.912, and 0.897, which are all greater than 0.5. The reliability coefficient of the total scale is 0.877, which is greater than that of each subscale, indicating that the scale has good reliability and internal consistency. The standardized loading coefficients of each latent variable is greater than 0.5, and reached the significance level of 0.01, and the AVE value of each variable was also greater than 0.5, indicating that the scale had good construction validity and convergence validity. Then, SPSS20.0 was used to calculate the correlation between variables, and the results are shown in Table 3. The correlations between the variables reached a significant level. There was a significant negative correlation between workplace bullying and organizational belonging, knowledge sharing and forbearance (β=-0.417, -0.421, -0.189).The correlation coefficient between organization belonging and knowledge sharing was 0.576, and reached a significant level of 0.001. Forbearance is positively correlated with organization belonging (β = 0.213, p < .05).
Table 3.
Correlation coefficient matrix
| Variable | Correlation Coefficient | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W. B | O. B | K. S | F. B | |
| W. B | 1 | |||
| O. B | -0.417** | 1 | ||
| K. S | -0.421** | 0.576*** | 1 | |
| F. B | -0.189* | 0.213* | 0.272* | 1 |
Note *、**、*** respectively indicate significant at the levels of 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 (two tailed test); W.B: workplace bullying O.B: organizational belonging K.S: knowledge sharing F.O: forbearance
Test of mediation effect
SEM was used to test the mediating effect of organizational belonging, and AMOS20.0 was used to construct models without mediating effect (Model 1) and models with mediating effect (Model 2). The model fitting results are shown in Table 4. The fit index CFI and NFI of model 1 did not meet the standardization requirement of 0.9, and the fit index of model 2 both met the requirement, indicating that the mediation effect model is a better model and the mediation effect exists.
Table 4.
Goodness index of structural equation model
| Index | χ²/df | CFI | NFI | IFI | GFI | AGFI | RMSEA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acceptable values | 1 < x2/df < 3 | > 0.9 | > 0.9 | > 0.9 | > 0.9 | > 0.9 | < 0.08 |
| Model1 | 2.17 | 0.892 | 0.868 | 0.907 | 0.916 | 0.927 | 0.762 |
| Model2 | 1.87 | 0.922 | 0.903 | 0.911 | 0.922 | 0.939 | 0.677 |
The results of path analysis and hypothesis testing of the mediating effect model are shown in Table 5; Fig. 2.
Table 5.
Results of the empirical analysis of workplace bullying and knowledge sharing
| Hypothesis | Path coefficient | Significance | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model 1: workplace bullying→knowledge sharing | -0.423 | *** | Yes |
|
Model 2: H1: workplace bullying→knowledge sharing |
-0.227 | *** | Yes |
| H2: organizational belonging→knowledge sharing | 0.434 | *** | Yes |
| H3: workplace bullying→organizational belonging | -0.362 | *** | Yes |
From Fig. 2; Table 5, it can be seen that the direct effect of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing is -0.227, which has reached the significance level, and the negative effect of workplace bullying on organizational belonging has also reached the significance level, and organizational belonging has a significant positive impact on knowledge sharing, whereby hypotheses H1, H2, and H3 are all verified. By comparing the effect path coefficients of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing in Model 1 and Model 2, we can see that the effect path coefficient of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing is still significant after adding the mediating variable, but the path coefficient is significantly reduced (model1β=-0.423; model2β=-0.227), indicating that organizational belonging partially mediates the negative impact of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing, hypothesesH4 is supported.
Fig. 2.
Mediation model of organization belongingness
Moderating effect test
According to the method provided by Aiken and West [69], draw a moderation graph of forbearance as shown in Fig. 3 to explore the moderation effect under different forbearance levels. From Fig. 3, it can be seen that the level of forbearance plays a reverse moderating role in the negative relationship between workplace bullying and organizational belonging. That is to say, employees with low forbearance levels are more sensitive to workplace bullying and tend to respond to it with a negative attitude, which further exacerbates the negative impact of workplace bullying on organizational belonging.
Fig. 3.
Moderation role of forbearance
Using SPSS20.0, hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the moderating effect of forbearance, in which gender, age, position and education were used as control variables, workplace bullying was used as an independent variable, organizational belonging was used as a dependent variable, and forbearance was used as an adjusting variable. Following the steps of moderation effect testing, a control variable model was first constructed (model 1), and the model fitting was good, and then the independent variable was added to the regression model 2 (see Table 6), and has more explanatory power. From Model 2 in Table 6, it can be seen that workplace bullying has a significant negative impact on organizational belonging, which verifies hypothesis H3 again. Then, the moderating variable forbearance was added to model 3, and the results showed that the model was well fitted, and forbearance had a significant explanatory effect on organizational belonging. Finally, the product term of the independent variable and the moderator variable is added to the model. In order to avoid the co-linearity of the independent variable and the interaction term, the product term was averaged. It can be seen from Model 4 that the product of workplace bullying and forbearance has a significant explanatory effect on organizational belonging, and the direction is negative, that is, forbearance negatively regulates the relationship between workplace bullying and organizational belonging. That is to say, when employees’ forbearance is at a high level, the negative impact of workplace bullying on employees’ organizational belonging will be weakened. So hypothesis H5 was supported.
Table 6.
Results of the hierarchical regression of workplace bullying and organizational belonging
| Variable | Organizational Belonging | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model1 | Model2 | Model3 | Model 4 | |
|
Gender Age Position Education Independent variable: W.B |
0.008 0.104* 0.112* 0.007 |
0.045* 0.056 0.044 0.033 -0.427*** |
0.036 0.058 0.051 0.031 -0.223** |
0.045* 0.062* 0.048 0.035 − 0.201* |
| Adjusting variable: forbearance | 0.187** | 0.105* | ||
| The product of workplace bullying and forbearance | -0.277** | |||
| R 2 | 0.021 | 0.027 | 0.097 | 0.137 |
| Adj R 2 | 0.021 | 0.062 | 0.121 | |
| ΔR 2 | 0.022 | 0.081 | 0.133 | |
| F-Value | 5.231** | 21.17*** | 39.53*** | 45.66*** |
Note *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001 W.B: workplace bullying
Whether the moderated mediating effect is established depends on four conditions: (1) workplace bullying has a significant impact on knowledge sharing; (2) Organizational belonging has a significant impact on knowledge sharing; (3) The interaction between workplace bullying and organizational belonging has a predictive effect on knowledge sharing; (4) When the level of forbearance is different, the strength of the mediating effect of organizational belonging is different. According to the previous test results, conditions (1), (2) and (3) are all satisfied. According to the research results of Edwards [70], Du Hengbo et al. [24] using the “boots-pulling method” to test condition (4), the samples were firstly divided into two groups according to the size of forbearance, and the data with one standard deviation higher than the mean value of " forbearance " is regarded as the high forbearance level group, and the data with one standard deviation lower than the mean value of forbearance is regarded as the low forbearance level group. The mediating effect of the two groups is tested respectively, and the test results are shown in Table 7.
Table 7.
Empirical analysis results of the moderated mediating effect
| Adjusting variable | workplace bullying(X)、organizational belonging (Z)、knowledge sharing(Y) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No mediation effect | mediation effect of Z | |||||
| X→Z | Z→Y | X→Y | X→Y | X→Z | Z→Y | |
| Low group | -0.427*** | 0.372*** | -0.411*** | -0.213** | -0.321** | 0.226** |
| High group | -0.236** | 0.327*** | -0.277** | -0.088 | -0.092 | 0.137* |
Note *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001
From the Table 7, it can be seen that at the low forbearance level, the mediating effect of organizational belonging is significant, but at the high forbearance level, the mediating effect of organizational belonging is not significant, so condition (4) is supported. Therefore, hypothesis H6 is supported.
Conclusions
This study selects the concepts of forbearance and “belonging” with Chinese cultural characteristics (forbearance is the cores value of Chinese conflict management and belonging represents the Chinese relationshipism tendency). It takes employees of scientific and technological enterprises as the research object, and discusses the impact mechanism of workplace bullying on knowledge sharing, the following conclusions are drawn.
First, in Chinese culture, workplace bullying negatively affects the knowledge sharing of employees in scientific and technological enterprises. This conclusion is consistent with the existing research results. Studies in both Western and Eastern cultural contexts have shown that workplace bullying, as a form of cold violence, will have a negative impact on employees’ job satisfaction, job engagement, job performance, and harmonious interpersonal relationships. Long-term workplace bullying will also destroy the established trust and commitment among employees, sever their relationships, and make social interaction disappear or become a mere formality. Knowledge sharing is a form of social interaction, which can only be achieved through adequate communication among employees. Beyond question, workplace bullying will have a negative impact on knowledge sharing. This research conclusion extends the influence of workplace bullying to the special field of knowledge sharing, and deepens the understanding of the relationship between workplace bullying and knowledge sharing among tech employees.
Second, workplace bullying not only has a direct impact on knowledge sharing, but also has an indirect effect with organizational belonging as an intermediary variable. Scholars such as Du Hengbo, etc [24]. selected the organizational identity as a mediating variable when studying the impact of workplace bullying on organizations, and verified the mediating effect of organizational identity. This study selects the concept of organizational belonging that is more in line with Chinese habits (many scholars believe that organizational belonging contains organizational identity) to study its mediating effect. The results show that workplace bullying will reduce employees’ sense of organizational belonging, and then affect the knowledge sharing among employees. This research conclusion is basically consistent with the research results of the above scholars.
Third, forbearance played a moderating role in the negative relationship between workplace bullying and employees’ organizational belonging, and negatively moderated the mediating role of organizational belonging between workplace bullying and knowledge sharing. Forbearance is the core value of Chinese conflict handling. Employees with a high level of forbearance will assimilate workplace bullying, and can follow the trend, accumulate thin and then develop. This is similar to the “sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall” and the “humiliation of Han Xin’s crotch” often said by Chinese people. They can achieve the realm of “breaking through the dark clouds and seeing the rainbow” by “accepting adversity”. Knowledge sharing is a two-way interactive process. One party will acquire the knowledge of the other party directly or indirectly while sharing its own knowledge. At the same time, forbearance has a certain purpose. Even if employees with high forbearance experience workplace bullying, they may still share knowledge with others to improve themselves or achieve organizational goals. On the contrary, employees with a low level of forbearance cannot fully and correctly think about the reasons for bullying and the positive meaning it may bring. Instead, they blindly endure, expecting the other party’s “Conscience Discovery” or “prodigal son’s return”. However, what this kind of forbearance will often get is worse, which will lead to serious physical and mental harm to the bullied employees and adverse consequences for individuals, others and even the organization.
Implications and future research directions
This study extends the research content on the influencing factors of knowledge sharing. The analysis of factors affecting knowledge sharing has always been a research focus in this field. Although scholars have conducted many beneficial explorations, there is a phenomenon of homogeneity in the research on the influencing factors of knowledge sharing. That is, more research has been done on some influencing factors, while less research has been done on others. For instance, there is more research on “trust” [56] and “organizational culture“ [71], but less research on “social culture”, especially the cross-effects of social culture and organizational culture. Therefore, this study tries to analyze the relationship between these understudied factors and knowledge sharing, enriching and supplementing the existing research results. Additionally, the analysis of the internal mechanism of knowledge sharing behavior among employees in scientific and technological enterprises helps organizations and managers better understand the occurrence mechanism of knowledge sharing, and find ways and solutions to promote knowledge sharing among employees.
There are still some areas that need improvement in this study, which can serve as future research directions in this field. First of all, forbearance is a dynamic process [18]. When individuals encounter workplace bullying in the early stage, they will tend to choose self-repressive forbearance to face it. After many experiences of forbearance, individuals may recognize the adjustment of knowledge, emotion and behavior, even if there are still individual differences in the adjusted forbearance, the essence of forbearance will change, that is to say, forbearance is constantly growing. This study does not distinguish the growth of forbearance, but adopts a cross-sectional approach to investigate forbearance at a specific point in time, which may lead to deviations in the research results, which needs to be confirmed by subsequent studies.
Secondly, Chinese people usually regard themselves as a unit of the whole society, they cannot to isolate themselves from the complex interpersonal relationships, and tend to treat others who have different relationships with them in different ways, even in the workplace. When a bullying incident occurs, employees may first make relationship judgments and adopt different forbearance strategies depending on the relationship between the abuser and themselves. This study did not consider this difference, but measured forbearance as a holistic concept, which may affect the situational applicability of the research results, and this area still needs to be further studied.
Thirdly, according to standards, workplace bullying can be divided into many different forms. Employees may decide their forbearance strategies according to the form and content of bullying. This study does not distinguish the differential impact that different types of workplace bullying may bring. Finally, the research object of this study focuses on scientific and technological enterprises, and does not consider the possible impact of differences in enterprise types. Most employees of scientific and technological enterprises are knowledge-based employees, which have their own particularity compared with general manufacturing enterprises and service-oriented enterprises. Whether the research results obtained for employees of scientific and technological enterprises are applicable to other types of enterprises needs to be further studied in the future. In addition, forbearance is the core value of Chinese culture, but according to structuralism, forbearance is just a big tradition of Chinese culture. According to the big tradition, small traditions unique to each region may be developed to form regional cultural atmosphere. The survey scope of this study focuses on the Yangtze River Delta region. There may be regional cultural tradition differences between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, Beijing Tianjin Hebei and other different regions, so whether the results of this study are applicable to other regions needs further comparative research.
Author contributions
Conceptualization, data analysis, writing, methods, and visualization, FK; writing, review and editing, LZ and XT; supervision and funding acquisition, GW. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
No funding.
Data availability
The dataset used in this study was collected and organized by the author through a questionnaire survey. Readers can contact the author for further information.
Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board, Suqian University. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. This study obtained relevant research data through a questionnaire survey.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Footnotes
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Data Availability Statement
The dataset used in this study was collected and organized by the author through a questionnaire survey. Readers can contact the author for further information.