Victimization Behavior in the Workplace

Abstract

The Victimization Behavior in the Workplace (VBW) measure, developed by Aquino, Grover, Bradfield, and Allen in 1999, is an eight-item instrument designed to quantify the extent of victimization experienced by an employee resulting from a co-worker’s aggressive behavior. This scale operationalizes workplace victimization across two empirically distinct dimensions: Indirect Victimization and Direct Victimization.

Indirect victimization encompasses subtle, harmful actions that are difficult to detect or attribute, such as sabotaging an employee’s work or spreading rumors. Conversely, Direct victimization involves overt and visibly aggressive acts, including verbal abuse, threats of physical harm, or the use of offensive slurs directed at the target employee.

Keywords

Workplace victimization, Indirect victimization, Direct victimization, Workplace aggression, Organizational behavior, Negative affectivity, Self-determination, Employee well-being.

Authors

Karl Aquino, Steven L. Grover, Mark Bradfield, Dennis G. Allen.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the VBW scale is to provide researchers and practitioners with a reliable and valid tool for assessing the frequency and nature of aggressive behaviors directed toward employees by their co-workers. By distinguishing between direct and indirect forms of victimization, the scale allows for a nuanced understanding of how different types of interpersonal mistreatment manifest in the organizational setting.

The measure helps correlate specific forms of experienced aggression with critical psychological and organizational outcomes, such as negative emotional states and perceived autonomy within the job role, thereby facilitating research into the antecedents and consequences of workplace mistreatment.

Construct

The VBW scale measures the construct of Workplace Victimization, defined as the experience of being the target of aggressive or harmful behavior perpetrated by others within the work environment. This construct is explicitly theorized as bi-dimensional, capturing the spectrum of aggressive acts from covert to overt.

The two sub-constructs measured are:

• Direct Victimization: This dimension covers overt, observable acts of aggression that are confrontational, such as cursing, making threats, or using slurs.
• Indirect Victimization: This dimension covers covert, subtle acts intended to harm the target’s reputation, social standing, or work performance, such as sabotage or malicious gossip.

Validity

The VBW demonstrated strong evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity in its initial validation study. Both the direct and indirect dimensions of victimization showed theoretically consistent correlations with established psychological variables, supporting the scale’s utility in organizational research.

Specifically, both Direct Victimization and Indirect Victimization correlated positively with measures of Negative Affectivity, suggesting that individuals who experience higher levels of distress are more likely to report being victimized. Conversely, both dimensions correlated negatively with employee self-determination, indicating that experiencing workplace mistreatment significantly diminishes an employee’s perceived control and autonomy over their work life.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the two sub-scales was assessed using Coefficient Alpha, confirming the scales’ internal coherence and reliability for measuring the respective dimensions of victimization behavior.

• Internal Consistency for Indirect Victimization: The Coefficient Alpha value obtained was .81.
• Internal Consistency for Direct Victimization: The Coefficient Alpha value obtained was .76.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the VBW was supported through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA). The initial Exploratory Factor Analysis confirmed that the eight items consistently loaded onto the two hypothesized dimensions: Direct Victimization and Indirect Victimization (Aquino, Grover, et al., 1999).

Subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis further validated the structure, demonstrating that the two factors were empirically distinct constructs. This finding reinforces the conceptual separation between overt and covert forms of workplace victimization, indicating that they should be measured and analyzed as separate constructs.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychometric scale

Format: 8 items, 5-point Likert-type scale

Language Available: English (Original development)

Population Group: Employees/Co-workers in organizational settings

Age Group: Adult (Working population)

Population Details: Applicable to diverse organizational contexts where interpersonal aggressive behavior may occur between peers.

Test Methodology: Respondents are instructed to rate the frequency of specific behaviors directed toward them by a co-worker within the last year, using a frequency-based Likert scale.

Keywords

Aggression, Workplace bullying, Organizational psychology, Measurement, Interpersonal conflict, Self-determination, Negative affectivity.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1999

Permissions and Fee: Information regarding current licensing, usage, and permissions for the scale items must be obtained directly from the authors or the publisher, the Academy of Management Journal.

Reference’s

Aquino, K., Grover, S. L., Bradfield, M., & Allen, D. G. (1999). The effects of negative affectivity, hierarchal status, and self-determination on workplace victimization. Academy of Management Journal, 42(3), 260-272.

Items of the Victimization Behavior in the Workplace

Responses are obtained using a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = never, 2 = one to three times, 3 = four to six times, 4 = seven to nine times, and 5 = more than ten times. Respondents are instructed to answer based on the number of times they personally have witnessed a co-worker directing the described behaviors toward themselves within the last year.

Indirect victimization behaviors:

1. Said bad things about you to your co-workers
2. Sabotaged your work
3. Did something to make you look bad
4. Lied to get you in trouble

Direct victimization behaviors:

1. Made an ethnic, racial, religious, or offensive slur toward you
2. Made an obscene comment or gesture in front of you
3. Threatened you with physical harm
4. Cursed at you