The design and development of a readiness assessment tool for workplace bullying interventions

For roughly three decades, workplace bullying intervention research has struggled to design and implement interventions that effectively address and prevent the behaviour. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to explore this lack of effectiveness and identify ways to improve workplace bullying intervention success. 

Readiness was identified as a key concept that is widely posited as crucial for change success in other realms of literature but has not yet been considered in workplace bullying intervention research. A conceptual model and process framework depicting readiness for change in a bullying context was initially proposed. Using Template Analysis, a two-stage, modified Delphi study, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Pearson’s Bivariate Correlation, the proposed conceptual model and its relationship with outcome variables was confirmed. Results indicated readiness for workplace bullying consists of two-factors: structural readiness and psychological readiness, and that these are underpinned by nine, sub-components. High levels of readiness were also confirmed to have an influence on higher levels of perceived intervention success and employee engagement in and support for prospective workplace bullying interventions. A readiness for workplace bullying interventions assessment tool was also designed, developed, and validated through this research. Results of validation studies confirmed the tool to be a valid and reliable instrument with a robust factorial structure and high internal construct validity. 

The key limitations of this research are that the model does not account for the role emotion, or previous experiences of workplace change has on employee perceptions of readiness and is not assessing individual readiness for change but rather, their perceptions of the organisations readiness to change. Despite these, this thesis has significantly advanced research and practice around workplace bullying interventions by providing scholars with a comprehensive understanding of what constitutes readiness for a workplace bullying intervention, alongside how this influences behavioural outcomes amongst employees regarding the change. For practitioners and organisations, this research has also created an accessible and efficient assessment tool, that can be used to measure levels of readiness, in order to establish context-intervention fit (the appropriateness of an intervention in its setting) and derailment risk for a workplace bullying intervention. To the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first study in the field to conceptualise readiness for change to a workplace bullying context and in doing so, has helped amass potential for future research to develop workplace bullying interventions that effectively prevent and address the behaviour in the long-term.