Workplace Bullying and Intention to Leave: The Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

Bullying at work and its impact on employees' intention to leave are the focus of this study. Specifically, this research aims to determine the link between workplace bullying and emotional exhaustion and the intention to leave. Data were gathered from 234 employees working in the Saif group of Pakistan through questionnaires. The study sample was drawn using the convenience sampling technique. The non-probability sampling technique was used because of the Covid 19 situation; as per government notification, only 50% of the staff was present in the offices. This study used SPSS V. 25 for direct relationships, Hayes model 4 for mediation analysis, and for model fitness, we used CFA (Amos 22). The results show that workplace bullying has a statistically significant and positive impact on the intention to quit and emotional exhaustion plays a significant role in mediating this connection (β=0.38***, SE=0.074, LLCI=0.3077 and ULCI=0.6176). Based on these results, we conclude that workplace bullying is a mayor cause of employees' exhaustion and compels them to depart from an organisation at some point. In light of these results, supervisors or line managers play a vital role in organisational sustainability by retaining skilful employees by making the workplace environment friendly and cooperative in the long run.