Words matter: The impact of workplace verbal aggressiveness on workgroup relationship conflict, work-life conflict, and employee-organization relationships.

Workplace verbal aggressiveness is detrimental to employees and organizations and is perceived as unwanted and unproductive. This study examined whether and how verbal aggressiveness from supervisors and coworkers influences workgroup relationship conflict, employees' work-life conflict, and employee-organization relationships. An online survey was conducted with 392 full-time employees in the United States. The key findings of this study showed that when verbal aggressiveness abounds in a workgroup, it creates workgroup relationship conflict, which triggers individual employees' work-life conflict and tarnishes their trust, satisfaction, commitment, and sense of shared power with their organizations. • Toxic workplace communication can negatively impact the relationship between employees and the organization. • Workgroup relationship conflict arises from the verbal aggressiveness of supervisors and coworkers. • Workgroup relationship conflict can lead to work-life conflict and degrade employee-organization relationship quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]