Why does workplace bullying affect victims' job strain? Perceived organization support and emotional dissonance as resource depletion mechanisms.

This study examines the emotional and support resource depletion mechanisms through which workplace bullying as a stressor manifests into burnout and psychological strain. Using the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we hypothesize that workplace bullying erodes victims' perceived organizational support and exacerbates emotional dissonance, which in turn result in job burnout and psychological strain. We collected temporally separated (three time intervals 3 months apart) field data from employees working in the service sector to test our hypothesis. Our results revealed that perceived organizational support (POS) (T2) and emotional dissonance (T2) fully mediate the bullying (T1) and job strain (T3) relationship. Our study adds important insights into the causal mechanisms of workplace bullying by identifying and examining two unique processes through which workplace bullying shows its deleterious effects on its victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]