Job satisfaction and public service motivation in Australian nurses: the effects of abusive supervision and workplace bullying
研究调查了辱虐管理与职场欺凌对澳大利亚护士工作满意度和公共服务动机的联合影响，发现辱虐管理通过降低工作满意度间接削弱公共服务动机，且职场欺凌调节了这一关系。
Workplace mistreatment is common in healthcare, especially among nurses, who may experience mistreatment from different sources, yet must carry out essential, public-facing duties. However, researchers have typically studied forms of mistreatment in isolation. This paper investigates the combined relationship between abusive supervision (i.e., vertical mistreatment) and workplace bullying (i.e., horizontal mistreatment) on job satisfaction and public service motivation among nurses. Drawing from self-determination theory, we examine how experiencing workplace mistreatment can thwart the fulfilment of psychological needs, operationalised as job satisfaction. Experiencing workplace bullying alongside abusive supervision is predicted to worsen this relationship. In turn, nurses are less likely to internalise their organisation’s values, leading to less public service motivation. We tested our hypotheses on 219 Australian public sector nurses via an online survey, with a temporal separation of six weeks. Results suggest that abusive supervision has an indirect negative association with public service motivation, via job satisfaction. Workplace bullying moderated the indirect relationship at high and low levels, though the indirect relationship was stronger at low levels. Our study contributes to a well-rounded understanding of workplace mistreatment, particularly within the context of self-determination theory, and to our understanding of how public service motivation is affected by employees’ social environment.