20 Years of workplace bullying research: A review of the antecedents and consequences of bullying in the workplace

Research on workplace bullying, which has just recently passed the 20 year mark, has grown significantly over this duration of time. We provide an extensive review of the extant literature, with a focus on the antecedents and consequences of workplace bullying. We organize our review of the extant literature by level of analysis, which allows us to understand workplace bullying from each major level of analysis, while simultaneously identifying those levels at which research has been sparse. We then develop a conceptual model based on our review that similarly depicts theoretical and/or empirical findings from the extant literature, but in a succinct manner. Based on our review and conceptual model, we identify and highlight a number of key avenues for future research that will help extend the current workplace bullying literature.

► Workplace bullying research has grown significantly over the past 20 years.
► There is a paucity of research on perpetrator, group, and societal bullying.
► We present a levels-based conceptual model of the key antecedents and consequences.