On Observers’ Conjunctive Attributions and Blame for Workplace Mistreatment

This essay reflects on the need for more research to address observers’ perspectives and reactions when witnessing or hearing about workplace mistreatment. After describing workplace mistreatment with respect to a behavioral spectrum ranging from incivility to violence, this essay focuses on observers’ causal attributions and blame for workplace mistreatment. We relate observers’ conjunctive causal attributions to multifocus blame that positions the organization as decidedly more blameworthy than typical research in a traditional causal attribution paradigm would suggest. We also offer some suggestions for future research that is more responsive to observers’ blame for workplace mistreatment.

The version of record is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/15416518.2019.1604201. The full citation is as follows: [On Observers’ Conjunctive Attributions and Blame for Workplace Mistreatment. Organization Management Journal 16, 2 p111-122 (2019)]. 'This author accepted manuscript is deposited under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) licence. This means that anyone may distribute, adapt, and build upon the work for non-commercial purposes, subject to full attribution. If you wish to use this manuscript for commercial purposes, please contact permissions@emerald.com'