The effects of COVID-19 risk, gender, and self-compassion on the workplace cyberbullying and job satisfaction of university faculty

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine workplace cyberbullying (WPCB) in higher education. Specifically, the study examines the relationship between WPCB and several important factors such as self-compassion, job satisfaction, and gender. The cross-sectional study administered a survey to a convenience sample of 179 faculty members. The regression model showed that self-compassion was positively related to job satisfaction, whereas WPCB was negatively related to job satisfaction after controlling for covariates. The path analysis model results showed that gender and COVID-19 risk of severe illness were related to WPCB. Additionally, self-compassion mediated the inverse relationship between WPCB and job satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• higher education
• job satisfaction
• self-compassion
• workplace cyberbullying

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SE328.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SE328 and https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SE328.

Notes

1. The corresponding data and resources from this study are openly available through the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/e9mpa/

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Leslie Ramos Salazar

Leslie Ramos Salazar is an Associate and Abdullat Professor of Business Communication and Decision Management at the Paul and Virginia College of Business at West Texas A&M University. Her teaching areas include health care communication, business communication, and statistics for business and economics. Her research specializes in health communication, business communication, conflict management, and interpersonal communication. She has also co-authored It’s Interpersonal: An Introduction to Relational Communication and edited the Handbook of Research on Cyberbullying and Online Harassment in the Workplace.

Adam Weiss

Adam Weiss is an assistant professor of education at West Texas A&M University. He has published articles and book chapters over diverse topics such as adult ESL education, school finance, cyberbullying in higher education, and teaching refugee children’s literature. He is currently working on finishing an Open Education Resource (OER) textbook, Learning for College Achievement, which was supported through a grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Jillian Williamson Yarbrough

Jillian Williamson Yarbrough is a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Virginia Engler Professor of Management at West Texas A&M University. She earned her BS in Education from Texas Christian University and her MS, MBA and PhD from Texas A&M University in Management and Human Resources. Dr. Yarbrough has over 20 years of experience in higher education teaching online, face to face and hybrid courses for both undergraduates and graduate students. Her teaching areas include principles of management, organizational behavior, human resource management, healthcare management, cultural intelligence, and the MBA portfolio.

Katelynn Sell

Katelynn M. Sell is an Assistant Professor of Management at H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University. Her teaching areas include strategic management, business ethics, and change management. Her research areas focus on organizational legitimacy, organizational discourse, and employee wellbeing.