Workplace Bullying and Self-Esteem among University Teachers: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Moderating Role of Defense Styles

Workplace bullying is a growing concern in academic institutions because it can lead to a negative effect on the psychological well-being of teachers, their confidence in their work, and their interpersonal functioning. This paper has investigated how workplace bullying has impacted self-esteem in university teachers and how defense styles mediate the relationship between workplace bullying and self-esteem. This research used mixed-method explanatory sequential research design. During the quantitative phase, a total of 119 university teachers, 61 males and 58 females, were sampled working in selected public and private universities in South Punjab, Pakistan. Workplace bullying, self-esteem, and defense styles were measured with standardized measures, including the Workplace Bullying Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Defense Style Questionnaire. The quantitative data were analyzed using correlation, regression, independent sample t-tests, and moderation analysis through SPSS. During the qualitative stage, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 university teachers in order to learn more about the reasons of workplace bullying and the potential ways of its reduction. These results revealed that workplace bullying had a significant negative impact on the prevalence of self-esteem, which implies that the greater the levels of bullying, the lower the levels of self-esteem. It was also found that defense styles significantly mediated the relationship between workplace bullying and self-esteem, but did not significantly mediate the relationship between workplace bullying and self-esteem. The gender-based results showed that female teachers were more likely to report higher levels of workplace bullying than male teachers, but no significant difference in gender in the defense styles. Based on the qualitative responses, workplace setting, misuse of power, personality differences, incompetent authority, and workload were found to be the most significant causes of workplace bullying. The study recommends creating awareness, fair administrative policies, open communication, empowerment, counselling and a healthy working environment to reduce bullying and to boost the self-esteem of educators.