Toxic Work Environment Predicting Psychological Well-being and Work Engagement Among Customer Service Providers: Role of Personality Factors

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to examine the role of toxic work environment in predicting psychological well-being and work engagement among customer service providers. Study 1 of this research dealt with the translation and adaptation of two of the study measures (Toxicity Scale and Proactive Personality Scale) following forward and backward approach of Brislin (1970). Study 2 was completed in two phases. Phase I was the Pilot study which was conducted on the sample of 50 customer service providers with the age range of 19-42 (M= 27.38, SD= 5.21). Phase II was the main study which further included two steps. Step 1 included the structural validity of the translated scales through Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The results showed that all the items of the Proactive Personality Scale have acceptable factor loadings whereas three items of Toxicity Scale showed lower factor loadings so these items were removed from the scale for present study. Step 2 included hypotheses testing on a sample of 350 customer service providers with age range of 18 -62 years (M = 27.80, SD = 8.13). Instruments used in the study included Urdu versions of Toxicity Scale (McCulloch, 2017), Proactive Personality Scale (Seibert et al., 1999), Short Measure of Hardiness (Sinclair & Oliver, 2003), Psychological Capital Scale (Luthans et al., 2007), Psychological Well-being Scale (Ryff & Keyes, 1995) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Findings revealed that toxic work environment has a negative significant correlation with psychological wellbeing, all facets of psychological capital (hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism), work engagement but shows significant positive correlation with hardiness and proactive personality. Psychological wellbeing mediated the relationship between toxic work environment and work engagement. Moderation of personality factors was also determined in the relationship between toxic work environment and work engagement. For demographic variables men demonstrated significantly more experience of toxic work environment as compared to women. The significance of the study for future researches is to initiate appropriate interventions to help employees and employers to enhance their personality traits and to keep them under check. This would also help them to deals with the uncertainties or toxicity of the environment and eventually reducing its impact on the work engagement.