Workplace bullying in the hospitality industry: A hindrance to the employee mindfulness state and a source of emotional exhaustion

Abstract

We investigate how workplace bullying leads to employee emotional exhaustion through its detrimental effects on mindfulness. Extant research investigated mindfulness as a trait and treated it as a predictor or moderator. However, we model mindfulness as a state that can be altered by events such as bullying and thus, we conceptualize it as a mediator that is drained by bullying and thus influences emotional exhaustion. Our model is based on the Conservation of Resources theory and tested with data from 426 full-time employees in the hospitality industry in Zanzibar using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. Our results show that workplace bullying leads to employee emotional exhaustion and that mindfulness state is a mechanism through which bullying is related to exhaustion. The results provide managerial implications for practitioners to develop work environments to reduce emotional exhaustion and research implications for scholars about the role of mindfulness in dealing with adverse work environments.