Workplace bullying and turnover intentions among workers: a systematic review and meta-analysis
verifiedmedium profile · BMC Public Health · 2025
Sun, Siwen; Chen, Huan; He, Yang; Yu, Fuyang; Yang, Yupei; Chen, Haixiao; Tung, Tao-Hsin
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
workplace bullying → turnover intention
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
Workplace bullying occurs in various professions worldwide and significantly impacts employees and organizations. Researchers have reported that workplace bullying may be associated with an increased intention to leave one’s job. However, the conclusions regarding this relationship remain inconsistent. We searched the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, PsycInfo, and ProQuest databases from inception to September 20, 2024. Two authors independently screened the studies, assessed the quality of the included studies, and extracted data. Any disagreements were resolved through discussion with a third author. A meta-analysis was performed to combine the regression coefficient (B) or odds ratios (ORs) with their confidence intervals. The I2 statistic was used to quantitatively evaluate the degree of heterogeneity. Stata version 18.0 was used to conduct the meta-analysis, sensitivity analysis, and evaluation of publication bias risk. This systematic review and meta-analysis included 27 studies, including 3 prospective and 24 cross-sectional studies. In the cross-sectional studies, as combined effect sizes, the B and OR values revealed a significant association between the experience of workplace bullying and an increased intention to leave (B = 0.25, 95% CI [0.19, 0.31]) (OR = 1.30, 95% CI [1.17, 1.44]). The prospective studies indicated that experiencing workplace bullying is associated with increased turnover intentions over time (B = 0.09, 95% CI [0.01, 0.17]). Experiencing workplace bullying is positively correlated with employees’ increased intentions to leave. This result suggests that to reduce employee turnover in organizations, it is crucial to focus on and prevent workplace bullying.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
No open-access quotations have been captured yet.
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.