The Role of Organizational Efforts in Mitigating the Adverse Effects of Workplace Mistreatment on Attitudinal Responses
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Author,
Please find my detailed review report in the attachment.
Best of Luck
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Abstract: it does not include the methods (see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions).
Introduction: the hypotheses and the main conclusions are missing.
Literature review: it would be easier if the text was not written with bold font. I recommend the author to add literature which creates a context for the paper - based on Canadian samples or samples from countries with the same cultural values or exploring the same issue in the same domain. Also, all the references are very old. While I acknowledge that they are useful and validated in other researches, I consider that more recent works should be added.
Sample and procedures: On page 2 the author states that "We examine these linkages with data that were collected in 2019." On page 5 "we rely on the 2008 Canadian Public Service Em-205 ployee Survey (PSES) data." This is a very important aspect and it has to be addressed before going forward with the paper. Details should be added? Is the dataset available? How did the author obtain the data?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Author do not contextualize their data, and the introduction lacks of information about where the general data were collected
H1a, H1b and H1c are hypotheses: authors write: ""Specifically, employees who are in relatively disadvantaged groups, such as young, non-white, female, less-educated, less-tenured, and non-managerial workers, are found to be more likely to suffer workplace grievance. Building on relevant research, we reasoned that there would be gender, age, and class differences in the likelihood of experiencing workplace grievance". It seems that the authors are trying to demonstrate something that is alredy well known in the literature;
The same happens with H2. In other words, what is the added value of the study?
As far as H3 is concerned, authors did not consider at all the literature on psychological contract violation
More than that, there is a serious drawback when looking at the measures adopted: organizational commitment was measured using a single item; Job satisfaction was measured with two items (no validated scale). Organizatonal commitment is considered as a tri-dimensional construct, while here only ne dimension is considered; some authors refer to this concept as a single dimestion, meant as affective comittment, which is not the case of the single item used for this study (which seems rather referred to the continuance dimention)
Why two items for the job satisfaction? there are some validated scale, and sometimes the same concept is measured with a single item. The two item-scaled does not seem to have been validated
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Accept in present form
Author Response
I appreciate the Reviewer 2 for the positive remarks on the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors write: "This study explores which groups of government employees are treated as relatively disadvantaged groups. Then, this study attempts to show the gender-, age-, and race-difference in perceptions and experiences of workplace mistreatment in the context of Canadian federal government employees." Again, it is not clear the study is needed and why it adds to the previous literature
Besides and above that, measurements of research variables. are highly debatable, since they lack of scientific soundness
Author Response
Point 1: "This study explores which groups of government employees are treated as relatively disadvantaged groups. Then, this study attempts to show the gender-, age-, and race-difference in perceptions and experiences of workplace mistreatment in the context of Canadian federal government employees." Again, it is not clear the study is needed and why it adds to the previous literature.
Response 1: The major contribution of this study is to examine the role of organizational efforts in buffering the negative effects of workplace mistreatment on public sector employees. Now, the introduction section is revised to clarify that this study focuses on organizational efforts in preventing and handling workplace mistreatment, not on the demographic differences in the incidences of workplace mistreatment.
In addition, this study examines the effect of occupation and the joint effect of occupation and gender on employee experiences of workplace mistreatment at the workplace. The previous studies have focused on the role of demographic factors in determining the likelihood of experiencing workplace mistreatment, and this study extends the current literature by constructing and examining the joint effects of socio-demographic factors.
Point 2: Besides and above that, measurements of research variables. are highly debatable, since they lack of scientific soundness.
Response 2: I agree with the Reviewer’s concern on the measurement of variables. The revised manuscript explicitly states that as some of the scales were based on a few items or a single item, the strength and pattern of the findings obtained from this study might be influenced by whether the measurement ia based on a single item or multiple items. However, some authors, such as Scarpello and Campbell (1983) advocate the relative credibility of utilizing a single item, or a few items, satisfaction measure through a unidimensional approach. Research also indicates that a single item assessing an attitudinal outcome variable is valid and reliable (e.g., Dolbier, Webster, McCalister, Mallon, & Steinhardt, 2005; Fakunmoju, 2021). In addition, turnover intention has been frequently measured with a single item. Although job satisfaction and organizational commitment are undoubtedly a complex construct with a number of different relevant targets and components, as the concept is not the primary focus of this study, a measurement based on a single item or a few items was deemed sufficient. Single-item measures have also found to be highly correlated with multi-item measures (see e.g., Nagy, 2002; Wanous, Reichers, & Hurdy, 1997).
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
As I mentioned before, measurements of research variables. are highly debatable, since they lack of scientific soundness.
Several scales were based on a few items or a single item and as the authors state themselves "the strength and pattern of the findings obtained from this study might be influenced by whether the measurement ia based on a single item or multiple items". Job satisfaction is sometimes measured with a single item, but the other scales used cannot be considered as realiable
Author Response
The reviewer is correct to point out the limitations of the use of a single item or a few items measures. However, there is an ongoing debate on when the use of single item measures is appropriate and sometime advantageous to the use of multiple items measures.
While the use of single-item (SI) measures is disadvantageous to the use of multiple-item measures in theory, SI measures are believed to have practical advantages over MI measures (Sarstedt & Wilczynski, 2009). The use of SI measures would be justified when the underlying constructs are homogenous (Loo, 2002). In addition, SI measures are likely adequate for narrow, clear, straightforward, concrete, and simple (one-dimensional) psychological constructs (Diamantopoulos et al., 2012; Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2009). Drawing upon the literature review and his own studies, Fakunmoju (2021) suggests that the use of SI measures is appropriate when the research objective is to gain a general view of the construct of interests, diverse employees of different organizational participate in the study, the construct of interest is clear, less ambiguous, and not of the major focus of the study, the intended analysis is aimed at determining associations or differences between the constructs.
The submitted manuscript focuses on the predictive validity of general forms of workplace harassment and discrimination and organizational efforts at handling such negative experiences, with many samples collected from diverse organizations and occupations. The use of single-item measures of harassment and discrimination are appropriate as they refer to the general forms of harassment and discrimination. The moderating variable, organizational efforts, has two dimensions of organizational efforts before and after discrimination/harassment, and uses the multiple-items measures.
The dependent variables are also well-understood concrete constructs, warranting that a single item may suffice. Indeed, Nagi (2010) advocates the single-item approach to measuring job satisfaction for its practical advantages in terms of face validity and flexibility. Wanous et al. (1997) also show that the single-item measures of overall job satisfaction are highly correlated with scale (or multiple-item) measures of overall job satisfaction. In numerous studies, employee turnover intention, one of the other two dependent variables, has been measured with a single-item scale (Tett and Meyer, 1993). Finally, some studies measured the continuance component of organizational commitment with a single item (e.g., Shouksmith, 1994).
Although the use of a single or a few items of measures is less than ideal, the reliability of these measures proved to be acceptable in the present study. And the possibility of over- or under-estimation of correlations between constructs is noted explicitly in the implication and conclusion section. Considering the purpose and contribution of this study is on the empirical examination of the moderating role of organizational efforts, using a multi-items scale, the present study gains practical advantages from the use of single-item measures of dependent variables by examining the main and joint effects of workplace harassment and discrimination and organizational efforts aimed at handling such workplace mistreatment. I have added a discussion on this limitation in the method and conclusion sections.
References:
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