Workplace aggression and organisational effectiveness: the mediating role of employee engagement

We investigate the relationship between the prevalence of workplace aggression and two key outcomes: employee engagement and organisational effectiveness. Drawing on social capital theory, we propose that the level of employee engagement within the organisation helps explain the association between workplace aggression and organisational effectiveness. We used secondary survey data and an important indicator of organisational effectiveness in the healthcare sector (i.e. rates of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs)) from 101 hospitals in NSW, Australia. We found that hospitals with higher rates of workplace aggression had higher rates of patients with HAIs and that employee engagement was an important mechanism that helped explain this effect. These findings underscore the potential benefits of management policies and practices that are aimed at preventing workplace aggression and support greater employee engagement.