The demographic profile of the respondents is shown on Table 1. There are six

personal attributes measured namely: age, gender, civil status, highest educational attainment and length of service. The survey result showed that in terms of age, the respondents are not equally distributed. There are 116 respondents aged 21 - 30 years old. While only 25.7 percent are belonging to age bracket 31 - 40. The study reveals that majority of health care personnel in Cabanatuan City are young professionals.

The gender of the respondents showed a larger number of female respondents compared to male. There are 107 female respondents while 76 males that took part in the study. The respondents are either supervisors or staff nurses. The result showed that as traditionally established, nursing as a profession remains female dominated.

Table 2 also indicates that when it comes to the acts of caring and love, women are more willing to share than men. Nursing as a profession is dominated by mothers, sisters or even daughters.

The respondents are all College Graduates. The majority are bachelors’ degree holders equivalent to 145% or 79.2% (Table 3). All are graduates of Bachelor of Science in Nursing and allied courses. Some of the respondents pursued higher level of education such as Masters’ Degree with a total of 26% or 14.2% of the overall number of respondents. There are 6% or 2.2% doctorate degree holders of various health sciences and allied courses. Almost all the respondents are trained in nursing and medical related fields

Meanwhile, the length of service of the majority of the respondents is falling under the bracket less than two years (Table 4). They are newly graduates from the various Colleges of Nursing in the Philippines. At a young age, they are still lacking of experience but in terms of age they are in the prime of their lives. Meanwhile, almost half of the respondents have been working in the hospitals for two to five years. It reveals that majority of the participants are tenured health care workers. This is because the Labor Code of the

The Philippines mandates that any worker in a private organization working for more than 1 year shall be entitled to regular appointment. This is perhaps the

reason why many of the staff nurses are not subject to workplace bullying.

The lowest number of respondents as to the length of service bracket is nine years and above considering that there are only two % of them or four respondents. The table for personal profile is presented in Table 5.

Table 5 presents the responses of the health workers on their perception of injustice in terms of promotion. The table indicates that,

In the eyes of the respondent-staff nurses and their superiors, there is system of promotion and the system is based on merit. This response is consistent with their disagreement of the system of patronage as the means to promote nurses. Both the managerial nurses and subordinates believe that there is fair system of promotion done periodically and open to all. The system of promotion is known to the nurses and is open to everybody. This fact is verbalized by the respondents as “strongly agree” having a weighted mean score ranging from 2.77 - 3.0 for the item questions number 1, 6 and 8. The finding negates the possibility of injustice in terms of promotion.

The finding is further confirmed by the “disagreement” that patronage and spoils are sometimes basis of promotion both in salary and administrative assignment. In most studies pertaining to workplace concerns, promotion is the common source of demoralization in ranks which later on leads to a hostile

Legend: 1.00 to 1.66 Disagree; 1.67 to 2.33 Agree; 2.34 to 3.00. Strongly Agree.

work place. In addition, work behavior is greatly influenced by work promotion. A person who does not deserve to be promoted when promoted invites dissent and job dissatisfaction [19] ; other than this is a means to destruct attainment of employee’s goals. As observed, there was indeed good promotional system in the selected hospitals in Cabanatuan City, Philippines.

As shown in Table 6, social exclusion is a factor to workplace concern. A person who is socially excluded fails to develop self confidence. Social exclusion is proven to lower moral and self-esteem. In the study, there is no policy or unwritten rule to separate staff nurses from their supervisors. This fact is shown by WM scores of 1.22 for staff nurses and 1.20 for managerial nurses. Both the scores obtained are numerical representation of “disagreement” to the statement that newly hired nurses are socially excluded from mingling with tenured or senior employees or supervisors. The answer is supported by consistent disagreement on item questions, 4, 7 and 8 where both supervisors and staff nurses have similar responses. This only goes to show that there is no conscious social exclusion in the workplace. The answers of both staff nurses and supervisors pointed to the fact that there is “disagreement” in terms of social exclusion which logically means that the organization allows and encourages socialization and social inclusion. The social and inter-personal processes in the hospitals or work places

Legend: 1.00 to 1.66 Disagree; 1.67 to 2.33 Agree; 2.34.

are not predetermined but is free to develop based on the employees behaviour and social preferences. It prevents isolation and alienation. The latter being factor to workplace bullying.

As a factor of workplace concern, social exclusion under items 1, 4, 7 and 8 showed that both supervisors and nursing staff believed that social isolation is not existing in the work place. The social groupings based on length of service, workload assignment based on seniority, isolation due to short length of service are not considered existing in the organization as a matter of practice. Social exclusion has the negative effect of poor performance [20] . Social exclusion is a form of work place harassment synonymous to “passing aggressive” [21] . It is negatively correlated to performance of hospitality workers [22] .

Notice that all questions lead to one conclusion, that the absence of seniority in the workplace and its effect on social isolation on account of being new and non members of social group. It is observed that regardless of a person’s length of stay in the area of assignment, workload remains equally distributed among staff nurses not to mention the equal treatment to employees regardless of their having disadvantage personal or work characteristics which by ocular inspection not a factor in treating staff nurses. On the contrary, among supervisors, they also believed and perceived that social exclusion is not practice in the organization as supported by a “disagree” response. And an average weighted mean score of 1.2 across number items.

Table 7 below showed a non-directive and consultative behaviour as presented in numbers 1 and 4 items. The items for directive and non consultative behaviours showed a “disagree” response having a weighted mean scores of 1.15 and 1.10. This goes to show that both superiors and subordinate nurses believed that autocratic leadership is not present in the workplace. It is noteworthy here that having an authoritarian leader at work exerts pressures upon subordinate employees arising from demanding and autocratic control preference of superiors [23] . Such type of leadership can easily transforms organizational environment into a bully environment. Table 7 presented the item-responses of the participants.

Note that the two ideas are contradictory. If one is false the other is true. They are opposing questions. In general, the result showed that both subordinate nurses and their superiors are in unison to consider leadership style as liberal and democratic (results based, consultative, consensus oriented) free reign in the

Legend: 1.00 to 1.66 Disagree; 1.67 to 2.33 Agree; 2.34 to 3.00 Strongly Agree.

management of results. They are characteristics of democratic model of leadership in the workplace which has implications to health care services. Abroad, many nurses are employed in public sector health care agencies. It is recognized that these public sector contexts can be characterized by authoritarian leadership that leads to the failures in the delivery of public health services and shows ineffectual responses against workplace bullying.

Culture is important in the organization. It provides motivation and cohesion to employees in terms of work target. It serves as basis for providing meaning to symbols, images, work ethics and work related values. The prevailing organizational culture determines to a great extent organizational policies that the members must observe and follow. Table 8 below shows that results of survey on work related values within the context of work ethics and organization culture. The result is clear as to the willingness of the organization to settle differences. Item number 4 speaks of structural and organizational desire to “settle disputes between and among members”. The grievance machinery is intentionally created to provide avenue for settlement of differences. Both the staff nurses and superiors are “strongly agreeing” that groupings among employees are part of organization. It is an expression of the employees human nature where they socially interact with people of the same interest and persuasions. Needless to state, such human nature and tendency to associate dates back to the time of Greeks [24] .

Also, both sectors in the organization believed that there is a functional grievance machinery to ensure speedy settlement of personal and work related

disputes in the organization as shown by their “strongly agree” response. The mean scores for both items are 2.90 and 2.73 respectively. In general, the prevailing organizational culture is attuned to performance management and efficiency. It is compatible to creating work output while maintaining harmony as the center stage, front and priority of the organization. It is a typical Filipino organization where management is influenced by Filipino values of Pagkakaisa [25] . The organization is providing and recognizing the rights of employees to seek redress of grievances and pursuing all possible legal actions in proper forum to settle interpersonal legal complications. This observation is supported by a weighted mean of 2.0 both for staff nurses and their superiors verbally described as “agree”.

In general, the organizational culture prevailing in the respondent hospitals is said to be healthy and conducive to professional and interpersonal development backed by management recognition that social groupings is a necessary human need in the workplace.

Meanwhile, organizational dynamism propelled by organizational changes can create bully environment. It provides undue pressures to the employees resulting in stress at work [26] . Changes in the organization to become effective must be coupled with corresponding personal and work related changes in attitude and ethics. The organizational dynamics is a result of the organization responsiveness to the internal and external environment. The study showed unity of perception among nursing staff and their superiors. The table below depicts the dynamism of the respondents’ hospitals. As shown on Table 9, there is inconsistency in the responses of the staff nurses and their superiors. As one may notice, all the questions dovetailed to one thing, organizational dynamism as a result of quality of service upgrading and performance benchmarking. The inconsistency lies on question number 4 where the respondents across hospitals affirmed the fact that there is no on-going ISO accreditation. In general work pressures are the result of new process which requires extra-ordinary work performance of employees. Since there is no on-going accreditation local or international, as the employees revealed by a verbal description of “disagree”, there is therefore a slight chance of changing processes and rules since there is no benchmark to meet coming from the accreditation or audit team. The benchmark is a natural offshoot of accreditation. Since little is the chance to establish and meet benchmark of performance due to lack of Accreditation and ISO application performance. The dynamics of processing and documentations in the workplace are presented in Table 9.

Noteworthy is the presence of some “rules and regulations that nobody can comply”. It is verbally described by the respondents as “agree” by the superiors and staff nurses across hospitals. Rules that cannot be met is a source of stress and a potential bullying point on the part of a subordinate and is also prone to take advantage of by superior. It is in fact an obstruction of goal [27] . The

respondents “agreed” on that point. The organization in general is undergoing process modification even without application for accreditation and as a whole experiences self-dynamism.

Organizational environment is a product of organizational processes, structures and procedures brought about by organizational dynamism [28] . In terms of organizational environment, the respondents across hospitals revealed that work pressures are manageable and therefore do not create unhealthy work environment. The responses undeniably show the existence of work pressures but work stress is not enough to create unhealthy organizational environment as in other organizations in some other industries. The question item numbers 4 and 5 are ordinarily provide accurate measures of workplace stress and perhaps bullying environment. As the table shows there is unequal distribution of work assignments among superiors and nursing staff. This however, seems to be accepted by workers. They “agreed” in the uneven distribution of work assignments but refused to state that there is stressful environment.

Another is the absence of adequate lighting system in the workplace. The respondents across hospitals showed that there is disagreement as to the presence of ventilation and lighting system in the workplace as revealed by a verbal description of agree and a WM score of 1.87 or “disagree” couched in the positive statement but responded in the negative terms.

The response therefore affirmed the fact that the need to have adequate lighting system and employee stress, as a result of workplace environment does not always go together. As the respondents showed, stress at work is not always a product of workplace hygienic factors.

However, the stressful condition of the organization is at median range of measurement. As the respondents “agreed” that stress is felt every hospital duty. The stress therefore as admitted by the respondents is caused not by the environmental hygienic factors but by the demands and pressures of work independent from the usual organizational provisions of machines and devices at work but by the nature of jobs and the pressure of serving hospital patients. Table 10 presents all the items under organizational environments having the results of

Legend: 1.00 t 1. Legend: 1.00 to 1. 66 Disagree; 1.67 to 2.33 Agree; 2.34 to 3.00 Strongly Agree.

the absence of stressful environment, WM of 1.1 or disagree; 1.25 as to the work pressure or disagree; the tendency to file a leave of absence because of the volume of work, 2.15 or agree; employees are jolly and cheerful, WM of 2.00 or agree, and work activities are planned and assigned sufficient time to finish except in case patients’ emergency 1.12 or disagree. The table that follows showed the other results of survey questionnaires across private hospitals in Cabanatuan City in so far as perception on organizational environment and processes are concerned.

Table 11 presents the measure of prevalence of workplace bullying on the perception of nursing staff. As the table shows the adjectival rating of the overall weighted mean score is moderate prevalence. For the non managerial nurses, the presence of workplace bullying is moderate as shown by a 2.083 weighted mean score. Cultural orientation and perception of injustice in promotion have the high degree of prevalence

Table 12 provides the responses of managerial nurses. The factors of perception of injustice and cultural orientation have the high degree of prevalence among workplace bullying factors. Other factors have moderate prevalence on the eyes of the managerial nurses. The data showed that the two groups of samples

have almost the same perception on the prevalence of workplace bullying in selected health care organizations in the Philippines. The overall weighted mean score is 1.99 verbally described as moderate prevalence.

Significant The personal profile and workplace perception of respondents is shown on Table 13. As it is shown, there is no relationship between age and workplace perception of participants. The Significant relationship between the respondents profile and perception of bullying factors shows that there is enough statistical evidence to prove that a negative correlation is established using statistical correlation which is equal to −0.077 having a P value of 0.299 at 0.05 significant value. This means that a weak correlation is revealed between profile variables and their perception of workplace bullying. The same statistical interpretation was arrived at other profile variables. Therefore, there is no significant relationship between profile variables and workplace concerns making the study accept the null hypothesis.

There is sufficient statistical evidence to prove that there is no significant difference on the responses of staff nurses and supervisors on their organizational diagnosis of Factors antecedent to workplace bullying in private hospitals in Cabanatuan City, Philippines. Using a two tailed test, superiors and nurses showed a critical 2.02 mean score showing that the null hypothesis on the absence of significant difference between the two groups of samples is accepted (Table 14).