Mapping the Mistreatment Landscape: An Integrative Review and Reconciliation of Workplace Mistreatment Constructs

ABSTRACT As the literature on workplace mistreatment has grown, so too have the number of constructs proposed to represent distinctive forms of mistreatment. However, considerable disagreement exists surrounding whether these proposed constructs represent unique manifestations of workplace mistreatment or represent a single underlying phenomenon. This paper therefore offers an integrative review of the workplace mistreatment literature with the goal of aiding in construct reconciliation. More specifically, this review summarizes the underlying theories, motives, behavioral expressions, and correlates of extant workplace mistreatment constructs to critically examine their similarities and differences. We then leverage that review to propose a taxonomy of mistreatment that advances four key dimensions along which mistreatment behaviors may vary: motives, contact, harm, and prohibition. Finally, the review concludes with a roadmap to direct future research toward unanswered questions that must be addressed before the similarities and differences among existing mistreatment constructs can truly be understood. The goal is to encourage mistreatment scholars to reconsider the current boundaries erected around mistreatment constructs and whether they best represent the meaningful ways in which discrete manifestations of mistreatment vary. This paper also aims to guide researchers toward ways mistreatment constructs can be repackaged to yield novel insights into how mistreatment operates.