Suffering Silence While Exposed to Workplace Bullying: The Role of Psychological Contract Violation, Benevolent Behavior and Positive Psychological Capital

Becoming impediment to organizational functioning in several ways, the prevalence of workplace bullying costs much to organizations. As in the current transition phase of Pakistan, the intentions to leave doesn’t manifest in actual turnover rates. Hence the current study is conducted to analyze the passive coping strategies of employees in the face of workplace bullying. It is theorized that the relationship is mediated by psychological contract violation. Moreover, it is predicted that the process of mediation is stronger for individuals who report high levels of benevolent behavior and perceives psychological capital to be low. Data is collected from 359 young doctors and nurses of three government administered hospitals. Results indicate a significant bullying-silence relationship where psychological contract violation plays a role of partial mediator. Moreover, benevolence and PsyCap are powerful moderators to alter the already established relationship. Conclusions of the current study are further elaborated in terms of their practical contribution and future directions. Workplace bullying is an organizational reality. Hence efforts to make an entire bullying-free environment is next to impossible. So, in addition to make an effort in ending up this maltreatment, managers must limit its consequences by understanding its dynamics. Reduce the bullying culture and save precious resources i.e. potential employees.


Introduction
A consequential concern faced by contemporary working environments is the event of maltreatment in work settings. Representing a major HR issue provided its antagonist influence on career outcomes, productivity of targets or even the witness [ (Salin, 2013) * namrajamshaid95@gmail.com validates the impact of workplace bullying beyond the perpetrator-target relationship, whereas Salin and Notelaers (2020) observes a significant difference in work-related attitudes of bystanders, who witness uncivil behavior and subsequently develop the feelings of betrayal and anger. Hence, it supports the notion of negatively impacting witnesses], the evolvement of the concept has reached a degree where it has been identified and recognized as one of the hot topics in the field of management and organizational psychology of 21 st century. Following the issue, a major challenge remains for the HR professionals in the development of strategies, procedures and processes required in resolving such profoundly perplexing and strenuous events where management of its consequences which perhaps takes the form of bad morale and turnover of the victim stands in question. (Fox & Cowan, 2015).
While taking various forms, a processual and escalating exposure to predominantly psychological mistreatment makes target tough to retaliate in kind normally due to the power disparity amidst the perpetrator and victim. (Einarsen et al., 2011). As reported, 97% individuals experience some kind of psychological mistreatment in their entire work experience (Fox & Stallworth, 2005). As establishing cut off points between occasional adverse encounters and actual bullying is hard, academic literature, surveys and reports all indicate the rise in the rate of occurrence of workplace bullying in recent years (e.g., 27%, Workplace Bullying Institute Survey, 2014) and hence its pervasiveness makes it a global phenomenon to warrant researcher and practitioner attention.
The rate of global unemployment, according to International Labor Office ((ILO), 2019) hit a historic high of 170 million, as well its increase is anticipated in the near future. Chung and Van Oorschot (2010) proves that the economic and labor market conditions of countries influence the individual's perception of uncertainties (turnover intentions) and higher redundancy rates enhance the perceived risk of job insecurity (in terms of losing) and hence diminishing the probability of finding another valuable job.
Entailing the detrimental effects of unfavorable episodes on the target' selfconfidence, self-image and on job satisfaction, it is understandable that the one exposed might have decreased commitment and engagement and considers leaving his job, (McCormack et al., 2009) whereas studies already established a link between exposure to workplace bullying and intentions to leave (Jiang et al., 2012), but such relationships hold partial confirmation within the present time research. Majority of those expressing their intentions to make a turnover do not leave immediately for any exogenous or endogenous reason (Hom et al., 2012). When intentions are not manifested in terms of actual employee's turnover, it hence gives an ascent to various models conjecturing numerous processes to explain this discrepancy resulting in other form of deviant behaviors. Hence the concept of employee silence-a deliberate practice to withhold information, ideas, opinions, and concerns that might be crucial for organizational success (Rai & Agarwal, 2018), is directed to study as a recent and utmost substantial passive coping strategy by employees in response to workplace mistreatment. As it encounters high costs for organizations, understanding its mechanism is imperatively crucial.
As the implementation of strategies by organizations like massive layoffs and reduction of labor costs are changing the traditional employment arrangements, this study proposes a detrimental change in employees' psychological contracts (the feeling of insecurity of an individual over one's job (in any economic downturn) leads towards the apprehension of a compromised psychological contract (lack of reciprocity) (Piccoli & De Witte, 2015)). This economic crisis possesses new challenges for companies, and such downturn aggravates the feelings of insecurity leading to the perceptions of lack of reciprocity, compromising the psychological contracts of employees. As Pakistan's economy is presently passing through the transition phase, rapidly increasing populace, high inflation and swelling unemployment, patterns of employment are rapidly shifting from long-term to temporary, casual and piece-rate contracts (Ghayur, 2009;Costa & Neves, 2017), simultaneously giving a pertinent context for studying psychological contract violation. Such violations have become a recurrent experience of many employees provided the gigantic change in working patterns. Hence understanding the reactions in response to these violations is contemporary concern for academics and employers both.
Particularly in the health care settings, meeting budgets and quality targets upshots in pressure situations instigating leaders to bully their subordinates, and hence benevolent employees are expected to be exceedingly affected by bullying experience and perceived violations plays a significant role in amplifying their withdrawal behavior. Being a collectivistic country, altruism and trust is considered implicit in all the social relationships including the relationship of employer-employee. Such cultural profile is rule oriented and highly supports the inequalities of power and wealth, and to pursue any issue or to report mistreatment on the employer's part is considered as a disloyal and unacceptable behavior by authority holders (Khan et al., 2013) even in the face of violation of one's psychological contract. This picture regarding the relationship's potential nature best sets in public services (Islam, 2004) where negative instead of generalized reciprocal norms are expected. Therefore in the health care settings, being benevolent in nature is as important as anything, so studying such individual's reactions to mistreatment is a fascinating call to answer. Hence this research offers notions of reciprocity in a significant institutional and cultural context.
As the study also requires to fix what is already broken, the development of positive strengths within individuals (PsyCap, Luthans et al., 2007) may help in improving tools to cope with this entire negativity, hence characterizing as a potential safeguard and a powerful buffer. Combined with a progressively general move in the course of past 10 years towards the resource model of stress, it perhaps is timely to look for the role of resources (hope, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy) rather than deficits in connection with interpersonal mistreatment.
The contribution of this research to the existing literature is threefold. First, it broadens the existing knowledge on the deleterious impact of workplace bullying and one of the few attempts to examine employees' passive coping strategies in response to this negative social behavior at work floor rather than leaving or intending to leave the organization. Second, by incorporating psychological contract violation of employees as an intervening mechanism, this study seeks to determine why victims of bullying engage in silence behaviors. Third, this study sheds light on two important boundary conditions that constrains the mediated relationship. It is argued that benevolent employees (more affected by workplace bullying), who are highly subjected to violation of their psychological contracts, if contains positive resources (psychological capital) within themselves, can mitigate their tendency to engage in silent behaviors. Therefore, this research not only complements the extant literature but also highlights the role of positive strengths within individuals and its impact on bullying outcome relationship. Hence, the amalgamation of proposed variables and their relationships remains an important oversight and a first empirical study to the best of authors' knowledge.
The synergetic effect of workplace bullying on employee silence offers a very fascinating area of inquiry in organizational behavior. To address the problem, overall study is broken down into the study objectives as: a) To investigate the general relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence b) To explore the intervening effects of psychological contract violation in the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence and c) To explore the cross level conditional indirect effects of benevolent behavior and PsyCap on the workplace bullying-employee silence relationship via PCV.
Specifically, the study aims at investigating the bullying-silence relationship via PCV across levels of benevolent behavior and PsyCap.

Workplace Bullying
Bullying at work means offending, harassing, socially excluding someone or negatively affecting someone's work tasks. To apply bullying to a particular activity, interaction or process, it has to occur repeatedly and regularly (e.g., weekly) and over a period of time (e.g., about six months). (Einarsen et al., 2011).
Events where a person being exposed to aggression and negative behaviors at work predominantly affect the psychological state of the target (Leymann, 1996) through humiliation, intimidation and/or punishment by the perpetrator (Einersen et al., 2020) is the concept's defining line among variety of forms of interpersonal mistreatment researched till yet mainly aggression, harassment, emotional abuse, incivility (Zapf, 2004;Hershcovis, 2011). While an intention to harm and negativity in actions is common to workplace bullying or any other interpersonal maltreatment, persistency and power disparity holds the position for two distinguishing features to bullying.
Persistence of behaviors inappropriate in nature including repetition (occurrence must be on regular basis (frequency), duration (over a time period) and patterning (involvement of variety of behaviors) are the key features to bullying. Many acts under maltreatment, relatively common in workplaces, when occur in isolation may be considered as a sign of uncivil behavior (Lim & Cortina, 2005) but when persisted towards a particular target for a certain duration, causes severe harm as it becomes an extreme source of social stress (Zapf, 1999). Although the negativity this treatment entails is essential to the concept, the core characteristic isn't the nature of the behaviors per se, but the persistency involved in one's experience (Einarsen et al., 2003). Hence the duration and frequency is considered as much for emphasis as it is on what and how it is done.
Additionally, the existence of power disparity between the perpetrator and target whereby the increasing difficulty for the latter to defend himself is core to bullying. The conceptualization of power imbalance is derived from the perpetrator's informal power, organizational position, the difference between the personality traits of both or the dependency of target on perpetrator (Hoel & Cooper, 2001;Samnani, 2013;Aquino & Thau, 2009;Zabrodska et al., 2016).

Workplace Bullying and Employee Silence
Circumstances motivating employees to speak up rather on factors that inhibit their willingness to share potentially useful information has remained the prior research' main focus (Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009;Liang, Farh, & Farh, 2012), and provided its hostile consequences, understanding the reasons of silence and its occurrences in workplaces is crucial (Harlos, 2016). Dysfunctional relationships with supervisors have been researched reasoning employee silence, in a huge body of work, when responding to workplace mistreatment (Morrison, 2014;Greenberg & Edwards, 2009;Duan et al., 2018;Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2018). A male respondent at information systems sheds light on his experience to becoming silent "I raised a concern about some policies and I was told that I was becoming a troublemaker. I would have pursued [the issue] further but presently I can't afford to risk my job. This has made me go into a detached mode, making me a 'yes man'". Such behaviors being target sensitive, mistreatment victims barely report or react against the perpetrator (supervisors in most cases) due to the reason of the committer being in a position well for counter revenge, the dependency of the victim on the offender for resources as opportunities for advancement or continued employment (Xu et al., 2015, Tepper et al., 2009 or the perception of senior management to not support such reports (Roscigno et al., 2009) which eventually leads victim compromising on creativity and commitment and adopting withdrawal behaviors (Guo et al., 2018). It is evident from the past literature that bullying at workplace occurs in many organizations throughout the world (Einarsen et al., 2020) particularly in the Asian firms, whereby its intensity is relatively high and it adversely affects employees' outcomes (Sheehaan, McCabe & Garavan, 2020).
Approach-inhibition theory of power by Keltner et al. (2003) elucidates that where individuals with higher positions endowed with more power uplifts the positive emotions of others, it also stimulates their approach behaviors. Individuals with lower power and positions on the other hand attend more to threats and monitor more preventative and inhibited behaviors (e.g. silence). This concept of power imbalance, as suggested by Morrison and Rothman (2009), when inherent in the organizational roles, makes silence for employees such a significant common experience as an adopting strategy. As different hierarchical positions are assumed by supervisors and subordinates, the former simultaneously have more control on resources (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015;Anderson & Brion, 2014). Considered as a general belief of asymmetric powers between employer and employee within an employment relationship (Offe & Wiesenthal, 1980), consequently, silence is considered as the best approach to adopt when employees face maltreatment such as workplace bullying.
Conservation of resources theory (COR) proposes the organization of human behavior around acquisition and accumulation of resources. Moreover, what valued is strived to be obtained, retained and protected by people (Hobfoll, 1989) known as "resources". Such resources can take form of objects (food, tools, shelter), conditions (dignity, status, security, social control), personal characteristics (skills, beliefs, efficacy) and energies (knowledge, time, money) where the central tenet lies on the primacy of resource loss, suggesting the intensity of resource loss over resource gain and the psychological harm for individuals associated with it. In case when a person's resources are threatened, an actual loss of resource, or the expected return on resource investment does not materialize, stress is presumed to occur. Encompassing a motivational element as well, the tenet further submits the engagement of depleted individuals in behaviors helping them avoiding further resource loss or minimizing any probable threat to their resources .
The mum effect, by Rossen and Tesser (1970) was used to describe the lack of ability to communicate undesirable information in job settings due to the fear of jeopardizing interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, deaf ear syndrome became under consideration for exploring the phenomenon from managerial perspective which precludes employees from speaking up by Peirce et al. (1998). M. Knoll et al. (2019 claim these approaches where opinions and genuine information is deliberately suppressed to be informative but relatively fragmented. Hence different classifications have been raised to understand the concept in depth. Among the new proposition of Brinsfield's (2013) silence classification based on supervisor-subordinate relationship in response to workplace bullying, Rai and Agrawal's (2018) recent study endorses the strategical use of silence for victims to escape the adverse consequences allied with speaking up (defensive silence), for the protection of their relationships with supervisors (relational silence) and an approach to indicate their consent to organizational circumstances (ineffectual silence).

Workplace Bullying and Defensive Silence
Fearing the consequences allied with speaking up, such silence is a key motivator allowing one to deliberately omit their voices (Brinsfield, 2013). Employees being hesitant to communicate about issues at work (Milliken et al., 2003), victims of mistreatment tend to remain silent particularly due to the fear of destructive ramifications concomitant with speaking up, especially in case where perpetrator holds a status higher than the victim (Aquino et al., 2006). Considering power disparity as the distinguishing feature to such maltreatment, victims consider themselves incapable in elevating their voice, and hence opt for defensive silence. Speaking up per se requires extra time and energy, from the COR perspective, which comes at individual cost and risk and those intending to speak up stimulate their potential loss of resources (Xu et al., 2015). Hence the interpersonal mistreatment' extant literature proposes such victims at the risk of being labeled as trouble makers, simultaneously at the menace of losing any desirable professional opportunity or personal resources (Harvey et al. 2007;Xu et al. 2015). Dyne et al. (2003) condition the fearfulness of an individual in a working environment where one attempts to shield oneself from potential threats for the occurrence of defensive silence. Employees particularly deem supervisors engaging in mistreatment when they display some hostile behaviors as humiliating employees in public or menacing them with the intimidation of job loss (Tepper, 2000). While wielding their status power over followers (Aryee et al., 2007), power imbalance between the victim and perpetrator reasons the reluctance of taking any aggressive actions by the sufferers fearing the loss of valued resources or receiving admonishments to their insolent behaviors (Tepper et al., 2009). Kish-Gephart et al. (2009) theorize fear of perpetuity in these hostile behaviors, when inflicted by the authoritative in hierarchy, add to the consequence of remaining silent. The emotional state of mind activates employee's self-protective mechanism i.e. "to lay low" (Xu et al., 2015). Confronting perpetrator verbally further provokes them resulting in deployment of high magnitude of mistreatment.

Workplace Bullying and Relational Silence
Avoiding harm within a relationship and tending to maintain interactions for any relational concerns delineate the root of relational silence (Brinsfield, 2013), nevertheless lacks cooperative and altruistic motives (Dyne et al., 2003). Prior examination submits that, in addition to losing professional opportunities and other valuable resources, voice may too, in some way trouble the status quo or pressure current interpersonal relationships. Raising of one's voice increases the likelihood of questioning the position of an authority figure, subsequently deteriorating the victim's bond with that authoritative figure (Li & Sun, 2015), that, in effect, costs employee additional available resources hence contributing to further depletion of resources. (Ng & Feldman, 2012). As to avoid one's supervisor is rarely an alternative over the long haul, maintaining and enduring the relationship with them remains the only rational choice (Whitman et al., 2014). Merkin (2006) argues that in a culture where individuals entail low power distance values, engaging in face threatening conflicts for expressing themselves clearly is a stress free task. Whereas high power distant individuals, Asian cultures in particular, interpret challenges, interventions and confrontations as behaviors inappropriate to themselves. Reluctant in verbally expressing negative emotions (Fernández et al., 2000), members fear not being in agreement with, approaching and engaging with their supervisors and persist tending to remain peaceful, cooperative and obedient. Indirect messages are used considering face issues. Such communication tactics in response to bullying at workplaces exhibit relational silence. Due to the dependency of employees' resources on supervisors, engagement in such behaviors is a more realistic communication strategy as compared to engagement in retaliatory behaviors having potential to exacerbate a relationship, as per COR theory (Tepper et al., 2007). However, research proves a psychical or psychological distance from supervisors and victims of mistreatment, in this situation engaging in surface acting, considering it as a way to cope the adverse relationship (Wu & Hu, 2013). Moreover, victims respond by reconciliation behaviors designed to reestablish the unappealing relationship on power dependence account (Aquino et al., 2006), hence verifying mistreatment's detrimental effects.

Workplace Bullying and Ineffectual Silence
A common belief that raising voice will not be effective in causing change in the sense of a focal problem, circumstance or concern and will not have a constructive effect on the situation is the dimension's defining line (Brinsfield, 2013). Engagement in such counterproductive silence is practiced as an implied tool to showing a sincere recognition of organizational circumstances, a sense of resignation, a relinquishment of hope for change and taking situations for granted (Pinder & Harlos, 2001). Repetition and endurance in these deleterious acts lead employees to assume their unavoidability in their organization or the reluctance of managers and supervisor in resolving such issues. As a consequence, perceptions regarding possible improvements are deleteriously impacted of employees (D'Cruz et al., 2014). Anchoring the COR's perspective, as per Halbesleben et al (2014) sufferers may embrace ineffectual silence as a mean to shielding their resources, which might take any form of time, effort and energy from supplementary depletion resulting in the engagement of voice behaviors probably not likely to procure benefits. Evidences support that disgruntled employees prefer not to voice their concerns and disappointments as they perceive no positive effect on the situation will transpire (Wang & Hsieh, 2013).
Hence Timing and Johnstone's (2015) postulation is also in line with the above evidences by which anti-democratic personality characterizes individuals choosing to remain silent as they value obedience for authority and an interaction with dominant figure requires their submissiveness and hence generating conditions conducive to ineffectual silence. Hence articulation of all the facts validate the suggestion that; H1: Workplace bullying is significantly related to employee silence (defensive, relational and ineffectual).

The Mediating Role of PCV in the Bullying-Silence Relationship
Workplace bullying has an association with employee silence. A perspective of social exchange theory is introduced to develop an understanding by which mechanism these two phenomena are linked together. In understanding workplace behavior, social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964) acts as one of the most significant paradigm (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Social exchange, in essence, is a set and series of interaction generating obligations. One party's trust that even in the non-presence of a formal contract, the benefits received will be reciprocated is placed on the other. Abiding by certain rules of exchange, parties involved to the relationship develop mutual commitment, trusting and loyalty over time, which stands at the core of this theory. The rule of reciprocity; central to researchers' focus elucidates that actions of one party are contingent upon the actions of the other. It connotes that in any work settings, employees repay a favorable working conditions and environment through constructive job related behaviors and attitudes. Whereas downward adjustments are likely to be the consequence of those behaviors and attitudes for the unfavorable treatment (Parzefall & Salin, 2010).
Psychological contracts have been started approaching from another perspective of COR theory from a developing body of research. It proposes that unfavorable events at workplaces route to a loss esteemed intrinsic resources. The psychological stress leads them to perceive this as a violation consequently triggering strong negative emotional reactions (Lapointe et al., 2013;Kiazad et al., 2014;Priesemuth & Taylor, 2016). As within the COR framework (Hobfoll, 2001), dignity, fairness and respect are categorized as resources, the persistency in these uncivil acts such as persistence criticism, being belittled and yelled at and at a perpetual position of receiving insulting remarks have the nerve to drain employees' intrinsic resources resulting in helplessness, frustration and restlessness (Brotheridge & Lee, 2010) -referred to a state of psychological resource depletion. Such experiences weaken reserved resources rendering them vulnerable against further loss of resource consequential to bullying. Such deep distressful situations deplete employees' energy and other resources either consciously or unconsciously preoccupying them with actions aimed at conserving remaining resources (Agarwal & Bhargava, 2014). Hence alleviating this psychological discomfort, remaining silent is employee's highest preference in protecting the residual resources (Ng & Feldman, 2012). Current research has surveyed the crucial mediating role of PCV in analyzing the employees' responses to workplace mistreatment (Salin & Notelaers, 2017;Rai & Agarwal, 2018). Research advocates the maltreatment from the supervisor's end is contemplated as a conspicuous workplace event fracturing the employer-employee contract (Kernan et al., 2016). To survive PCV, Rai and Agarwal (2018) report silence as the most potential employee response. Recent work also proves the experience of mistreatment evokes fear and anger as the negative emotions and in turn, behaviors associated to avoidance and self-protection in subordinates like silence (Nifadkar et al., 2012). Hence ample indications gives confirmation to workplace mistreatment when channeled through PCV, fosters employee silence. Hence, it can be suggested that; H2: PCV mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence (defensive, relational and ineffectual).

The Moderating Role of Benevolent Behavior in Bullying-PCV Relationship
A perspective from the equity theory (Adams, 1965) situations that individuals seek an equitable balance typically between their personal contributions and what they obtain from the organization. Unfolding in another way, based on the reciprocity expectations in social relationships, parties involved have likely an expectation to be repaid in kind. A more in return is expected by the individuals who significantly invest in any relationship within a work context and are therefore, more sensitive towards any form of neglect or bad treatment by the employer (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005).
Previous research on breach and violation of psychological contracts reveals the individual differences as the foundation to their reaction towards this emotional damage and hence personal disposition embraces great importance (Raja et al., 2004). A proposition by Huseman et al. (1987) inculcates a personality variable such as equity sensitivity elucidates the individual differences while reacting to inequity. Individuals high on equity sensitivity want more than others for prescribed level of input. In a nutshell, these can be labeled as outcome oriented individuals (Sauley & Bedeian, 2000). On the other end of the spectrum, some individuals pay more attention to their inputs, and in the exchange relationships. Such individuals are less sensitive to the equity issues and are the ones low on equity sensitivity.
In light of the above, it is interpreted that entitled have preference over output/input ratios exceeding those in comparison with others and hence concentrates on "getting more than giving". Contrasting this, benevolents focus remains on "giving more than getting". Maintenance of relationships with employers and finding satisfactions in contributing expertise and diverse talents to their organizations is the highlighting virtue of such individuals. Research ascertains the fact that benevolents have a different reactions to the perceived violations (Kickul & Lester, 2001). Their satisfaction with their jobs is reported with a greater decrease and more negative effects compared to the other individuals relating to outcomes as autonomy and control (intrinsic outcomes) while a less strong reaction to the violations involving extrinsic outcomes in the form of rewards and benefits is observed. Engagement in excessive monitoring, ridiculing, humiliating, withdrawal of valued tasks or insulting-as are nested in a concept of workplace bullying, hence exposure to such perilous acts may, thus, have an ability to change the meaningfulness of work itself in numerous ways. Consequently, a decrease in personal worth, autonomy and sense of accomplishment is detected of the targets (MacIntosh et al., 2010). In line with the previous research, when reporting exposure to workplace bulling, their basic needs are thwarted (Trépanier, Fernet, & Austin, 2013) hence exhibiting a great effect to their intrinsic outcomes, something to which benevolents stands highly sensitive (Kickul & Lester, 2001).
Provided the particular focus on the intrinsic outcomes particularly for the benevolent employees and the norms of reciprocity, it is argued in this study due to the norms of reciprocity, those individuals supporting and helping others can reasonably have an expectation of more in return from the organization. The "more" is directed towards relationship quality and intrinsic outcomes (sense of accomplishment and feelings of personal worth) rather than fringe benefits. The key line "giving more than getting" represents a high contribution of such employees in terms of skills and efforts and expects less monetary rewards but equal or high psychological rewards from supervisors/leaders. Being a victim to such mistreatment in exchange to their input might cause a severe blow to their worldview hence letting the perceptions of psychological contracts into question. Hence a compelling rationale is provided to the proposed relationship. Therefore, H3: The relationship between workplace bullying and perceived psychological contract violation is moderated by benevolent behavior.

The Moderating Role of PsyCap in the PCV-Employee Silence Relationship
In order to mitigate the deleterious negative impacts of contract violation (through bullying) and employee silence, the positive internal resources of employees are proposed to be a coping strategy towards the adverse situations. Positive psychological capital (PsyCap) -a positive psychological state of an individual that is open to development (Luthans et al., 2008), a second-order factor of four positive resources comprising a shared variance and hence acts as an integration in the mechanism of which these resources share in common (Avey et al., 2011) is theoretically and empirically validated, and entails a constructive outcome bigger than the individual impact of each component (Norman et al., 2010) Hope delineates its basis on an intuitively created feeling of accomplishment of goal directed energy (agency) and planning to meeting goals (pathways) followed by an individual's positive motivational state (Snyder & Lopez, 2002). Agency, providing a deep insight, inculcates the motivation and energy towards goal direction for remaining successful at a given task provided in a specific work context. Whereas the latter component, "pathway", is considered as a mean and a way in the accomplishment of tasks and goals and hence collectively forming the will and way in such accomplishment. Suggestions by Snyder et al. (1996) theory and research claim that one component standing alone is not adequate. Together the will to succeed in any particular task along with a viable mean to accomplish task defines and operationalizes the possession of hope. In workplace research, it has been found to positively influence performance (Youssef & Luthans, 2007), satisfaction (Peterson & Luthans, 2003) and negatively to deviance (Costa & Neves, 2017).
Resilience, a positive adaption and coping strategy in the face of risk and significant adversity (Masten & Reed, 2002). Adaption to the workplace, a psychological capacity to bounce-back or rebound from uncertainty, failure, adversity or even positive change, increased responsibility and progress expounds the nature of the component (Luthans, 2002). Resilience can therefore be described by coping responses not only to hostile events but also to the extremely positive events.
Concluded from the discussion of positive psychologist (Seligman, 1988), his theoretical foundation for optimism states a stable, internal and global attribution regarding the positive events as achievement of goals, and an external, relatively unstable and specific cause for the negative events as failed attempt in goal achievement. Avoiding the criticism of false optimism, positive organizational behavior (POB) forces on realistic optimism (Luthans, 2002;Luthans et al., 2007;Schneider, 2001). Signifying it other way, it is not based on an uncontrolled process having an unrealistic assessment. This state of realistic optimism (opposing to dispositional trait) includes an objective assessment of what an individual can accomplish, provided the available resources at that specific time in a specific situation and hence can vary (Peterson, 2000).
Self-efficacy and its positive construction is based on Bandura's (1997) exhaustive theory and extensive research and hence a current prominence in linking the construct to positive psychology (Bandura, 2007). Its application to workplaces states as the individuals confidence or conviction about one's abilities in the mobilization of cognitive resources, motivation and courses of actions required in successful execution of a specific task within a provided context (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Particular relevance to the POB criteria, the enhancement of self-efficacy can be through task mastery (a success experience by employee), by modeling (vicarious learning by observing others, by attainment of positive feedback) and by psychological and physiological wellness (Bandura, 1997).
Articulation of facts show that employees who perceive themselves high on psychological capital are more progressively confident in their abilities to accomplish goals, and therefore, any infringement in their psychological contract might be seen as a minor hindrance in the quest for their prime goal. Being anticipative and hopeful, generation of various paths and solutions so as to manage workplace bullying and violation of psychological contracts. Surveying circumstances as a transitory issue that will soon be reduced, demonstrating that they are optimistic and hopeful. Resilience in their attitude helps those facing adversities and should therefore positively cope any mistreatment particularly workplace bullying and PCV.
Empirical evidences regarding PsyCap demonstrate consistency with performance (Avey et al., 2011) due to being more energized and pouring extra efforts in tasks is reflected in outcome. Undesirable behaviors are the ones in which employees high on PsyCap do not engage because such individuals are more capable of rebounding from the demand of additional output by recognizing (hope) and considering themselves to survive the pressure (self-efficacy) as it is just transient and will before long be reduced (optimism) (Norman et al., 2010), therefore it is tested in this study whether PsyCap prevent employees involvement in negative behaviors due to the internal resources within themselves while dealing with situations. Based on its mechanisms and empirical evidence, it is hypothesized:

H4: The relationship between PCV and employee silence is moderated by PsyCap
An explicit formulation is made based on the assumption that benevolent behavior and PsyCap conditionally influence the strength of the indirect relationship (Workplace bullying-Employee silence via PCV), thereby establishing a pattern of a dual stage moderated mediation among the study variables, hence hypothesizing:

Research Design Elements
As all variables of interest are under investigation for last many decades, so at this time the researcher is not required to conduct an initial (exploratory) research or to generate any qualitative data. The objective nature (quantitative analysis) of data further enhances the statistical comparisons and summary generation of the findings. The purpose of the study is correlational in nature hence allowing the statistical test of the proposed relationship and to know the extent to which these variables might be related. The type of investigation for the variables under study is quantitative as no open ended questions are used and no structured and unstructured interviews are conducted. "Individuals" are considered as unit of analysis as variables are linked to the personality of individuals and the entire data is obtained purely in natural/ non-contrived settings hence the interference of the researcher is minimal. The study's best suited time horizon is opted, i.e., cross-sectional design as the linkage of variables is only aimed to be demonstrated at a specific point of time. No second visit or any type of second observation is taken at any other point of time. Data is collected in four working weeks and then entered in software for further analysis to come up with the reliable results.

Population and Sample
As respect and support for others especially patients and embracement of one's powers is key to their survival while working under this context and being benevolent holds a strategical significance for all individuals working within it, any kind of mistreatment at workplaces will have a detrimental effect on their psychological state, compromising their positive emotions and confidence and where patients can be one to face its consequences. Hence government administered hospitals represent all the study variables effectively. Three main hospitals of Lahore i.e. Mayo Hospital, Ganga Ram Hospital and Jinnah Hospital are conveniently selected. 359 young junior doctors and staff nurses of three selected hospitals have been composed as an exact sample size of the current study through item response theory by Olino et al. (2012).

Measurement and Scale
Silence (defensive, relational, ineffectual) behaviors are measured by using the 15items scale adapted from Brinsfield (2013) representing defensive, relational and ineffectual silence. Participants are scaled up to the level they get involved in numerous silence behaviors on a 5-point Likert scale response format i.e. 1= strongly disagree till 5= strongly agree. Sample item: "I feel it was risky to speak up".

Workplace bullying is measured with a revised version of Negative Act Questionnaire (NAQ-R) containing 22-items developed by Einarsen et al (2009).
Consisting of three subscales as work-related, person-related and physically intimidating bullying, combined additively creating an overall workplace bullying scale. Sample item: "being given task with unreasonable deadlines". Respondents are asked to indicate their responses on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
PCV is measured with 4-item scale adopted from Robinson and Morrison (2000). Scale items are anchored on a 5 point Likert scale providing range from 1 representing not at all to 5 representing very much. Sample item include: "I feel betrayed by my organization".
Benevolent behavior is measured with 4 items measuring the readiness of respondents in helping out and giving their time across a diverse set of situations, thus focusing more on the input side as compared to the preferred outputs. By adopting Van der Vegt et al (2003) helping scale, the sample item include: "I help others who have been absent". Respondents are asked to indicate their responses on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much).
PsyCap is measured with a 24-item scale adopted from Luthans et al (2007). It is a higher order positive construct which comprises of four-facet constructs namely selfefficacy, hope, resilience and optimism. Out of 24 items, 21 items are positively phrased and 3 items are reverse coded. Sample items include: "I always look on the bright side of things regarding my job". 5-point Likert scale is provided to record the responses anchored at 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree.

Demographics of the study
Out of 359 participants involved in the survey, analysis represents with 52% of the female respondents and around 48% with males where a major chunk of the total sample falls below 30 years of age (72%), 25.6% lies between 31 to 35 years while the remaining falls in 36 and above. About 54.3% of the respondents hold their graduate degrees, 18% with their post graduate and around 28% under graduate category. Fifty percent of the respondents have a working tenure below 1 year with their current supervisors whereas 44.3% have tenured between 1 to 3 years with their respective supervisors. Five percent with 3-5 years and 0.3 percent have tenured for more than 5 years.

Descriptive, correlations and reliabilities
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 indicates strongly disagree and 5 indicates strongly agree, a value above 2.5 indicates most of the respondents rate themselves above the average level of mean. While initiating the statistical treatment of the raw data, reliabilities of the variable are calculated. Reliabilities of all the variables are measured through calculating Cronbach Alpha. All variables showed above the acceptable values of reliabilities. Analysis shows that predictor, mediator, moderators and outcome are significantly correlated to each other. Specifically, employee silence has a significant and positive correlation with workplace bullying (r = 0.703, p<0.01). This means that increase in workplace bullying predicts greater employee silence. Employee silence shows a positive and significant correlation with psychological contract violation (r = 0.690, p<0.01), whereas a negative and significant correlation with benevolent behavior and PsyCap (r = -.457, p<0.05) and (r = -.542, p<0.05) hence giving an initial support to all hypothesized statements. All the results of correlation matrix are summarized in table 4.1.

Test of moderation, mediation and conditional indirect effect:
Simple linear regression is used to run test for the first hypothesis with X (Workplace bullying) predicting Y (Employee silence).
Second, to test hypothesis 2, bootstrapping analysis, being non parametric simulations and a robust strategy in the estimation of indirect effects (Preacher et al., 2007) is run to assess mediation (X predicts Y via M). Therefore obtaining the direct and indirect effects of mediation analysis, model 4 of Hayes Process macro (2018) is used.
Third, to examine the conditional effects of this dual stage moderated mediation, PROCESS model 1 is used, alongside simple slope representation.
Fourth, to run the conditional indirect effect of the dual stage moderated mediation, PROCESS model 21 is used. According to Preacher et al. (2007), the strength of the independent variable (workplace bullying) on the outcome variable (employee silence) via mediator (PCV) differs across different levels of the moderators (benevolent behavior and PsyCap; +-1SD about mean respectively, respectively).

Workplace bullying-Employee silence relationship
Employee silence shows a positive and statistically significant relationship with workplace bullying (B = 0.873, p<0.01) along with a 95% confidence interval of [LLCI=0.781, ULCI=0.965], showing with every unit increase in workplace bullying, 0.873 units in employee silence is predicted. As values of the confidence interval are significantly different from zero, hence confirming the significance of the relationship. The results conclude that moving higher on bullying scale predicts greater level of employee silence and vice versa. The R 2 value of 0.494 shows that workplace bullying alone explains 49.4% variance in employee silence. These results are consistent with the recent literature available on workplace bullying (i.e. Rai & Agarwal, 2018). Hence the statistical analysis supports H1.

Mediating role of PCV in Workplace bullying-Employee silence relationship
In order to test the mediating effect of psychological contract violation in the bullying-silence relationship, the significance of independent variable on mediator is tested first. Hence workplace bullying shows a positive and significant relationship with PCV (B = 1.356, p<0.01) along with a 95% confidence interval of [LLCI=1.227, ULCI=1.484]. Second, the significance of mediator on dependent variable is tested. PCV again shows a positive and significant relationship with employee silence when controlling for workplace bullying (B = 0.553, p<0.01) along with a 95% confidence interval of [LLCI=0.506, ULCI=0.599]. Third, the significant indirect effect supported the mediating role of PCV on bullying-silence relationship (0.750, p<0.01) with a 95% confidence interval of [LLCI=1.040, ULCI=1.351]. Additionally, after the mediator being controlled, the association between bullying-silence (0.123, p<0.01) remain significant with a drop in beta value suggesting partial mediating effect of PCV in bullying-silence relationship.

Moderating role of benevolent behavior in Bullying-PCV relationship
Benevolent behavior shows a significant interaction term (B= 0.110, p< 0.01) with a 95% confidence interval of [LLCI=0.074, ULCI=0.145]. The change in value of R2 (∆R2 = 0.017) also validate the significant predicting power of moderator variable. Moreover, analysis shows that 93.5% variance in PCV is explained by the interaction term. The variation in the moderating effect of benevolent behavior in Bullying-PCV relationship can be observed in figure 1. Hence the coefficients of regression term along with graphical representation validate the moderating role of benevolent behavior in Bullying-PCV relationship. Alongside, its moderating role is higher at high levels workplace bullying and at lower level its role becomes insignificant. Low WB High WB representation validate the moderating role of PsyCap in PCV-Silence relationship. Alongside, its moderating role is lower at high levels of contract violation and at lower level its role becomes higher.

Moderated Mediation Results for Workplace Bullying on Employee Silence via PCV across different levels of Benevolent behavior (moderator 1) and PsyCap (moderator 2)
To evaluate the dual-stage moderated mediation, following three conditions suggested by Hayes (2018) are tested: (a) A significant indirect effect should be observed.
(b) Two significant interactions should be observed: First between the independent variable and moderator 1 in predicting mediator. Second, mediator and the moderator 2 in predicting the outcome variable.
(c) There should be a different conditional indirect effect from the independent variable to dependent variable via mediator at different levels (high and low) of moderator 1 and moderator 2, hence being the central condition for the existence of moderated mediation. It determines either mediator's strength differs with different levels of moderators (Hayes, 2018).
The results of hypothesis 2 demonstrates the significant indirect relationship in bullying-silence via PCV and hence meeting the first condition. In observing second condition , results show that there is a significant interaction term between the independent variable and moderator 1 in predicting the mediator variable (B= 0.110, p< 0.01) and an interaction between the mediator and moderator 2 in predicting the Results: looking at high levels of benevolent behavior, a significant indirect effect is found for those individuals who perceive PsyCap as being low or moderate, the indirect effect of workplace bullying on employee silence via PCV is significant. For those individuals who are low on benevolent behavior, no significant indirect relationship is found because regardless of the level of psychological capital in employees, zero is in the confidence interval of the bootstrap analysis. So if individuals are low on benevolent behavior, doesn't matter the level of psychological capital. If individuals are high on benevolent behavior and observes psychological capital as low or moderate within themselves, the indirect effect of workplace bullying on employee silence via PCV is significant.

Discussion and Conclusion
Anchored in the conservation of resource (COR) theory, this study's aim is to analyze the passive coping strategies of employees in the face of workplace bullying. Social exchange theory (SET) theorizes the relationship to be mediated by PCV, and this empirical study lend support to the proposition. Moreover, the results revealed that the process of mediation is stronger for individuals who report themselves at a higher level of benevolence and perceives psychological capital to be low. Hence the cross level moderation is mediated.
Taking a step beyond from previous literature examining bullying-turnover relationship (Salin & Notelaers, 2017), this research studies the establishment of passive coping strategies in response to workplace bullying and the mechanism to explain this relationship. It is proved that the perception of violation of psychological contract depicts a partial mediation effect between bullying and silence relationship. Psychological contract-the perceived obligations in an employer-employee relationship based on its highly subjective interpretation and a sense of its violation strongly effect behaviors of employees and seems to partially explain some deleterious effects associated to bullying in this study. An escalated deleterious interaction with a wrongdoer result in resource loss, consequently developing feelings of PCV by increase psychological distress. Hence aiming to conserve the remaining resources, such passive strategies are adopted by employees, hence indicating both the direct and indirect effect of workplace bullying on silence of employees.
Additionally, individual differences are also highlighted through the findings. Among individuals reporting behaviors high on benevolence and perceive themselves low on PsyCap, the relation between workplace bullying and employee silence via PCV is stronger, hence providing with a more nuanced picture of employees' reactions. Typically, social relations have an involvement of reciprocity, congruous with equity theory's perspective (Adams, 1965) revolving around the concept that an impartial balance is seek by individuals between their own contributions and what are they receiving from the organization, which, in turn, is in line with research findings illustrating that the one's highly committed to their work are sensitive to layoff processes (Brockner et al., 1992). Employees investing in pro-social behavior are highly expected of a respectful treatment in return, and pertain adverse negative reactions when that is not the case. Benevolents have been proved to care less about pay and benefits or any external outcomes (Kickul & Lester, 2001), instead have been noticed that their strong reactions to breaches involves autonomy and control. Hence it is supported in this study's findings that for such employees, bullying behaviors strongly effect perception of psychological violations. Though benevolent behavior moderated the relationship, the effect of moderation is minimal. The possible reason for this would be that when exposure to negative acts are reached to a certain threshold, negative behaviors of employees are equally high, regardless of the levels of benevolence reported by employees.
Further possible explanation of the findings is acknowledged. Benevolent actions, generally endorsed positively both formally and informally by managers, not only reflect personal disposition, but is used as the response trying to offset or to cope with bullying. Although such interpersonal mistreatment results in deterioration of benevolence, few victims attempt to prove their worth and accordingly plan to stop the negative practices they are exposed to-by being exceptionally responsive, friendly and cooperative. Even being sick, they turn up to work to prove their loyalty and dedication and prevent themselves being marked as maligner (Hoel et al., 2011). Congruent with the experimental studies demonstrating that the one who experience ostracism tends to have a better performance in cognitive ability, tasks in an attempt to demonstrate their worth (Jamieson et al., 2010). Nevertheless, when such attempts to being helpful for offsetting bullying becomes ineffective, it may be that employees who have attempted this path becomes more cynical, resulting in a stronger sense of violation of the psychological contract and a stronger intention to remain silent. The moderation effects of PsyCap are significant but small. Results demonstrates employees high on PsyCap depicts lower silent behaviors and vice versa as they have additional resources helping to overcome daily problems and are better able to interpret situations (Chadwick & Raver, 2013). This further suggests that positive psychological state of an individual can reduce the degree of employee adverse outcomes but cannot completely mitigate the consequences of such mistreatment.

Limitations and Directions
First, a cross-sectional design is used by which inferences are not drawn about workplace bullying-outcomes' causal relationship. It is likely that the directions of reciprocal relations reported at a single time and different points in time are not always in the same directions. Having benevolence and PsyCap are just as likely to modify an individual's appraisal of the situation as an experience of mistreatment especially workplace bullying is likely to reduce the resilience of an individual with time. However, it can be concluded that positive psychological state have a tendency to reduce employee silence.
Second, the sample comprised mostly young junior doctors and staff nurses. In light of differences in experience of the sample, it is concluded that those having a higher experience and having higher job positions should also be incorporated in the study sample to yield different results. Different government and private hospitals should too be incorporated for generalizing results to the entire health care sector.
Third, a full three-wave cross lagged longitudinal analysis should be designed among the study variables helping to identify a causal order making relationships more robust and decreasing the threat of CMV is another major limitation of the study. In estimation 25% of the variance in any relationship is because of CMV (Buckley et al., 1990).
Several promising future research directions are presented in this study. This study shows employees' own exposure to negative acts results in violation of their psychological contracts and an increase in employee silence. A potential avenue for future research is to analyzing the extent to which witnessing others who are subjected to negative treatment results in their psychological contracts and their consequent passive reactions. As research shows that witnesses consequent in poor health and higher stress levels (Salin, 2014). Reason behind this could be speculated as witnessing bullying, too, shatters the beliefs of justice of the observer. As examination on layoffs demonstrates its impeding impacts not just on the ones legitimately influenced by it yet in addition who observes it (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1997). Parallel to this, a researcher also hypothesized that occurrence of bullying followed by absence of organizational strides to stop is perceived as infringement of psychological contract from the bystanders' perspective as well (Parzefall & Salin, 2010). This remains to have an empirical validation.
Future studies could also have an examination on other possible mediators in bullying-silence relationship. Targets are plausible to not only encounter resentment, frustration and anger but other negative feelings in the form of fear, emotional exhaustion and lack of psychological safety (Brinsfield, 2013;Kiewitz et al., 2016) is also expected. provided the Pakistan's sociocultural milieu, analyzing the moderating roles of collectivism and power distance holds position for a very promising future research avenue. Few studies, according to Srivastava et al (2019) have been conducted to test underlying mechanism for workplace outcomes in response to silence of employees, hence an extensive research involving various central mechanisms and boundary conditions remains a valuable direction for future researchers.
Academic literature, surveys and reports all indicate the increase in the frequency of workplace bullying in recent years (e.g., 27%, Workplace Bullying Institute Survey, 2014). Hence its detrimental effects largely costs to employees and organizations both, raising voices and speaking up for the concerns in an effort to reduce is a sensible approach to adopt. Finding of the current study, however, suggests that employees, in response to mistreatment, prefer to remain silent, hence inhibiting mistreatments within work contexts and promotion of voice behaviors within employees serves as a key tool. Previous research also proves the increased awareness on the nature, form, causes and consequences of bullying, clear imposition of policies such as "zero tolerance for mistreatment at work" and "managing with respect" and clear protocols in order to report bullying serves as potential deterrents. Management lax attitude and nonsupportive HR policies (Noronha & D'Cruz, 2009) are some prime reasons for the adoption of silence behaviors. A well-formulated and efficiently enforced anti-bullying strategies promote more active participation of HR in organizations.
Employees, particularly in high power distant cultures like Pakistan are hesitant to straightforwardly report incidences. To counter this, reporting arrangements like hotlines and mobile applications like STOP it should be adopted by organizations while maintaining the anonymity of the victim. For employees to share work related problems, organizational ombudsman should be established that operates outside the traditional hierarchy. Through this, employees' identities should also remain confidential hence protecting any sort of tension or damage either supervisor, helping employees combatting bullying by raising voices against it. In addition to fostering an intolerant environment for bullying through organizational practice, a close monitoring of supervisors' behaviors followed by providing mechanisms to employees such as employee surveys and grievance procedures to report is a significant tool to reduce its severity.
All except, workplace bullying is an organizational reality. Hence efforts to make an entire bullying-free environment is next to impossible. So, in addition to make an effort in ending up this maltreatment, managers must limit its consequences by understanding its dynamics. As research shows that the relationship between bullyingsilence is preceded by particular reactions as frustration and anger (PCV) enhancing the victim's psychological distress due to resource loss, it is important for managers and HR professionals to be sensitive for such cues and measures for relieving employees from these negative emotions should be timely fashioned. Provision of psychological consultation services, where victims are heard, a supportive workplace environment which fosters interpersonal networks providing ample social support and opportunities for job enhancement in order to cope with negative situations will definitely serve the purpose.