The Buffering Role of Anti-Violence Human Resource Management Practices in Shaping How Police Officers Cope With Workplace Violence

Abstract

Anti-violence Human Resource Management (HRM) practices can be used as an organizational resource to buffer the effects of violence experienced by frontline workers. This research examines the process through which different forms of workplace violence (i.e., physical, verbal, and vicarious) impact how employees cope, and thereby their intentions to leave the profession. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we collected two waves of data (N = 371) from police officers in Victoria, Australia, to test our proposed hypotheses. The findings demonstrated that physical violence, verbal abuse, and vicarious violence were positively associated with coping through denial. Importantly, coping through denial mediated the relationship between physical violence, verbal abuse, and vicarious violence on police officers' intention to leave the profession. Finally, anti-violence HRM practices buffered the indirect effect of physical violence and vicarious violence on the intention to leave the profession via coping through denial, whereas no effect was found for verbal abuse. Our results therefore suggest that anti-violence HRM practices play a pivotal role in managing incidents of violence at work against frontline workers. The findings' contributions to HRM theory and practice, as well as future research, are discussed.