'I wish I had ... ': Target reflections on responses to workplace mistreatment

The aim of this article is to examine target responses to workplace mistreatment and to analyze factors that affect the degree of discrepancy between actual and ideal' (i.e. desired) responses. Two-hundred and seventeen faculty members at a major research university in North America reported their actual and ideal responses to mistreatment. The most common responses involved passive and social support-seeking strategies. Respondents generally wished they could have been more assertive. The size of the discrepancy between actual and ideal responses to mistreatment was predicted by the perceived severity of the behavior, the coping strategy chosen and a difference in organizational status and gender between the perpetrator and the target of mistreatment. While our findings show that status differences were associated with a larger discrepancy regardless of the direction of the status differences, our results indicate that the mechanisms behind the discrepancy differed. Despite being a relatively high status population, faculty at a prestigious university responded more passively to mistreatment than desired, primarily due to situational constraints. Because the reasons for this discrepancy were often structural (i.e. based on organizational or social status structures), this research highlights the need for organizations to address mistreatment proactively, even in the absence of formal complaints.