Title: Toxic workplace environment in developing countries: strategic perspective from Iraq

Authors: Hatem Ali Abdullah

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, College of Administration and Economics, Tikrit University, Tikrit, Iraq

Abstract: The study aims to know the effect of toxic leadership through its dimensions (abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, narcissism, self-promotion, and unpredictability) on toxic workplace behaviours in the Iraqi environment, specifically the health sector in Tikrit city. The study uses the survey method, and the study population is represented by nurses in Tikrit Teaching Hospital and Tikrit General Hospital. A non-random sample of (216) nurses is selected to properly represent the study population. The data is collected through a questionnaire. The study concludes that toxic leadership has a positive effect on toxic workplace behaviours in the field under study. It has some limitations represented in the difficulty of searching on a large sample in several Iraqi cities in Iraq, as well as the lack of approval of the higher managements in hospitals. Therefore, the researcher resorts to study only two hospitals inside Tikrit city. The study deals with the strategic perspective to study toxic workplace environments, which are not studied in the Iraqi environment.

Keywords: toxic workplace environment; TWE; toxic leadership; toxic workplace behaviours; TWBs; developing countries; health sector in Iraq.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWI.2025.145762

International Journal of Work Innovation, 2025 Vol.6 No.2, pp.186 - 207

Received: 10 Oct 2023
Accepted: 13 Nov 2023
Published online: 23 Apr 2025 *

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