Assessing toxic work environments in Türkiye: adaptation and validation of the toxic work environment scale

Toxic work environments have emerged as an important organizational issue due to their detrimental effects on employee well-being, job attitudes, and organizational effectiveness. Despite growing interest in workplace toxicity, there is a lack of validated instruments available for assessing toxic work environments in the Turkish context. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to adapt and validate the Toxic Work Environment Scale for use in Türkiye. The study was conducted using a two-sample design involving 392 employees. The adaptation process followed established translation and back-translation procedures to ensure linguistic and conceptual equivalence. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal consistency analysis, and test-retest reliability assessment were performed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. The findings supported a stable one-factor structure consistent with the original instrument. The scale demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency and temporal stability, indicating that it is a reliable and valid measure of toxic work environments in the Turkish context. The validated Turkish version of the scale provides researchers and practitioners with a useful tool for assessing workplace toxicity and examining its relationships with employee well-being, burnout, turnover intentions, absenteeism, and other organizational outcomes. The study contributes to the literature by providing a culturally adapted instrument that may facilitate future research on toxic work environments in Türkiye.