[015a]

By my memory; not researched, probably wrong, but: one of the early organizations to use the word "toxicity" to describe human behavior was actually (not a joke) Riot Games, in describing some League of Legends players.

I wish I could find the blog post, as it was at least a decade ago at this point, but it described their reasoning as: it's not just malicious behavior, but its malicious behavior which "spreads" between people. Malice creates Malice. Someone yells obscenities in chat, it tilts another player, and that player is now yelling obscenities in the next game; that's toxicity.

Which is only to say that I think it's a good definition and wholly applicable. Corporate politics flows down from the top; the behavior of managers affects the behavior of middle-managers, which can affect the behavior of line workers. Toxicity isn't just a bad apple; its a bad organization.