Workplace Bullying: A Literature Review

Introduction

Over the past twenty years workplace bullying has gained considerable attention of organisational behaviour and human resource management scholars and practitioners. Government, unions, organisations and workers see bullying at work as an issue of major concern. Literature covers a wide variety of definitions and views on the prevalence of bullying at work and the factors that contribute to bullying, however it is seen that very less attention is given to personal coping with bullying and how an organisation should respond to counteract it. This literature review will focus on explaining the phenomenon of workplace bullying and what steps groups and individuals involved must take to cope with bullying in the short term and minimise it in the long term. Although this literature will study and analyse the themes and concepts, it will primarily focus on explaining the phenomenon and ways of coping with bullying.

Literature Review

It was it 1992, when a BBC journalist Andrea Adams coined the term “workplace bullying” to define negative employee behaviour within the organisation which was observed in Sweden in the 1980s (Chiril? & Constantin, 2013). An examination of the literature present worldwide presents several different terms such as mobbing, harassment, aggression, emotional abuse and hostile behaviour which are used to describe workplace bullying. Leymann (1990) defines workplace bullying as mobbing or hostile actions that appear inoffensive when considered separately, however when they are repeated in a systematic manner over a period of time, their adverse effects starts showing up and influence overall organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Einarsen & Skogstad (1996) in their definition of workplace bullying outlines the significance of victim’s subjective experience and the presence of perceived imbalanced power as the root cause of bullying. Chappell & Martino (1998) opines that mobbing or workplace bullying is result of workplace tensions that remain unsolved, the ignoring behaviours, the micro-aggressions and arrogances that with passage of time become insufferable and are slowly transformed into feelings of insecurity and acts of manifested violence. One of the common features of these definitions is that they all refer to workplace bullying as a systematic and repeated negative behaviour which is targeted on specific individuals or groups who find these behaviours as embarrassing, threatening and unfair. The targeted person or group with time reaches a position where they fail to defend themselves and eventually become victim to workplace bullying.

Leymann (1990) reports that term bullying is used in English-speaking countries such as Ireland, Britian, Australia, Turkey and North European countries, while the term mobbing is used to describe the workplace bullying phenomenon in Netherlans and other German-speaking countries. The author claims that workplace bullying or mobbing often occurs in two forms, hard form which refer to psychological terror in workplace and soft forms which refer to persection in workplace. Wide range of concepts such as workplace aggression, employee abuse, interpersonal deviance, victimization, workplace incivility and workplace mobbing are used to describe bullying phenomenon in North Amercian literature. Over the other part of the world, the bullying phenomenon is decribed by different terms such as scapegoating, harassment, workplace trauma, abusive behaviour, emotional or non-sexual harassment, victimisation and psychological harassment (Chappell & Martino, 1998). Different terms were used to define the phenomenon of workplace bullying, interpersonal aggression and hostile behaviour. An awareness of these terms will help in better understanding the phenomenon of bullying.

Zapf & Gross (2001) opines that workplace bullying is a consistent phenomenon in which an individual or group becomes a victim to oppressive, persistent, abusive, offensive, malicious, imtimidating or insulting behaviour shown by coworkers or supervisors at workplace. The recent definations of bullying describe it as a phenomenon in which someone who is in an inferior position is harassed, socially excluded, offended or is forced to perform humiliating tasks repeatedly and for a long time (Georgakopoulos, Wilkin, & Kent, 2011). Any conflict that occurs once or between between two equally strong competents cannot be termed as bullying. Workplace bullying had been a serious matter for organisations worldwide however, it is seen that most of the case go unreported owing to the shame and humiliation experienced by the victim (Farmer, 2011). Bullying at workplace can happen in different forms and characteristics such as social isolation, verbal abuse, physical attacks, verbal threats and gestures, humiliation or ridicule in front of coworkers, assignment of irrelevant tasks, condescending treatment and receiving silent threatment. An undertsnaidng of different forms and charactertics of different forms and characteristics of bullying can help the HR who is responsible for investigating the case in identifying the root casue of the problem and determining ways of minimising in long term.

Literature points out that the consequences of workplace bullying can at times turn out to be much seious than the bully or the victim could have thought. The consequences of workplace bullying depends on the personality, stress handling Capacity and emotional stability of the bully or the victim (Bano & Malik, 2013). Some victims choose to suffer silently as they feel they donot have alternate choices, others prefer quitting there jobs. In some cases the stress became so unbearable that it resulted in several stree-related physical ailments and heart attacks. In extreme cases, workplace bully has also become reason to homicide or suicide commited by the bully or the victim (Razzaghian & Shah, 2011). Reseaches reveal that the stress associated with workplace bullying not only affect the victim but is also transferred to other employees who are being witness to the act. Lutgen-Sandvik (2008) claims that differences in gender, race, age, educational levels and ethincity leads to increased conflicts and bullying behaviours as people find it difficult to understand the actions and motivations of people who are being perceived as different. People who lack conflict management skills and enough self-confidence are more prone to become victims of workplace bullying. At times bully may also target overachievers as they may feel threatened of victim’s skills and competence. Cases of workplace bullying are likely to increase in times of crisis, mergers, downsizing and restructuring as during such times superiors are excepted to deliver high performance and productivity using less resources. Leadership styles, organisational culture and organisational developments are considered as the prime source behind pervasiveness of bullying behvaiour (Chiril? & Constantin, 2013). Ignored for a long time, the consequences of workplace bullying can be costly for the employees and the organisation as a whole.

Leaders, managers and particularly human resource management department of an organisation are responsible for identifying the cases of workplace bullying within the organisation. It is important that they investigate the issue and get to the root cause of the problem. Once the factors causing workplace bullying are identified it will be easier to formulate ways of minimising it. Rayner & Hoel (1997) opines that increase in levels of role conflicts and lack of effective work control are factors that encourage employees to indulge in negative behaviour. Vartia (1996) reports that unhealthy social environment, low morale, lack of effective cooperation and communication are some other factors that lead to workplace bullying. Cultural differences measured on five dimensions of collectivism and individualism, masculinity and femineity, short or long term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and power distance determine the environment as being favourable for bullying or not. Existance of power distance within a work environment often makes it favourable for bullying.

When investigating cases of workplace bullying, HR managers have to work alongside victims to identify the root cause of bullying and then suggest effective coping strategies that can help in short term and develop presenting strategies which when implemented will help minimising such cases in long term. Zapf & Einarsen (2001) claims that requesting a supervisor for assistance, confronting the bully and applying for long term leaves are some of the widely suggested short term coping strategies. Zapf & Gross (2001) states that victims that feel guilty of reporting the embarassing situation and donot want themselves to be a part of the investigation process often opt for taking up another job or transferring to a new position. HR managers generally suggest the victim to change their teams or reporting managers to stay away from the bully. Whether an employee is asked to change his job or get transferred to another location or position shows that organisation lacks revelant policies and is encouraging workplace bullying as an unnecessary social injustice. These strategies help victims cope with bullying for a short term as it cannot be garaunteed that they will not face the similar situation in their new job, position or location. To minimise the cases of workplace bullying in long term organisations must adopt zero-tolerence polcies and edcuate their employees of importance of reporting these cases to their supervisors, HR managers and if needed to their Employment Assistance Program (EAP) provider. Holmes (2016) suggests two effective ways of eradicating workplace bullying from organisations. First it is important to implement relevant educational programs which will educate employees and managers of the phenomenon of workplace bullying, its causes and consequences, and ways in which it can be presented. Second, organisations must develop a formal reporting procress and a dedicated investigation team which can be used by employees to report incidents of bullying. A relationship of trust between employees and employer can greatly help initially controlling and eventually eradicating bullying behaviour.

Caponecchia & Wyatt (2011) defines primary, secondary and tertiary interventions as the three distinct ways by which employees and organisations can safeguard themselves from workplace bulling. Primary interventions emphasize on controling the occurance of bullying incidents with help of stress management trainings, policy communication programs and negative behaviour awareness training. Owing to the fact that role ambiguity, poor leadership, unmanageable work load and perceived injustice are factors that encourage bullying, organisations must ensure they have well-defined polcies and procedures for defining reasonable workloads, role clarity, ethical decision making and leadership trainings (Namie & Namie, 2011). Secondary interventions emphasize on provided required resources and skills to employees so they can deal with bullying and get rid of it at the very first stage. Tertiary interventions emphasize on minimising the adverse affects after bullying has occurred. Workplace bullying can have long lasting after affects and thus it is important that the victim is provided counselling and debriefing to enable him overcome the feelings with time (Namie & Namie, 2011). Application of the three interventions by employers can help copeing with bullying in short term and minimising its occurance in long term.

Conclusion

Bullying being a chronic problem has adverse implication on the well-being of employees and reputation of the organisation. A review of literature on the phenomenon, conseques and ways of minimising workplace bullying reveals that victims who become subject to these negative behaviour often suffer with increased level of depression, anxiety and poor mental health. In the light of the literature reviewed it can be concluded that the prime intentions of the bully is to suppress the victim to such a level that they experience constant mental pressure and eventually become dysfunctional. Human resource managers who are responsible for investigating such cases of workplace bullying report that in most of the situations the flashbacks of the past events makes the victims so helpless that they even fail to find suitable words for experessing their feelings. It is important to educate employees through relevant educational programs which define the phenomenon of bullying, factors contributing to it and ways of coping with it in short term and minimising it in long term. Organisations should implement and adopt zero tolenance policies for preventing workplace bullying and discipling bullies within the organisation. It is important to develop a positive work environment and an open organisational culture which encourages two way communication. Effective reward and recognition systems should be implemented to appriciate behaviours that encourage collaboration among managers and employees and supports teamwork. Apart from these steps that are taken at organisational level it is also important to educate individual employees that if they are being victim to workplace bullying they should not feel guilty of being in the situation nor should they act in way that sacrifice their health and personal integrity just to ensure their jobs and position remain secure. It is important for victims to understand that effects of bullying never fade away, rather they intensify with time if not stopped completely.  

Bibliography

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