Denise Salin

Ways of Explaining Workplace Bullying: A Review of Enabling, Motivating and Precipitating Structures and Processes in the Work Environment

This article summarizes the literature explaining workplace bullying and focuses on organizational antecedents of bullying. In order to understand better the logic behind bullying, a model discussing different explanations is put forward. Thus, explanations for and factors associated with bullying are classified into three groups, enabling structures or necessary antecedents (e.g. perceived power imbalances, low perceived costs, and dissatisfaction and frustration), motivating structures or incentives (e.g. internal competition, reward systems and expected benefits), and precipitating processes or triggering circumstances (e.g. downsizing and restructuring, organizational changes, changes in the composition of the work group). The article concludes that bullying is often an interaction between structures and processes from all three groupings.

Prevalence and forms of bullying among business professionals: A comparison of two different strategies for measuring bullying

The aim of this study was to analyse the prevalence and forms of workplace bullying among business professionals holding predominantly managerial or expert positions. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among Finnish professionals with a university degree in business studies. In the study two different strategies for measuring bullying were used and compared. When provided a definition of bullying, 8.8% of the respondents reported that they had at least occasionally been bullied during the past 12 months. However, when using a slightly modified version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire (Einarsen & Hoel, 2001), containing a list of 32 predefined negative and potentially harassing acts, as many as 24.1% of the respondents reported that they had been subjected to at least one of the negative acts on a weekly basis. The respondents had experienced predominantly work-related negative acts, e.g., that their opinions and views were ignored, that they were given unreasonable deadlines, or that information was withheld. Although the prevalence rates reported with the two strategies varied considerably, there was still consistency between the two strategies in the sense that those who had classified themselves as bullied also reported higher exposure rates to almost all of the negative acts included.

Perceptions of and reactions to workplace bullying: A social exchange perspective

The aim of this article is to introduce a social exchange perspective to the study of workplace bullying. Much of the existing research on bullying has had a strong empirical focus, leaving the concept relatively under-theoretized. By applying the social exchange theory based concepts of justice, psychological contract breach, and perceived organizational support, we aim to shed light on a number of aspects of bullying that to date have remained poorly understood. First, drawing on the concepts of justice and contract breach, we highlight the perceptual and subjective element in workplace bullying. Second, the concepts of justice and contract breach allow us to provide insights into how bullying is experienced and the mechanisms through which bullying leads to negative outcomes for both targets and bystanders. Third, the concept of perceived organizational support highlights the importance of appropriate and timely responses to workplace bullying. Finally, we discuss implications for both research and practice.

Bullying and organisational politics in competitive and rapidly changing work environments

This paper argues that workplace bullying can in some cases be a form of organisational politics, that is, a deliberate, competitive strategy from the perspective of the individual perpetrator. A cross-sectional study conducted among business professionals revealed that there was a correlation between a politicised and competitive climate and bullying. This finding implies that globalisation, increased pressures for efficiency, and restructuring, which limits the number of management positions and thereby contributes to increased internal competition, may lead to more bullying. The findings have important implications for management, since the possible political aspects of bullying must be taken into account in order to be able to undertake successful prevention and intervention measures.

Organisational Responses to Workplace Harassment: An Exploratory Study

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore what kind of measures personnel managers have taken to intervene in workplace harassment and to explore how organisational characteristics and the characteristics of the personnel manager affect the choice of response strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The study was exploratory and used a survey design. A web‐based questionnaire was sent to the personnel managers of all Finnish municipalities and data on organisational responses and organisational characteristics were collected.Findings – The study showed that the organisations surveyed relied heavily on reconciliatory measures for responding to workplace harassment and that punitive measures were seldom used. Findings indicated that personnel manager gender, size of municipality, use of “sophisticated” human resource management practices and having provided information and training to increase awareness about harassment all influence the organisational responses chosen.Research limitations/implications ...

Workplace bullying as a gendered phenomenon

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that bullying is a gendered, rather than gender‐neutral, phenomenon.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews empirical findings on gender and bullying and identifies and discusses theoretical frameworks that can provide explanations for identified gender differences.Findings – The paper shows that there are gender differences not only in reported prevalence rates and forms of bullying, but that gender also matters for the way targets and third parties make sense of and respond to bullying. It is shown that gendered conceptions of power, gender role socialisation theory and social identity theory are all relevant for explaining reported gender differences.Research limitations/implications – The theoretical frameworks that have been selected should not be seen as exhaustive, but rather as useful examples. The authors encourage researchers in the field of bullying to pursue cross‐disciplinary research and actively apply existing theoretical frameworks to...

Risk factors of workplace bullying for men and women: The role of the psychosocial and physical work environment

Workplace bullying has been shown to be a severe social stressor at work, resulting in high costs both for the individuals and organizations concerned. The aim of this study is to analyze risk factors in a large, nationally representative sample of Finnish employees (n = 4,392). The study makes three important contributions to the existing literature on workplace bullying: first, it demonstrates the role of the physical work environment alongside the psychosocial work environment - employees with a poor physical work environment are more likely than others to report having been subjected to or having observed bullying. Second, contrary to common assumptions, the results suggest that performance-based pay is associated with a lower, rather than higher risk of bullying. Third, the findings suggest that there are gender differences in risk factors, thereby constituting a call for more studies on the role of gender when identifying risk factors. Increased knowledge of risk factors is important as it enables us to take more effective measures to decrease the risk of workplace bullying.

‘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.

The effect of exposure to bullying on turnover intentions: the role of perceived psychological contract violation and benevolent behaviour

ABSTRACT This study analyses the relationship between exposure to workplace bullying and turnover intentions. We hypothesised that this relationship is mediated by perceptions of psychological contract violation, and that employee benevolence acts as a moderator. A survey design was employed and data were collected among business professionals (n = 1148). The analyses confirmed that perceived psychological contract violation partially explains the relationship between exposure to bullying and turnover intentions. The mediation process was stronger for those reporting more benevolent behaviour, suggesting that the importance of perceived psychological contract violation is greater among those scoring high on benevolent behaviour. The results also show that highly benevolent employees are more affected by exposure to bullying behaviour, although the effects were equally detrimental, irrespective of benevolent behaviour, when employees were exposed to very high levels of bullying. The study advances understanding of the mechanisms that govern outcomes of exposure to bullying, highlighting in particular the role of perceived psychological contract violation, and examining differences concerning high or low benevolence employees.

El acoso laboral o mobbing: similitudes y diferencias de género en su severidad percibida

Resumen Basándose en la teoría del rol social de género, el propósito de este trabajo es analizar el impacto de la variable sociodemográfica “género” sobre la manera en que las personas valoran la severidad de los diferentes comportamientos de acoso laboral o mobbing. En el Estudio 1, se aplica el método Delphi con una muestra de expertos. Los resultados mostraron que los hombres percibieron las conductas de abuso emocional como menos severas que las mujeres. En el Estudio 2, realizado con empleados, los resultados replicaron y extendieron los hallazgos del Estudio 1. Específicamente, las mujeres evaluaron la severidad de las conductas de agresión relacional (aislamiento y abuso emocional), de modo más severo que los hombres. Estos resultados sugieren que el género es un factor diferencial a la hora de concebir el acoso laboral. Esto puede tener implicaciones importantes a la hora de que directivos de empresas de uno u otro género hayan de decidir las formas de prevenir y actuar ante situaciones de acoso.