Measuring workplace bullying

Workplace bullying is increasingly being recognized as a serious problem in society today; it is also a problem that can be difficult to define and evaluate accurately. Research in this area has been hampered by lack of appropriate measurement techniques. Social scientists can play a key part in tackling the phenomenon of workplace bullying by developing and applying a range of research methods to capture its nature and incidence in a range of contexts. We review current methods of research into the phenomenon of bullying in the workplace. We examine definitional issues, including the type, frequency, and duration of bullying acts, and consider the role of values and norms of the workplace culture in influencing perception and measurement of bullying behavior. We distinguish methods that focus on: (a) inside perspectives on the experience of bullying (including questionnaires and surveys, self-report through diary-keeping, personal accounts through interviews, focus groups and critical incident technique, and projective techniques such as bubble dialogue); (b) outside perspectives (including observational methods and peer nominations); (c) multi-method approaches that integrate both inside and outside perspectives (including case studies). We suggest that multi-method approaches may offer a useful way forward for researchers and for practitioners anxious to assess and tackle the problem of bullying in their organizations.     

Leadership and approaches to the management of workplace bullying

Leadership behaviour has been identified as an important antecedent of workplace bullying since managers may prevent, permit, or engage in the mistreatment of others. However, the issue of how managers respond when bullying occurs has received limited attention. With this in mind, the aim of this study was to explore how managers behave when bullying occurs in their work group and to elucidate the contextual issues that underlie this behaviour. This was achieved through analysis of in-depth interviews with individuals involved in cases of bullying. The findings revealed a typology of four types of management behaviour in cases of bullying, each underpinned by contextual factors at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The study shows that the role of leadership in workplace bullying is more complex than previously thought and suggests several ways in which managers and organizations could deal with bullying behaviour.     

Coping with bullying in the workplace

The purpose of the study was to investigate the 1-year prevalence of bullying in the form of repeated exposure to slander and/or nasty teasing in Danish workplaces, and to analyse whether respondents subjected to bullying use the same coping strategies as respondents who are not subjected to bullying. The results show that approximately 2% of the Danish employees are subjected to bullying at work. We compared the use of coping strategies in three groups: a non-exposed group, a somewhat exposed group, and a very exposed group (i.e., bullied). The results showed no linear association between the three groups, but a difference between being exposed and not exposed. The results seem to indicate that it is not necessarily the quantity of the negative acts that cause the change in behaviour but more the fact of being exposed to such acts.     

A job characteristics approach to explain workplace bullying

This article analyses job characteristics as antecedents of workplace bullying, in line with the early Scandinavian research tradition. Research thus far suggests a large variety of possible job related antecedents. Recent review findings and methodological criticism, however, suggests that these findings need to be treated with caution. Warr's Vitamin model is used to summarize relevant job-related antecedents of workplace bullying. All relationships are tested simultaneously in a hierarchical regression analysis, controlling for covariates. A large and heterogeneous sample of Belgian workers is used to test the hypotheses (n = 6175). The results show that task autonomy is not significantly related to bullying. In line with earlier research, role conflicts and role ambiguity are the most important antecedents. Also (lack of) participation in decision making, (lack of) skill utilization, workload, cognitive demands, changes in the job, job insecurity, and (lack of) task-related feedback are found to be directly related to workplace bullying. These findings are discussed in the light of the literature and some suggestions for practice are formulated.     

20 Years of workplace bullying research: A review of the antecedents and consequences of bullying in the workplace

Research on workplace bullying, which has just recently passed the 20 year mark, has grown significantly over this duration of time. We provide an extensive review of the extant literature, with a focus on the antecedents and consequences of workplace bullying. We organize our review of the extant literature by level of analysis, which allows us to understand workplace bullying from each major level of analysis, while simultaneously identifying those levels at which research has been sparse. We then develop a conceptual model based on our review that similarly depicts theoretical and/or empirical findings from the extant literature, but in a succinct manner. Based on our review and conceptual model, we identify and highlight a number of key avenues for future research that will help extend the current workplace bullying literature.     

Racial/ethnic bullying: Exploring links between bullying and racism in the US workplace

This study examined relations between the incidence of workplace bullying and the everyday experiences of members of ethnic and racial minorities in the American workplace. Particular attention was paid to expressions of bullying that overtly or specifically refer to race or ethnicity, in the form of more or less subtle acts of discrimination and hostile treatment, introducing the term `racial/ethnic bullying.' Participants belonging to four racial/ethnic groups (Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and whites) responded to a written survey of general and racial/ethnic bullying experiences, responses, and preferred modes and methods of internal organizational redress and dispute resolution. Very different profiles emerged between bullying perpetrated by supervisors/superiors versus co-workers/peers in the organization.     

Coping with bullying in the workplace: the effect of gender, age and type of bullying

A study of bullying, victimisation and the coping strategies employed to tackle it is presented in the first study of bullying in the workplace conducted in Iceland. Participants were 398 members of a union of store and office workers and members of a national organisation of bank-employees. A factor analysis of bullying items identified two factors: general bullying and work-related bullying. Males score higher on both factors, but when asked directly if they have been bullied or not, no significant gender difference appears. A measure of coping strategies when faced with bullying is presented. A factor analysis and multidimensional scaling of these strategies identified four clusters: assertive response, seek help, avoidance and do nothing. These can be arranged on a passive vs. active dimension, which may reflect the severity or duration of the bullying situation. Multiple regressions indicate that males seek help less and use avoidance less than females, and males are more likely to use assertive strategies, confirming gender stereotypes about what constitutes appropriate behaviour. Increased bullying is also associated with the use of avoidance and passive response (do nothing). These results are mainly in accordance with findings from schools. It is suggested that active coping styles are employed during the initial stages of bullying but that victims resort to more passive coping strategies as the bullying becomes more serious. The need for a longitudinal design is proposed to understand the relationship between duration and severity of the bullying experience and the choice of coping strategies.     

Accounts of workplace bullying: The role of the organization

In over a decade of research into bullying at work, the focus has been on defining, measuring, and explaining the essential nature of the bullying phenomenon. This focus has positioned the individual as the main unit of analysis, with the organization acting as a facilitating backdrop. By assuming a critical research position as opposed to the dominant positivist tradition from which most of the bullying research emanates, attention can be drawn to additional and marginalized accounts. Our research does not offer a definition of bullying—rather, we examine the implications of the different ways in which the term bullying is used. This paper uses data from a case study in a large telecommunications company's call centres. We demonstrate that while employees use the pathologized individual and the facilitating environment to account for bullying, in addition they use the notion of the pathologized organization. This additional narrative brings issues of power and politics in organizations to the fore. Taking a critical management approach, we focus on employee accounts of the oppressive impact of power structures. We argue that marginalizing certain accounts functions to maintain the organizational power balance. By using the term bullying to describe their work experience, employees in this study sought to employ an emotive and highly charged term to highlight their discontent at increasingly difficult work situations.     

Gender differences in workplace bullying among prison officers

The aim of the study was to investigate gender differences in facing and experiencing workplace bullying. The subjects were 773 male and 123 female prison officers (response rate 64%). In all, 20% of the respondents perceived themselves as victims of bullying. No difference was found in this respect between men and women. Female victims had been subjects of sexual harassment significantly more often than their male colleagues. The persons bullying female officers were usually co-workers, whereas men were bullied by co-workers and supervisors equally often. Unsatisfactory features of work and poor social climate were significant predictors of bullying among both men and women. Bullying had similar effects on the feelings of stress, mental health, and job satisfaction of both men and women.     

Workers' perception of workplace bullying: A cross-cultural study

This study is one of the first studies to approach workplace bullying cross-culturally. It sought to compare employees' understanding of workplace bullying in two different world regions: Central America and Southern Europe, regarding three aspects of workplace bullying: psychological vs. physical harassment, hierarchical vs. horizontal bullying, and direct vs. indirect aggression. A convenience sample of 246 workers provided their own definition of workplace bullying through a single, open-ended question. The results showed that employees from Central America emphasized the physical component of workplace bullying more than the Southern European employees. However, similarities in the conceptualization of workplace bullying across both cultures were found as well. Both Southern European and Central American employees defined workplace bullying mainly as a hierarchical phenomenon, where the aggression took the form of direct strategies. Such differences and similarities bring to the field some positive inputs for the development and implementation of different strategies for dealing effectively with this phenomenon.     

Women's experiences of workplace bullying: changes in social relationships

This article reports a qualitative study, which investigated social processes in workplace bullying, based on in‐depth interviews with ten British women professionals who were targets of workplace bullying. Data were analysed using grounded theory methods. The resulting analysis showed links between disclosures of bullying, reactions of others, and some impacts on targets' psychological health. Key themes which emerged from the data included ‘being heard’ which describes how others reacted to disclosures of bullying behaviours, and the ‘ripple effect’ which describes how bullying impacted upon targets' significant others; these predominantly describe relationships with others outside the workplace. The theme of ‘withdrawal’ describes how targets and others managed relationships within the workplace, and ‘denial’ and ‘personalizing problems’ describe how others within the workplace responded to knowledge of bullying behaviours. The theme ‘maintaining self’ describes how participants responded to changed relationships and struggled to maintain a coherent sense of self during and subsequent to bullying. This research emphasizes the role of social processes and social environments, rather than individual or personality characteristics, in explaining the development of workplace bullying and its impacts on targets. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptions and experience of workplace bullying in five different working populations

Whilst aggression in the workplace has been systematically studied in recent years, research into workplace bullying per se still remains quite limited. In this article, we report the findings from an investigation into employees' perceptions of social and organizational work conditions and experiences of bullying at work. Six‐hundred‐seventy‐seven employees from five different working populations (managers, teachers, technicians, call centre operators, and engineers) completed the Workplace Relationships Questionnaire (WRQ). This paper presents the results of the analysis, linking the experiences of bullying and perceptions of social and organizational work conditions. The present findings predictably identify victims and non‐bullied participants, and also indicate the existence of a new category of employee affected by the problem of bullying; bullied/non‐victims. Bullied/non‐victims may provide crucial insights into the ways that company practices and policies impact negatively on the whole workforce. Aggr. Behav. 29:489–496, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The relative impact of workplace bullying as a social stressor at work

Hauge, L. J., Skogstad, A. & Einarsen, S. (2010). The relative impact of workplace bullying as a social stressor at work. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 426–433. Exposure to workplace bullying has been argued to be a severe social stressor and a more crippling and devastating problem for affected individuals than the effects of all other work‐related stressors put together. However, few studies have explicitly investigated this assumption. In a representative sample of the Norwegian working population, the present study investigated the relative contribution of workplace bullying as a predictor of individual and organizational related outcomes after controlling for the well‐documented job stressors of job demands, decision authority, role ambiguity and role conflict. Bullying was found to be a significant predictor of all the outcomes included, showing a substantial relative contribution in relation to anxiety and depression, while for job satisfaction, turnover intention and absenteeism, more modest relative contributions were identified. Workplace bullying is indeed a potent social stressor with consequences similar to, or even more severe than, the effects of other stressors frequently encountered within organizations. Thus, the finding that bullying has a considerable effect on exposed individuals also when controlling for the effects of other job stressors demonstrates bullying as a serious problem at workplaces that needs to be actively prevented and managed in its own right.     

South Korean culture and history: The implications for workplace bullying

This paper began by suggesting that culture might influence how people construe workplace bullying. Referring back to the studies of cultural differences in cognition, it was suggested that people of the Far East might construe workplace bullying differently from the people of Western countries. Taking South Korean culture as an example, this paper explained how historical background and culture shaped Korean's psyche in relation to workplace bullying. Currently available evidence was discussed including the way Koreans construed workplace bullying and how close social bonding might act as a buffer against a conflict escalating into bullying.     

An introduction to pentecostalisms

Pentecostalism is the result of an interesting amalgamation of different traditions: black and oral cultures, middle‐class and proletarian languages, catholic and evangelical spiritualities. These traditions are contextualized in Western, Latin American, Asian and African contexts which produce a bewildering pluralism. This “post‐modern religion” is not only a challenge to Pentecostal theologians but also to the ecumenical community.     

Assessing workplace bullying: Spanish validation of a reduced version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire

The aim of the present study was to validate a reduced Spanish version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ; Einarsen & Raknes, 1997). This instrument, which has been widely used in various studies, was developed to measure workplace bullying. Two samples, the first comprising 352 employees from 11 organizations, and the second comprising victims of bullying who were recruited from 15 Spanish associations against bullying, participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis conducted with the data from the first sample revealed a two-factor solution that accounted for 63.3% of the total variance. The data from the second sample were used for confirmatory factor analyses to compare three structure models of the NAQ (one factor, two independent factors, and two correlated factors). The results indicate that the correlated two-factor model provided the best fit to the data (chi2/df = 2.1, CFI = .93, GFI = .95, RMR = .04, RMSEA = .06, AIC = 215.4). Reliability analysis showed that this 14-item Spanish version had high internal consistency. Significant correlations between the NAQ and its dimensions and diverse health and perceived stress scales were found, which provided evidence of construct validity. Taken conjointly, the results of this study support the use of the Spanish version of the reduced NAQ in future research.     

An introduction to the phenomenology of religion

This article examines how a secular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community choir in New Zealand negotiates a relationship with sacred repertoire, and the church in which the choir is located. A mixed-methods study included semi-structured interviews with 26 current and past members, musical directors and a church representative. Themes that emerged included tensions between religion and an LGBTQ cultural secularism, intersections of reconciliation and affirmation and the identity constitutive uses of space. Findings suggest that although, as LGBTQ-identified people, secularism is an important identity, sacred music is pleasurable. The choir provides church-like functions, through a sense of community, ritual and an environment for spiritual reflection and the practice of values. The church location offers reconciliation for those with Christian backgrounds. Benefitting each other, the choir gives St. Andrew’s legitimacy in its identity as an LGBTQ-inclusive church, and the church space has a queering effect on the presentation of the choir.