Effects Of Workplace Bullying Research Articles

Bullying and harassment: a case of success?

PurposeThis paper aims to examine an attempt by an organisation to address the significant problem of bullying and harassment. In doing so the paper particularly centres on the question of how the relative success of bullying and harassment policies might be measured.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a quantitative longitudinal study of a single organisation.FindingsThe findings revealed that there was a significant reduction in perceptions of bullying in the organisation. The level of trust in senior management, however, was not enhanced as a result of the success.Research limitations/implicationsThe study emphasises the need for further research on measuring the outcomes of bullying and harassment policies and also work is required to further the understanding of trust between senior management and their workforce.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights the importance, and difficulties, in assessing the success of policies such as bullying and harassment. In many respects this paper contains a mixed message for senior managers. Employees may acknowledge the impact of management actions on reducing the level of bullying and harassment but was not associated with a noticeable improvement of trust in senior management.Originality/valueThere is a plethora of literature on understanding the complexities and effects of workplace bullying. The literature, however, is relatively silent on the issue of measuring success of a policy and this paper seeks to contribute discussion on the subject.

Consequences of Workplace Bullying on Employee Identification and Satisfaction Among Australians and Singaporeans

This study responds to the call for cross-cultural investigations of workplace bullying by examining the relationship between workplace bullying and attitudes among employees from two countries. The authors argue that employees from societies that are less inclined to accept that power differences exist as a result of structure (low power distance countries, e.g., Australia) will respond to workplace bullying more negatively than will employees from cultures that accept that power differences exist as a result of structure (high power distance, e.g., Singapore). In all, 165 Singaporean and 152 Australian employees completed surveys designed to assess workplace bullying, workgroup identification, and job satisfaction. Results showed that workplace bullying was negatively related to both workgroup identification and job satisfaction among employees from both countries. Moreover, national culture influenced the relationship between bullying and job satisfaction and workgroup identification such that the negative relationships between bullying and these attitudinal outcomes were stronger for Australians than Singaporeans.

Building a framework for two internal organizational approaches to resolving and preventing workplace bullying: Alternative dispute resolution and training.

Workplace bullying is behavior that threatens, intimidates, humiliates, or isolates people at work, or undermines their reputation or job performance. Moving beyond research, academics and employment practitioners are beginning to address the need to design and implement organizational antibullying policies, training, conflict management programs and systems, and possibly, antibullying public policy and legislation. Consultants will play a key role in helping organizations develop and implement internal organizational programs. In this paper the authors describe alternative dispute resolution systems and workplace training. Key objectives include arriving at a clear definition of workplace bullying, fostering individual, organizational, and societal awareness of the prevalence and consequences of workplace bullying; and providing specific guidance and mechanisms for individuals, managers, human resource departments, corporate leadership, union representatives, attorneys, physicians, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, for preventing and handling bullying incidents.

Analysing metaphors used by victims of workplace bullying

Many researchers have investigated the effects of workplace bullying on individuals and organisations in an attempt to further their understanding of the nature of this phenomenon. Few researchers, however, have considered the underlying emotional dimensions of workplace bullying. One aim of the study reported here was to examine metaphors used by victims of bullying in an attempt to further understand the emotional dimensions of the problem. Participants were asked to construct metaphors describing the bully, the overall bullying experience, their feelings about themselves, and their feelings towards their organisation. The results showed that the majority of participants used metaphors to help communicate their experiences and to express a wide range of emotions about their experience. Accordingly, it is argued that further investigation into the use of metaphors to describe workplace bullying would enhance our understanding of this phenomenon.