The study is concerned about employers' liability to protect the mental welfare of employees alongside their physical health. The need for protection is demonstrated in several ways. Firstly, the introduction examines the statistical evidence of harassment in the workplace and its effect on its victims. Secondly, data was collected from nine participants who had taken their employer to court claiming that they had been bullied out of their jobs. These documents which were supplemented in some cases by personal statements, were analysed using the Glaser and Strauss Grounded Theory method tempered with Case Study method. Ethical issues coming to the fore during data collection supplied additional material for a chapter which eflects on problems researchers will encounter when working with vulnerable research participants. Analysis showed the importance of social support for victims and implicated the role the trade unions, the medical and legal professions plays in secondary victimisation for victims of workplace bullying. A review of existing legislation was conducted to determine if internal voluntary guidelines or new legislation would give best protection. Employer-led bullying was identified as the form on which internal guidelines have no impact. Workplace bullying was always found to be morally wrong and the issue of what is legally right but not morally right was discussed. The findings emerging from the analysis together with recommendation to place protection of harassment at work within Health and Safety policies was presented to opinion makers to gauge the level of interest in the investigator's recommendation that European Union Health and Safety officials should take the lead in advancing legislative change outlawing workplace harassment.

Bullying has long been associated with school children. In recent years, however, more attention has been paid to the bullying that has reached beyond the playground and into the workforce. One population facing this problem is staff nurses. To date, no one has found an effective way to address workplace bullying in the healthcare field, nor have effective methods been found for retaining trained nurses affected by this problem. The focus of this dissertation was on understanding nurses' lived experiences and how nurses decided to remain in their current working position despite these problems. Taking a phenomenological approach and using the conceptual framework of resilience, the study included telephone interviews of 2 pilot study participants and 12 main study participants. Recorded and transcribed participant responses to interview questions were coded thematically and analyzed. Three main themes emerged: stories of working with workplace bullying, challenges of the lived experiences of being bullied, and special techniques of nurses being bullied. Three subthemes also emerged: despair, love of being a nurse, and resilience. This study gave a voice to nurses affected by this problem, revealing special challenges they encounter and coping strategies they employ. Hospital administrators can use the findings of this study to create social change within nurses' working environment by implementing policies that will keep their nurses safe and happily employed. Future research should focus on workplace bullying in the nursing field and how it affects patient safety.

Media reports as well as existing (albeit limited) research suggest abusive work practices are common in restaurant kitchens. Kitchen abuse is explored in this case study, as ten experienced Swedish chefs were interviewed. Organisational culture theory is used to conceptualise the occupational culture of chefs, which is hypothesised to be of explanatory significance. The issue of abusive work practices is contrasted with workplace bullying literature. Results suggest abusive work practices do occur, but that certain rough jargon and authoritative management, that might be considered illegitimate in other workplace contexts, generally is expected and accepted among restaurant chefs. Contextual factors and the conditions of work, especially during intense service-periods, are thought to create certain demands on chefs, and particularly head chefs, that has formed various aspects of kitchen work. Chef culture seems adapted to these circumstances. A potential blind spot of the study is aspiring chefs that quit the profession shortly after entering. Not yet fully trained or accustomed to chef culture, this group faces an increased risk of ill-treatment, and they typically elude research. Overall, results suggest academic bullying concepts are problematic to apply on this case, and underscore the significance of contextual factors for understanding workplace abuse phenomena.

Although the topic of bullying generally leads to discussions of the dynamicsbetween and among children, bullying increasingly involves complex power structuresamong adults in their workplaces. The purpose of this project is to broaden theunderstanding of workplace bullying in the United States through the critical analysis ofpopular media and U.S. legal discourses. The analysis unravels the ways in whichbullying is normalized, individualized, perpetuated and rewarded. It seeks to denaturalizethe phenomenon and situate bullying as a construction that can bedeconstructed and addressed. It interrogates the messages of resistance, agency andblame as productive and disciplinary strategies that permit bullying to operate withdiscursive and material impunity. Legal prohibitions alone will not prove to be thepanacea but, along with reframed discourses, they will help undermine the naturalizationof bullying in the workplace and open new avenues for exploring solutions andalternatives.

Arbetsplatsmobbning har omfattande konsekvenser för individer i arbetslivet och samhället. Observatören har en viktig roll i arbetet mot mobbning, då dennes ingripande kan influera andra att göra detsamma. Denna studie undersökte om observatörens kön, locus of control och erfarenhet av observerad mobbning har en påverkan på intentionen att ingripa vid en mobbningssituation. Detta prövades utifrån sex hypoteser och frågeställningen hur relationen ser ut mellan ovangivna variabler i förhållandet till intentionen att ingripa vid mobbning. 165 individer i arbetslivet, varav 114 kvinnor, besvarade en enkät vilken innehöll Rotters The internal-external scale, en justerad Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised och ett instrument inspirerat av Hektner och Swensons påstående om intentionen att ingripa. Materialet anlyserades med hjälp av tvåvägs-ANOVA och Pearsons korrelationskoefficient. Studiens resultat var att erfarenhet av observerad mobbning, både enskilt och i kombination med kön och locus of control, påverkar intentionen att ingripa. Kön och locus of control visade inte på signifikanta huvudeffekter.

This study reports on the development and revision of an instrument to measure the relationship between workplace bullying and envy, as reported by the perpetrator of bullying. In the pilot study, referred to as Phase A, measures of workplace bullying, direct envy and indirect envy were developed. The constructs of envy and bullying were captured without the undesirable labels of ‘bullying’ and ‘envy’. The pilot instrument was administered to a random sample of 200 employees. A total of 74 questionnaires were returned, resulting in a 37% response rate. Psychometric analysis included Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory factor analysis. Written participant feedback was sought on question clarity and construct validity. The results indicated that the envy and bullying subscales had satisfactory internal reliability and construct validity and that the indirect participant-character methodology was the preferred measure of envy for the affect of anger. The relationship between envy and workplace bullying was investigated using Pearson product moment correlation coefficients. Results showed a positive relationship between envy and informal bullying. It was concluded that the instrument was a reliable and valid self-reported measure of envy and workplace bullying. The pilot instrument was adapted in Phase B of the study to improve its psychometric properties. Using the revised instrument, self-reported data on envy and workplace bullying were collected from a population of Australian workers in nursing, teaching and electrical trades. There were 1545 questionnaires distributed. A total of 413 usable questionnaires were returned, giving a response rate of 27%. Psychometric analysis included Cronbach’s alpha and confirmatory factor analysis. Gossip related behaviours were found to be related to a different construct than ‘bullying’ and these items were deleted from the analysis. A one way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc tests was performed to explore the impact of industry (nursing, teaching and electrical trades) on bullying scores. Results showed small yet significant between-industry differences for informal bullying, with significant moderate differences for total bullying. In Phase B of the study, the relationship between envy and workplace bullying was investigated for the sample (N = 413) and ‘high anger’ envy groups, using Pearson product moment correlation coefficients. ‘High anger’ was not measured as ‘overt aggression’, but as envious anger felt toward the possessor of superior traits. The major findings from this research were that envy had a positive significant (p < .05) relationship with all types of workplace bullying: informal bullying, formal bullying and total bullying. Further, the correlations between envy and all types of workplace bullying were found to increase for ‘high anger’ groups. Large (r > .70) significant (p < .05) correlations were found for some of the highest anger groups. As envious anger increased, the strength of the correlation between envy and workplace bullying increased. An important finding to emerge from this research was that it is the psychoanalytic view of envy, marked by a ‘feeling of envious anger at the possessor of superior traits’, which was most associated with all types of workplace bullying. The results demonstrated that the self-report study managed to overcome some of the methodological challenges of studying bullying from the perspective of the perpetrator and of measuring undesirable concealed emotions such as envy. Several recommendations for future research and preventative workplace practice arose from the findings of this study. Future research should apply the objective methodology employed in this study to longitudinal self-reported studies. Such studies could provide insight into whether bullying is a static or an escalating process. Related to this, future studies need to investigate why bullying, as reported by the perpetrators of bullying in this study, is either not deterred by organisations or not formally reported by targets. The role of organisations in monitoring and preventing workplace bullying and the apparent inadequacy of workplace bullying policies and internal grievance processes warrant further research. There needs to be greater awareness of the potential for organisations to elicit [harmful] envy through workplace ‘rewards’. Investigation of the ‘progression of envious feelings’ at work may assist organisations to mitigate the escalation of envious feelings toward anger, which was found to be most associated with workplace bullying in this study. Importantly, organisations need to be aware of the potential for rewarded and talented workers to become targets of workplace bullying. As such, further workplace research is needed on narcissists, who envy those who receive more attention, praise or acknowledgement than themselves (Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, 2007). Given the ubiquitousness of envy reported on in this study, the ‘spectrum’ of narcissistic tendencies in the general population (Foster & Campbell, 2007) should be measured.

Bystander approach is widely used in violence and bullying prevention programs as it encourages the witnesses to become aware of abusive conducts and take action against them. Given the recent implementation of this approach in organizational contexts, the present work aims at understanding factors supporting or discouraging witnesses to intervene on behalf of the victims of workplace bullying.Organizational ethics literature highlights the prominent role of morality in fostering bystander intervention at work. This moral component is discussed in the theoretical part of this doctoral dissertation, along with moral courage, a concept that corresponds to the ability to take moral actions despite knowing that they lead to adverse consequences for the intervener. Because of its characteristics, we claim that moral courage is as a particularly appropriate construct to help bystanders stopping workplace bullying. Therefore, we analyzed this concept and developed a scale to measure it, namely the MC@W scale.Afterwards, we used some of the concepts previously discussed to analyze bystander intervention against bullying as the result of a process that involves personological and contextual factors. In a frst study, drawing from vignette methodology, we explored the relationship among personological antecedent factors, such as moral courage, and different typologies of bystander intervention. As a stimulus, in this study we used a video that we designed and shot to represent a workplace bullying episode.In a second study, we developed and validated a model explaining the process that leads workplace bullying bystanders to act or not. Based on works about the “bystander effect”, the BI@W model highlights the key role of individual factors, such as assumption of responsibility and moral identity, and contextual ones, such as socio-moral climate, in influencing the behavioral process of intervention.These studies follow the research line that seeks to better understand witnesses’ behavior with the practical purpose to help HR professionals and organizations to develop more effective strategies against workplace bullying. / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Violence in South Africa is not only prevalent in society and the home environment, but is also present in the workplace. Although substantial research has been conducted into school violence and learner-focused, school-based violence, the study set out to determine the nature and extent of workplace violence that educators face; identify the effects and consequences of workplace violence on victims; profile educators as victims of workplace violence with specific reference to gender, age and occupational level; and determine the presence and role of policies and educator participation in managing and preventing educator-targeted violence. The comparative investigation further established difference in such experiences between private and public secondary schools. In pursuit of the objectives of the study, 274 self-administered questionnaires were delivered to three public and three private secondary schools in Gauteng after both probability and non-probability sampling methods were employed. A total of 122 completed questionnaires were returned. Using descriptive and inferential data analysis, by means of the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis H test, relationships, differences and similarities were determined. Both univariate and bivariate data are displayed in multiple formats. Evident from the results and corroborating existing literature, educators in the study reported having experienced both physical and non-physical (verbal and social) violence, although the survey findings indicate the latter to be dominant. Notably, educators are victimised by various perpetrators and the opportunity to become victimised is greatest during classes, especially in public schools. Educator-targeted violence appears to be the result of multiple interrelated contextual factors that result in a fear for personal safety and far-reaching personal and professional consequences for educators. The profile of educators as victims verified and further exposed various risk factors in terms of demographics and background. Female educators, unmarried educators, public school educators, educators working for long periods of time and educators with lower educational achievements presented greater risk of victimisation. Similarly, female educators and public school educators experienced deficits in power and control. In terms of the public and private divide, significant associations indicated that educators in public schools were more likely to experience physical violence, verbal violence, bullying and vandalism by learners thus justifying their increased likelihood of feeling threatened in the workplace, considering their school at high risk of violence, and viewing workplace violence as a serious problem. Furthermore, with a higher chance of victimisation by not being heard, favouritism and overcrowding, public school respondents were more likely to report lower levels of involvement in decision-making regarding school issues, which consequently affected their sense of power and control in the workplace and increased their risk of victimisation. The majority of respondents indicated having neither been provided with material(s) related to workplace violence nor having received training with regards to the phenomenon (in particular female respondents) therefore the researcher recommends, amongst others, an increase in training and the dissemination of information regarding workplace violence against educators, both in the school setting and among the community. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Social Work and Criminology / MSW / Unrestricted

Work is a significant part of everyday life for many, so it is not surprising that it would be included in the storylines of many Hollywood films. Movies incorporate elements from everyday life, real or imagined. There is a plethora of research making connections between film and the social world, but not regarding workplace bullying. This study takes a close and in-depth look at workplace bullying as it is depicted in scenes from a sampling of 100 Hollywood films released 1994-2016. It is interpretive in nature and guided by the theoretical underpinnings of film theory, social construction of reality theory, and symbolic interaction theory. Qualitative media analysis (synonymous with ethnographic content analysis) and grounded theory, in concert with Hymes Ethnography of Communication SPEAKING Model methods, blended and facilitated data collection and analysis. The advent of a theoretical frame highlighting the delicate interplay within the depictions of workplace bullying became evident; herein named the paradoxical web of workplace bullying. Within this paradox are tragedy and comedy; from which ambivalence resilience theory emerges. This research contributes to the literature of conflict studies and more specifically the scholarly research and professional practice dedicated toward greater understanding and eradication of this horrific phenomenon, workplace bullying

Workplace bullying has become increasingly prevalent in the workplace, and as such has led to instances of job dissatisfaction, and in extreme cases, workplace violence. It is important to understand workplace bullying as an organization, a manager, and particularly in the role of human resources in order to best address such situations. Current studies have evaluated the effects of workplace bullying, along with possible suggested causes – however with the vast differences in the four generations now working together in the workplace – this is an area that also needs to be addressed as the problem of workplace bullying continues to grow. The quantitative study of workplace bullying and the effect of multiple generations will be conducted using a survey, where respondents can disclose their experiences with workplace bullying anonymously. The data will be collected and analyzed using SPSS to determine any correlations between different generations and bullying in the workplace. Current theories such as social exchange theory (SET), social cognitive theory (SCT) and affective events theory (AET) will be used to support the current research. Upon reviewing the results of the study, the conclusions that can be made will help provide further research in the field, for both human resource professionals and organizations.