PurposeThe paper aims to expand and extend previous work on the role of employees who act in non‐violent ways to achieve their personal ends through inducing fear in others in organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe literature surrounding internal terrorists is reviewed and preliminary survey results are presented to support the conclusions derived from that literature.FindingsA model is developed that more carefully identifies how the role of internal terrorists comes about and why they are more likely to engage in non‐violent as opposed to violent behavior.Research limitations/implicationsResearch is needed to identify those aspects of organizations that seem to foster or “bring out” violent and non‐violent internal terrorists. Given the differences between internal terrorists and other terrorists, more careful study of those two groups is clearly needed. Since most terrorists express feelings of injustice, stronger links should be attempted between the research on organizational justice and internal terrorism. Just as employee theft has been linked to perceived injustice, so, too, internal terrorism may be linked to higher levels of such perceived injustice.Practical implicationsResearch is needed to indicate how terrorism evolves over time as well as what measures seem to be most effective in countering such developments within organizations. Of particular interest to practitioners would be determining the extent to which profit‐seeking versus non‐profit organizations accommodate internal terrorists and the extent to which gender matches between the internal terrorist and the target person are common.Originality/valueThis paper fills a gap in the literature about the role of internal terrorists by delineating more fully the dysfunctional role those individuals play in organizations.

The purpose of this paper was to present a first step toward developing a behavioral description of managerial bullying that better distinguishes among (1) behavior that is bullying, versus (2) other unacceptable behavior that is not bullying, and (3) aggressive but nevertheless acceptable managerial behavior. The study was based on a survey using SurveyMonkey© and announced through social media (LinkedIn©, Twitter©, Facebook©) groups identified with workplace violence or bullying. The survey consisted of critical incidents of behaviors that employees had specifically identified as "bad management," plus respondent characteristics that might explain their responses. The results show that workplace bullying in the U.S. workplace is a serious problem that is seldom reported to management. Neither age, gender, experience, language at home, having bullied, nor having been bullied seems to influence what a subject regards as bullying behavior, but negative managerial behavior directed at a particular employee especially in the presence of others is highly likely to be seen as bullying. To develop a theory of managerial bullying, further research needs to be directed toward the causes of workplace bullying, specifically the interaction of elements of the workplace itself as well as characteristics of both the perpetrator and the victim and external influences (workplace, perpetrator, victim, external conditions). Meanwhile, organizations should develop and enforce anti-bullying policies and training programs that use specific behaviors, such as those identified here, to clarify how the organization defines workplace bulling.

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The literature presents a confusing picture regarding the performance of black entrepreneurs. One reason for the relatively higher failure rate for black entrepreneurs may be the environment in which they begin operations–-the inner city. A study was conducted of black-owned and white-owned Inner city firms to examine this issue. The findings suggest that the race of the owner is not a very Important factor for distinguishing between relatively successful and unsuccessful firms in this Inner city area.

This article introduces the use of semantic analysis as a technique for uncovering how the terms bullying and harassment are used. We infer the latent meanings from the titles and abstracts of all articles in the Social Science Citation Index as of September 2016 using Symphony Content Analysis Software. That software applies rigorous techniques to qualitative input to obtain relationships among words and phrases. Content analysis is an empirically based, exploratory methodology. Results suggest that when improper behavior is directed toward children, it is usually identified as bullying. When it involves sexual content, it is sexual harassment. When it is more physical, it may more likely be termed bullying. When it involves name calling or related actions, it is labeled harassment. More importantly, the results show that all these forms of improper behavior are so similar that the distinctions may really involve intentions or impacts rather than the actions, actors, or targets. Suggestions are made about further research applications to better understand terms used in describing dysfunctional behavior.