Organizational Justice and Workplace Bullying: Lessons Learned from Externally Referred Complaints and Investigations

Abstract

Workplace bullying is a serious psychosocial risk which, when poorly managed, results in detrimental outcomes for individuals, organizations, and society. Some of the most common strategies for addressing bullying within the workplace centre on attempts to document and contextualise the bullying situation—that is, the internal complaint and investigation process. Scholarly inquiries of these investigative mechanisms, however, are limited, and most have neglected the influence of organisational justice as an underpinning mechanism in explaining complainant dissatisfaction. Using evidence from 280 real-life cases of workplace bullying lodged with a peak work, health, and safety agency, we identify how organizational justice manifests in externally referred cases of workplace bullying. Specifically, we match complainant evaluations of the internal complaint and investigation handling process to domains of organisational justice, thereby ascertaining potential threats to efforts to effectively manage and prevent bullying in the workplace. Four types of justice—distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational—were identified within the cases. Specifically, in cases of workplace bullying where distributive justice is not upheld (usually by virtue of unsubstantiated claims), the way in which information is gathered and decisions are made (procedural), the way in which the parties are treated (interpersonal), and the timeliness and validity of explanations provided (informational) are all cited by complainants as key factors in their decision to escalate the complaint to an external investigative body. These results signal the need for timely, clear, and compassionate investigative processes that validate complainants’ experiences and serve as a tool for rebuilding trust and repairing damaged relationships in the workplace.

High Performance Work Systems, Justice, and Engagement: Does Bullying Throw a Spanner in the Works?

“…While some identified bullying as a consequence of injustice (e.g., [70,71]), others have looked at justice as a buffer protecting bullying victims from negative well-being (e.g., [72]). In a recent study of 280 cases, Neall, Li, and Tuckey [73] could add another perspective to this debate: from formally reported bullying, they saw that this-by the target described events of low justice in response to their several complaints as part of a bullying case-fueled further escalation of the bullying and its consequences for these targets. From this and looking at our own results, we might consider the idea that employees yield a qualitatively different interpretation of and focus on their work context, depending on which exposure group they belong to, molding our observed effects.…”

The Predictive of Work Place Bullying and Perceived Stress on Organizational Committment

“…Ayrıca, yıldırma korkutma veya cezalandırma amacıyla gerçekleştirilen, bireyin belirli bir süre boyunca bir veya daha fazla kişi tarafından kendini savunamayacağı olumsuz davranışlara maruz kaldığını hissettiği durumlar da zorbalığı kapsamaktadır (Einarsen, Hoel ve Notelaers, 2009). Evrensel olarak kabul edilmiş bir tanımı bulunmayan işyeri zorbalığı ise genellikle farklı güç düzeylerine sahip iki veya daha fazla taraf arasında belirli bir süre boyunca düzenli olarak tekrarlanan taciz edici, kırıcı veya sosyal olarak dışlayıcı eylemler olarak kabul edilmektedir (Neall, Li ve Tuckey, 2021).…”

The Relationship between Organizational Environment and Perpetrators’ Physical and Psychological State: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

“…Unfortunately, Human Resources professionals whom employees turn to for help tend to believe that bullying stems from interpersonal problems [ 7 ] and do not feel urged to act [ 8 ]. Upon formal bullying complaints, poor execution of investigations diminishes perceptions of organizational fairness and justice, triggering escalation to an outside party for further investigation [ 9 ].…”