Sticks and Stones may Break Your Bones, but Words can Break Your Spirit: Bullying in the Workplace

Abstract

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can create toxic working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed.

Effect of Workplace Bullying on Turnover Intention of Faculty Members: A Case of Private Sector Universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

“…Bullying in the workplace can also be declared as a form of psychological and domestic violence. Statistics have shown that it is three times more prevalent than sexual harassment (Namie, 2003) and involves deliberate humiliation of co-workers (Vega & Comer, 2005). Accordingly, Coyne, Seigne, and Randall (2000) declare bullying as a form of counterproductive behavior at work.…”

“…However, bullying does not refer to harmless incivility and teasing (Vega & Comer, 2005). Speaking on the same lines, Yamada (2008) argues that a custom disagreement with a tough boss, having a difficult task to accomplish, or mere disagreements on job does not signify bullying behaviors.…”

“…The organizations face heavy costs due to the prevalence of such behaviors. According to Bassman (1992), organizations can face direct costs in the form of medical and compensation claims by the targets due to stress they face on job because of bullying; costs of lawsuit; costs in the form of sick leaves and reduced productivity (Vega & Comer, 2005), and loss of goodwill and reputation (Poilpot-Rocaboy, 2006). They may also face indirect costs that arise as a result of resentment and feelings of humiliation, all of which leads to absenteeism, poor customer-relationships, high turnover (Bassman, 1992) and loss of qualified personnel (Rayner, Hoel, & Cooper, 2002).…”

“…Overall, bullying causes alienation, un-employability, disaffection etc. in the society at large (Vega & Comer, 2005).…”

The Means to Justify the End: Combating Cyber Harassment in Social Media

“…Offline harassment has a well-established body of business ethics research that includes racial harassment (e.g., Stevens, 2001), sexual harassment (e.g., Baugh, 1997;Bell et al, 2002;Wells and Kracher, 1993), and work victimization (e.g., Vega and Comer, 2005;Wornham, 2003), but the identification and investigation of cyber harassment and cyber stalking (i.e., repeated cyber harassment over a period of time) is an under-exposed research theme. In contrast, cyber harassment receives considerably more attention in the popular press.…”