Workplace bullying as an organizational problem: Spotlight on people management practices.

Abstract

Though workplace bullying is conceptualized as an organizational problem, there remains a gap in understanding the contexts in which bullying manifests-knowledge vital for addressing bullying in practice. In three studies, we leverage the rich content contained within workplace bullying complaint records to explore this issue then, based on our discoveries, investigate people management practices linked to bullying. First, through content analysis of 342 official complaints lodged with a state health and safety regulator (over 5,500 pages), we discovered that the risk of bullying primarily arises from ineffective people management in 11 different contexts (e.g., managing underperformance, coordinating working hours, and entitlements). Next, we developed a behaviorally anchored rating scale to measure people management practices within a refined set of nine risk contexts. Effective and ineffective behavioral indicators were identified through content analysis of the complaints data and data from 44 critical incident interviews with subject matter experts; indicators were then sorted and rated by two independent samples to form a risk audit tool. Finally, data from a multilevel multisource study of 145 clinical healthcare staff nested in 25 hospital wards showed that the effectiveness of people management practices predicts concurrent exposure to workplace bullying at individual level beyond established organizational antecedents, and at the team level beyond leading indicator psychosocial safety climate. Overall, our findings highlight where the greatest risk of bullying lies within organizational systems and identifies effective ways of managing people within those contexts to reduce the risk, opening new avenues for bullying intervention research and practice.

A weekly diary within-individual investigation of the relationship between exposure to bullying behavior, workplace phobia, and posttraumatic stress symptomatology.

“…Our understanding of workplace bullying has increased substantially in the last decade or so, leading the way to first attempts in developing preventive assessment tools, treatments, and interventions (see Gillen et al, 2017; Li et al, 2019; Tuckey et al, 2022). Despite these advancements, there is still insufficient fine-grained knowledge of processes and mechanisms explaining both the occurrence and the effects of bullying (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2018; Taris, 2022).…”

Dynamic and Multi-Party Approaches to Interpersonal Workplace Mistreatment Research

“…Similarly, the articles in this Special Issue suggest that the group, organizational, and cultural context may determine how individuals will react to workplace mistreatment, and whether mistreatment will result in lasting spirals or patterns. Specifically, two of the articles highlight that individuals may engage in workplace mistreatment as retaliation (Kim et al, 2023; Vranjes et al, 2022a). If indeed workplace mistreatment can be triggered by a motive to punish perpetrators, then organizational systems that are perceived as effective and trustworthy in providing recourse mechanisms, sanctioning perpetrators, and in restoring justice could make individual mistreatment reactions obsolete or at least less likely.…”

“…Paciello et al (2022) and Follmer et al (2022) illustrate that the relationship between perceived and enacted aggression can be found across a time lag of 1-month and can be explained by people’s lack of moral and emotional resources, respectively. Finally, the study by Vranjes et al, (2022a) suggests that when it comes to bullying, the time-lag needed to observe the effect might be even longer. In their study, people engaging in bullying became exposed to such behavior themselves a year and a half later.…”

“…Recent research finds that the work environment not only determines the general levels of mistreatment in that context, but that it can also impact other factors known to elicit mistreatment. (e.g., Glambek, Einarsen, & Notelaers et al 2020;Vranjes et al, 2022b;Plimmer, Nguyen, Teo, & Tuckey 2022;Tuckey et al, 2022). Although most of the articles in this Special Issue focus on individual perceptions of, and reactions to, workplace mistreatment, the ensemble of articles provide rich illustrations for how mistreatment may develop and reverberate inside groups, organizations, and societies.…”

Incivility and interpersonal harm in organizational context: A qualitative exploration of values in STEM training programs

“…Incivility has been recognized—by some scholars—as an organizational phenomenon that is rooted in group practices, above and beyond individuals' behaviors (Cortina et al, 2017). For example, management practices can predict employee incivility perpetration (Tuckey et al, 2022); when one believes incivility is common or when their group allows such behaviors, one is more likely to perpetrate (Segrist et al, 2018). Incivility perpetration risk factors also include poor psychological and physical well‐being, job attitudes, job demands, and teamwork/team climate (Park & Martinez, 2022).…”