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Bosses Get Bullied Too: Exploring Upwards Bullying to Learn More About Workplace Bullying
... Previous studies have identified a prevalence rate of between 10% and 20% of managers reporting that they have been bullied, primarily by their employees [7]. When a manager is bullied, especially by subordinates, it reflects a situation in which those who are lower down the hierarchy gain power from factors that are not related to their position. ...
... In addition, a recent overview of bullied managers identified several work-environment factors as contributing to upward bullying, namely role overload, competition, change, and isolation. These findings indicate that a subordinate would need to augment their power with support from other person(s) in authority (i.e., other manager(s) and supervisor(s)) to bully upwards and overcome the positional power of a manager [7]. D'Cruz and Rayner (2013) call this "cross-level co-bullying"-in other words bullying that involves individuals at different hierarchal levels within an organization [13] (p. 597). ...
... In a later publication, Branch et al., 2018 point out that, while general workplace bullying and the bullying of managers have much in common, many processes in the latter focus on the use and abuse of power towards those in a higher hierarchical position [7]. Authors of a recent qualitative study into bullied managers and power identify a "power cycle" [15] (p 21), according to which the use of power tactics by others can be triggered when the legitimate power of managers is undermined. ...
Background: The aim of the study was to describe factors that contribute to the occurrence of workplace bullying, that enable it to continue and the coping strategies managers use when they are bullied.
Methods:
A qualitative study design was applied. Twenty-two managers from the private and public sectors were interviewed. Data were analyzed by means of content analysis.
Results:
Several factors could be linked to the bullying: being new in the managerial position; lack of clarity about roles and expectations; taking over a work group with ongoing conflicts; reorganizations. The bullying usually lasted for quite some time. Factors that allowed the bullying to continue were passive bystanders and the bullies receiving support from higher management. The managers in this study adopted a variety of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. However, in the end most chose to leave the organization. Only four remained in their managerial position at the time of the interview.
Conclusions:
The study concludes that bullying can occur in all types of organization. To prevent it we need to look primarily at organizational factors. Social support is also crucial for managers' ability to cope successfully with bullying.
... The term "directionality" has been added to the elements since the direction of bullying varies. The majority of bullying takes place between the superior and the subordinate, indicating a downward direction (Beale and Hoel, 2010;LaVan and Martin, 2008;Rai and Deflating power imbalance Agarwal, 2017); however, lateral bullying (Blackstock et al., 2015;Granstra, 2015;Lachman, 2014) and upward bullying (Birks et al., 2017;Branch et al., 2018;Patterson et al., 2018) are also well cited. The authors were unable to locate the term "directionality" in the literature of bullying, but the data insisted on adding it as an element to the bullying phenomenon. ...
... Recent studies in upward bullying have found increased interest of the researchers (Branch et al., 2007;Branch et al., 2018;Patterson et al., 2018;Wallace et al., 2010). Further, in the case of upward bullying, the target clearly had the legitimate power; however, as cited by Raven (1993), Sinha and Singh-Sengupta (1991) found that the manager's power is restricted and the non-managers could resist against the legitimate power. ...
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to identify how the intersection of power, context, subjectivity and directionality makes it possible for the targets of workplace bullying to deflate power imbalance between them and the perpetrators.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on nine in-depth interviews with self-reported targets from different public sector organizations in India. The targets were purposively selected keeping in mind that they made deliberate attempts to counter bullying. Constructivist grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data.
Findings
Six themes emerged as sources of power imbalance and eight themes as the way of deflating power imbalance. The core category that emerged was “enhancing personal identity”, which was the underlying phenomenon leading to deflation of power imbalance, through the intersection of power, context, subjectivity and directionality.
Research limitations/implications
The study indicates that power, context, subjectivity and directionality of bullying help the targets to identify effective strategies of deflating power imbalance. In the process, the targets indulge in personal identity enhancement. It further reinforces the understanding that power does not remain static and may shift from the perpetrator to the target of bullying.
Practical implications
The study provides various tactics that targets can use to counter workplace bullying. It implies that targets need not always leave the organization or succumb to the situation in order to deal with bullying. It encourages the targets of bullying and those who deal with bullying targets to indulge in personal identity enhancement through problem-focused strategies of tackling workplace bullying.
Originality/value
It also furthers our understanding of workplace bullying from the point of intersection of the four aspects of the phenomenon – power, context, subjectivity and directionality – which allows the targets of bullying to enhance their personal identity.
... To have a realistic representation, in the script (see Annex B), we included all the aspects of workplace bullying, such as the duration and the repetition of the abusive actions. To include a certain degree of ambiguity, we represented a case of upwards workplace bullying (from a subordinate toward a superior), which is less common and clear than other forms of bullying (horizontal or downwards) but equally detrimental for victims and organizations (Branch et al. 2018). After the finalization of the script, we shot the video with the contribution of semi-professional actors. ...
Scholars are increasingly considering bystander intervention as a behavior that could be an effective solution to stop workplace bullying. Among the factors leading bystanders to intervene, scholars hypothesized that moral courage is a key concept supporting intervention. In this paper, an exploratory study is conducted to investigate the relationship between moral courage and bystander intervention against workplace bullying. This study follows an innovative design in which the stimulus is a video-vignette representing an episode of workplace bullying. Moral courage was assessed using an ad hoc constructed scale for moral courage at work (Moral Courage at Work scale – MC@W scale), while bystander intervention was assessed along the dimensions of personal involvement and immediacy following Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly’s indications (2005). A positive relationship was found between moral courage and bystander intervention, although results do not evidently support this main hypothesis. Taking as a moderator the engagement evoked by the video-stimulus, results showed that people with high-moral courage scores are more likely to manifest intervention with high-personal involvement. Despite the limitations of this study, results provide preliminary indications about the complex link between moral courage and bystander intervention, which needs further investigation. This contribution is included in the line of research seeking to understand how to mobilize bystanders in organizations. In this sense, actions and training programs could be planned to improve employees’ moral courage and consequently promote interventions against bullying and a better organizational environment.
Workplace bullying is an emerging problem in the organizational setting, that if not properly managed can deteriorate the normal functioning of an organization and consequently may harm the achievements of organizational goals. Aim of this research study is to explore the causes, impacts, and treatments of upward workplace bullying where subordinate behave in an inhumane way against supervisor. Data was collected by using semi-structured interviews with 10 persons employed at senior supervisory levels in the city of Faisalabad, Pakistan. A thematic analysis indicates that unclear managerial boundaries, absurd job descriptions, and weak interpersonal skills of the employees are the major causes of upward bullying. Individual impacts of bullying on the aggrieved parties and organizational treatments to mitigate and control the phenomenon are discussed.
The culturalist thesis remains pertinent to the field of workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment despite the universal presence of the problem across the globe. Nonetheless, most insights into the phenomenon come from Western inquiries conducted on Caucasian samples in the developed world, underscoring their limited generalizability and applicability to Eastern and Global South societies. Indeed, while the field of workplace bullying has been researched internationally for about 25 years, studies from Asia have been undertaken for a little over 10 years. Yet, deepening country-specific knowledge uniformly is especially important to inform and facilitate the design and execution of interventions customized to suit the context such that the (potential) effectiveness of action efforts is maximized. While the present volume focused on various countries in Asia is a step in this direction, the current chapter serves as a backdrop to the continent by providing an overview of the Asian context within which workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment unfold. The chapter juxtaposes Asia’s enormous diversity in terms of ethnicity, culture, history, political system, economy and climate vis-à-vis its fast-paced economic growth and contemporary global significance. In emphasizing the extremely complex sociocultural underpinnings of workplace bullying in Asia across the ‘varieties of workplace bullying’ conceptualization, the chapter provides a background to the much-needed Eastern perspective in the field.
Purpose
The current study investigated the use of power in cases of upwards bullying by examining the bases of power that staff members use, and how these bases create power imbalances.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six managers from several organisations. After completion of each interview, verbatim transcripts were created and examined using NVivo, allowing in-depth thematic analysis. The broad coding schema, developed through a review of the literature, was refined as analysis progressed.
Findings
Three major themes emerged: a loss of legitimate power; coercive power; and structural power. Findings suggest a ‘power cycle’ exists in upwards bullying episodes, which is presented diagrammatically. Discussion focuses on processes that commence with a decrease or loss of a manager’s legitimate power, associated with a lack of organisational support, and staff members’ perceptions of illegitimacy. Managers indicated vulnerability to inappropriate behaviours by staff members, and the potential for greater power imbalances to build due to these behaviours triggering a feedback mechanism, with managers experiencing a further loss of legitimate power.
Originality/value
The study recommends that research into the perspectives of staff members (such as alleged perpetrators) can further strengthen our understanding of the use of power in workplace bullying, and in upwards bullying in particular. Given the applicability of the outcomes of this research to our understanding of workplace bullying, such theory development can also foster practical approaches to addressing workplace bullying within organisations. Understanding the nature of power within workplace bullying processes can inform organisational strategies to disrupt the cycle of inappropriate behaviours, upwards and otherwise.
The book advances the nascent concept of depersonalized workplace bullying, highlighting its distinctive features, proposing a theoretical framework and making recommendations for intervention. Furthering insights into depersonalized bullying at work is critical due to the anticipated increased incidence of the phenomenon in the light of the competitive contemporary business economy, which complicates organizational survival.
Drawing on two hermeneutic phenomenological inquiries set in India focusing on targets and bullies, the book evidences that depersonalized bullying is a sociostructural entity that resides in an organization’s structural, processual and contextual design. Enacted by supervisors and managers through the engagement of abusive and aggressive behaviours, depersonalized bullying is resorted to in the pursuit of competitive advantage as organizations seek to ensure their continuity and success. Given the instrumentalism associated with the world of work, targets and bullies encountering depersonalized bullying display largely ambivalent responses to their predicament. Ironically, then, organizations’ gains in terms of effectiveness are offset by the strains experienced by these protagonists.
The theoretical generalizability of the findings reported in the book facilitates the development of an integrated framework of depersonalized workplace bullying, laying the foundations for forthcoming empirical and measurement endeavours that progress the concept. The book recognizes that whereas primary level interventions mandate repositioning the extra-organizational environment and/or recasting organizational goals to balance business and employee interests, secondary level and tertiary level interventions encompass various types of formal and informal social support to address targets’ and bullies’ interface with depersonalized bullying at work.
The findings from the first, qualitative stage of a larger sequential mixed method study of bullying in the Australian nursing workplace are reported. Interviews with twenty-six nurses, recruited from two health care organizations, were analysed using the constant comparative method. Participants described informal organizational networks as the mechanism through which predatory, cooperative, and planned group bullying acts were promulgated. These predatory alliances enabled the co-option of legitimate organizational systems, the concealment of bullying, and the protection and promotion of perpetrators. By identifying the manner in which workplace bullying can be embedded within informal organizational networks, this research has important implications for further research in this field.
While cyberbullying among children and adolescents is a well-investigated phenomenon, few studies have centred on adults' exposure to cyberbullying in working life. Drawing on a large sample of 3371 respondents, this study investigates the prevalence of cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying in Swedish working life and its relation to gender and organisational position. Using a cyberbullying behaviour questionnaire (CBQ), the result shows that 9.7% of the respondents can be labelled as cyberbullied in accordance with Leymann's cut-off criterion. Fewer respondents, .7%, labelled themselves as cyberbullied and 3.5% labelled themselves as bullied face-to-face. While no significant relationships with gender or organisational position was found for individuals exposed to face-to-face bullying, this study showed that men to a higher degree than women were exposed to cyberbullying. Moreover, individuals with a supervisory position were more exposed to cyberbullying than individuals with no managerial responsibility.
This article reports on an empirical enquiry undertaken in India's ITES-BPO (offshoring-outsourcing) sector to ascertain the presence of workplace bullying, the influence of sociocultural factors, the nature of bullying categories and the availability and use of extra-organizational redressal options. Survey data, gathered through structured interviews incorporating the Work Harassment Scale, conducted with 1036 respondents located in six cities, showed that 44.3% of the sample experienced bullying, with 19.7% reporting moderate and severe levels. In keeping with India's hierarchical society, superiors emerged as the predominant source of bullying, displaying task-focused behaviours. Yet, the presence of 'cross-level co-bullying' where a personal focus was emphasized points to the role of identity-based affiliations intrinsic to India's ethos. Key informant data, gathered through unstructured interviews with lawyers/legal activists, labour commissioners and trade unionists/labour activists and thematically analysed, underscored the influence of professional self-identity, career interests and a dysfunctional judicial system in targets' choice of extra-organizational options.
Three studies explored the relationship between participants using different styles of upward influence in formal organizations and their performance evaluations, salaries, and reported stress. In studies of workers, supervisors, and chief executive officers, the following four upward-influence styles were identified through cluster analysis: Shotgun, Tactician, Ingratiator, and Bystander. Male subordinates using a Shotgun style of upward influence were evaluated less favorably by their superiors, earned less, and reported more job tension and personal stress than Tactician subordinates. There was evidence that gender moderated the relation between subordinates' upward-influence styles and superiors' evaluation of their performances.
Workplace mobbing is a particularly serious phenomenon that is extremely costly to organizations and the health of those targeted. This article reports on a study of self-identified targets of mobbing, which advances understanding of the way the problem is conceptualized, including associated informal and formal power relationships with organizations. Participants report a number of experiences, such as lengthy investigations and escalation of conflict, that result in an increasingly unbalanced sense of power away from the individual and toward the organization. Revealed is a mismatch between the expected organizational justice processes and support and the actual experience. Findings support a five-stage process of mobbing, which commences with unresolved conflict and leads ultimately to expulsion from the organization. The study contributes an understanding of a sixth transformational stage that allows the development of personal agency and a rebalanced sense of power. Recommendations of strategic approaches to address the phenomenon of mobbing are discussed.
Though previous research has established organizational change as an antecedent of workplace bullying, issues about the source, aetiology, target orientation and level of organizational involvement and the role of HRM remain unstudied. Addressing these gaps through a hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry of Indian IT sector employees laid off during the 2008–2009 financial recession, downwards depersonalized bullying rooted in the organizational context, stemming from the implementation of the change endeavour and indicating the complicity of HR managers emerged as predominant. Apart from adding the perspective of workplace bullying to the lay-off literature, the study proposes the concept of ‘compounded bullying’ and has implications for the definition of workplace bullying, the legitimacy of organizational power and the scope of HRM.
Bullying in the workplace has become a major problem. The
subsequent international trend to impose legislation around
workplace bullying has led to a significant increase in bullying
claims. The intention of such legislation is positive, yet
some of these claims can be destructive, particularly when
bullying allegations arise from situations where managers are
trying to ensure that employees handle reasonable workloads
efficiently and effectively. Some employees seek union and
human resources support to deal with the apparently ‘errant’
manager. Pity the poor manager, who is merely trying to
have people undertake the work they have been employed
for, and for which they receive good compensation.
The present paper reviews and summarises the research and literature on the nature and causes of bullying at work. Bullying occurs when someone at work is systematically subjected to aggressive behaviour from one or more colleagues or superiors over a long period of time, in a situation where the target finds it difficult to defend him or herself or to escape the situation. Such treatment tends to stigmatise the target and may even cause severe psychological trauma. Empirical studies on the causes of bullying have concentrated on the personality of the victim and psychosocial factors at work. Most studies treat bullying as a unified phenomenon, in spite of the fact that different kinds of behaviours are involved. The concepts of dispute-related and predatory bullying are introduced in an effort to broaden the perspectives used in future investigations on both the nature and the causes of bullying at work.
Further and higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) have undergone radical change programs largely as a result of government policy and the opening up of these sectors to increased levels of competition. The speed with which these enforced changes have taken place have led to claims of bullying and ''macho-management'' inside institutions by a range of different commentators including the news media and trade unions. In exploring the link between the accounts of bullying portrayed by the media and trade unions, this paper reports how a study of university and college lecturers reveals a marginal role for these moral agents of bullying in the social construction process. In exploring the relationship between information on bullying and respondents experiences of bullying, this paper illustrates that it is work colleagues who are the strongest constituent in the social construction process. It appears that work colleagues play a critical role with the identification of being bullied, as well as with the possible causes of bullying and are central to the generation of both meanings and labels for workplace bullying.
Although organizational change has often been cited as an important cause of workplace bullying, only few studies have investigated this relationship. The current article aims to address this issue by exploring a direct as well as indirect relationship (i.e. mediation by various job and team-related stressors) between organizational change and bullying. Data were collected in 10 private organizations in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (N = 1260). Results show a significant relationship between organizational change and bullying. Role conflict, job insecurity, workload, role ambiguity, frequency of conflict, social support from colleagues and social leadership are all related to bullying. Regression analyses reveal a relationship between change and role conflict as well as job insecurity. The other stressors were not associated with organizational change and, hence, do not mediate. Finally, regression analysis shows that the relationship between organizational change and bullying is fully mediated by role conflict and job insecurity.
This paper introduces the concept of workplace mobbing as a destructive organizational behaviour of psychological assaults perpetrated against the target causing them harm and loss of employment. The discussion is drawn from a three year Australian study of 212 self identified targets of workplace mobbing behaviours. The behaviours are typically covert with informal networks and friendship loyalties providing effective mechanisms for emotional abuse, including those arising from human resource management practices. This paper discusses the manipulation of informal sources of power, with the use of gossip, rumour, hearsay, and innuendo to discredit and demonise those targeted. The study explores some of the systemic reasons for these behaviours and identifies some of the contributing risk factors and suggests management practices that can minimise the harm caused.
This paper explores the concept of shame within the context of workplace bullying. Despite a decade or more of international research into bullying at work, there is little or no evidence for explicit exploration of shame amongst those who have experienced bullying. Based on content analysis from the narratives of 15 college and university lecturers who were self-selecting victims of bullying we find clear evidence for feelings of shame which appear to last long after the bullying episodes have ended.
Two studies were conducted to replicate and extend previous exploratory research by D. Kipnis et al (see record
1980-33577-001) on influence tactics and objectives in organizations. A new questionnaire was developed that included measures of important influence tactics and objectives omitted in the earlier research. Whereas the earlier research used only agent self-reports of influence behavior, the present research used both agent and target reports. Differences in downward, lateral, and upward influence attempts were replicated more for data from agents than for data from targets. Direction of influence had a stronger effect on influence objectives than on influence tactics. Despite some differences due to data source and direction of influence, the relative frequency of use for the 8 influence tactics was remarkably similar across conditions. Consultation and rational persuasion were the tactics used most frequently, regardless of the direction of influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study investigates the psychometric properties, factor structure and validity of the revised Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R), an instrument designed to measure exposure to bullying in the workplace. By reanalyzing data based on a heterogeneous sample of 5288 UK employees, the results show that the 22-item instrument has a high internal stability, with three underlying factors: personal bullying, work-related bullying and physically intimidating forms of bullying, although the instrument may also be used as a single factor measure. Criterion validity was explored by relating the scores on the NAQ-R to a single-item measure of perceived victimization from bullying, showing high correlations with both the total NAQ-R and scores on the three factors. Targets of bullying scored significantly higher on all 22 items compared to non-targets. The NAQ-R correlated as expected with measures of mental health, psychosocial work environment and leadership, indicating a good construct validity of the instrument. Furthermore, a latent class cluster (LCC) analysis showed that the instrument may be used to differentiate between groups of employees with different levels of exposure to bullying, ranging from infrequent exposure to incivility at work to severe victimization from bullying and harassment. The more commonly used operational criteria can also be used to detect targets of bullying. Hence, the NAQ-R is proposed as a standardized and valid instrument for the measurement of workplace bullying.
A hostile work environment, in which insulting or offensive remarks, persistent criticism, personal abuse, or even physical abuse and threats prevail, is a reality for many employees in both public and private organizations. In Scandinavia, the term “mobbing” is commonly used to describe situations where a worker, supervisor, or manager is systematically and repeatedly mistreated and victimized by fellow workers, subordinates, or superiors. The term is widely used in situations where repeated aggressive and even violent behavior is directed against an individual over some period of time. Although some clinical and anecdotal accounts have been described by American authors, studies of this phenomenon have mainly been restricted to the Northern European countries. The aim of this study is threefold: (1) to present a framework for future research and theory development in this field, (2) to review the Scandinavian research tradition according to this framework, and (3) to provide some suggestions for future research.
In this book, the authors bring together the extant research evidence on occupational violence and bullying, estimate the costs to organizations and the community at large, examine the overlaps between manifestation in the broader community and the extent of spillover into workplaces, and identity preventive interventions that may safeguard organizations from these threats. Opportunities for safeguarding strategies to add value to organizational skills, productivity, quality and reputation amongst clients, investors and government stakeholders are emphasized.
Workplace bullying is a phenomenon that is attracting increasing interest from researchers throughout the Western world. To date, most of the research into workplace bullying has focused on managers and colleagues as the perpetrators of bullying in the workplace. By contrast, little is known about ‘upwards bullying’, where managers are the targets. We argue that in order to more fully understand workplace bullying as a whole, the phenomenon of upwards bullying requires research attention. In the present study, upwards bullying was explored in interviews conducted with 24 managers from public and private organizations, with the data coded and arranged thematically. Results indicate that potential contributing factors towards upwards bullying include the current work environment, change within organizations and power issues. We recommend that organizations identify the occurrence and processes of upwards bullying as important steps in developing comprehensive workplace bullying policies.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore target experiences of workplace bullying across Australia, India and Turkey, uncovering cross-cultural convergence and divergence.
Design/methodology/approach
– A questionnaire-based qualitative data survey of business school students with current/prior work experience ( n =399) was undertaken. In total, 114 respondents (57 Australian, 34 Indian, 23 Turkish) identified themselves as targets of workplace bullying. Close-ended data pertaining to sociodemographic details were analysed via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for descriptive statistics while open-ended data pertaining to experiences of bullying were thematically analysed against pre-figured categories derived from literature.
Findings
– Manifestations of, etiology of and coping with workplace bullying were similar across all three countries, highlighting cultural universals. Clear variations in source of bullying behaviour and availability and use of formal interventions as well as more subtle variations relating to coexistence with category-based harassment, outcomes and bystander behaviour underscored the influence of national culture.
Research limitations/implications
– Inclusion of a student population, notwithstanding their work experience, as well as reliance on the questionnaire as a tool pose limits in terms of external validity and communication congruence.
Practical implications
– Understanding into the similarities and differences of workplace bullying across cultures facilitates the design of interventions tailor-made for a particular society, serving as inputs for international/multi-national and offshored business enterprises.
Originality/value
– The study, focusing on multiple aspects of target experiences, not only draws on both dimensional and metaphorical cross-cultural frameworks but also includes geographically dispersed and socially diverse nations. Thus, it extends insights from previous cross-cultural explorations of workplace bullying which, apart from being few in number, are limited either by their frameworks, spatial range and/or thematic coverage.
This chapter discusses an action research project into the lived experience of the workplace mobbing phenomenon. The action research methodology is based on the exemplarian model (Coenen & Khonraad, 2003) from the Netherlands Group. This model requires positive outcomes for those immersed in the problem to reduce the adversity of their circumstances. The findings challenge the psychological perspective of the existing bullying literature that tends to focus on individual behaviour. This research, undertaken over a three year period with 212 participants, identified the dysfunctional nature of public sector bureaucracies and the power gained through gossip and rumour as some of the key emergent themes to explain the workplace mobbing problem. In addition, resistance, conscientisation, and agency were identified as the key to transformation for those targeted.
Two studies were conducted to replicate and extend previous exploratory research by Kipnis, Schmidt, and Wilkinson (1980) on influence tactics and objectives in organizations. A new questionnaire was developed that included measures of important influence tactics and objectives omitted in the earlier research. Whereas the earlier research used only agent self-reports of influence behavior, the present research used both agent and target reports. Differences in downward, lateral, and upward influence attempts were replicated more for data from agents than for data from targets. Direction of influence had a stronger effect on influence objectives than on influence tactics. Despite some differences due to data source and direction of influence, the relative frequency of use for the 8 influence tactics was remarkably similar across conditions. Consultation and rational persuasion were the tactics used most frequently, regardless of the direction of influence.
Changing forms of organization and evolving conceptions of leadership have created the potential for followers to exert increased influence in American organizations. This chapter reviews research from a variety of disciplines on the nature of upward influence messages. Related forms of communication, such as feedback seeking, dissent, and relationship maintenance, are also discussed. Studies of the individual, relational, and organizational antecedents and outcomes of upward influence are presented. The author concludes that this form of communication has important consequences for individual members and leader-follower relationships. He suggests that future research should supplement existing work on influence tactics, with finer-grained analysis of the interactive behavior. The need to rethink traditional (psychological, hierarchical) conceptions of leader-member influence is established and alternate perspectives are explored.
While workplace bullying or emotional abuse comes in many forms, the outcomes of being tormented at work are often the same for both targets and bystanders. Workplace bullying significantly decreases physical, psychological and emotional well-being. Despite there now being a large variety of resources available for managers to inform them about what should and can be done to prevent and manage workplace bullying there still appears to be lack of action to address it in workplaces. Furthermore, when managers do try to intervene, targets often report dissatisfaction as to how the matter is handled. So why is this the case? In this article we outline these differences in perception and provide suggestions as to how managers can successfully address bullying in the workplace.
Structural analyses describe men as the dominant gender in the military; yet some Army men use strategies against women similar to the "weapons of the weak" described in the resistance literature. Social psychology sheds light on this behavior because of its emphasis on perceptions of power. Some Army men actually believe that women are the powerful gender within the military, and thus act as an oppressed group on the basis of those perceptions. Structural analyses that divide the population into the powerful and the powerless are further limited because they do not account for coexisting multiple hierarchies of power. Individuals can simultaneously enjoy privilege and face disadvantages according to race, gender, age, occupation, and position within an organization. Although the Army apparently has made some headway in deterring overt sexual harassment, some men still may resort to covert gender harassment to express their disapproval of women's participation in the military.
This study explores some epidemiological features of bullying in Great Britain by means of a large-scale, nationwide survey, focusing on the differences in experience with regard to organizational status. Few differences were found for the experience of self-reported bullying between workers, supervisors, middle, or senior managers. The prevalence of bullying, duration of experience, status of perpetrator, whether the experience was shared with others or not, were similar across these organizational status groups. However, different factors may account for the experience of self-reported bullying for each of the organizational status groups. More discrepancies emerged when the behavioural experience of bullying was compared across groups. Workers and supervisors were more frequently exposed to negative acts than managers. They were also more likely to have been exposed to derogatory or exclusionary behaviour, whereas managers more frequently reported exposure to extreme work pressure. Moreover, when the results were adjusted for the possible impact of gender, a number of discrepancies between the organizational status groups emerged. The interaction between status and gender was explained by reference to cultural differences between men and women, the phenomenon of the ''glass-ceiling'' and the interaction between such factors and the prevailing socio-economic situation.
The first national study of the work environment of associate degree nursing program directors was performed in December 2008. A surprising finding was that one-third of the respondents (n = 77) reported some exposure to bullying within the last year. In addition, the directors reported their nursing faculty as the primary offenders. The purpose of this article is to report the statistically significant findings of self-identified bullying toward associate degree nursing program directors within the United States. Discussion of the implications of these findings and suggested intervention strategies will be presented.
Research on workplace bullying to date has relied predominantly on self‐reports from targets and bystanders, largely ignoring the contributions of other stakeholders such as the alleged perpetrator. This study aims to close this gap by focusing on the perspectives of the alleged perpetrator and examining the background of the bullying allegations, the types of behaviours labelled as bullying and the perpetrator's justification of their behaviours. Twenty‐four managers who were accused of workplace bullying were interviewed for this study, and a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts was undertaken. Many participants reported a highly stressful workplace, including ambiguous roles, staff shortages and high levels of conflict, as well as inappropriate social behaviours being carried out by others in addition to themselves. A number of participants viewed themselves as targets of bullying by their staff, and others defended their behaviour as legitimate performance management.
In over a decade of research into bullying at work, the focus has been on defining, measuring, and explaining the essential nature of the bullying phenomenon. This focus has positioned the individual as the main unit of analysis, with the organization acting as a facilitating backdrop. By assuming a critical research position as opposed to the dominant positivist tradition from which most of the bullying research emanates, attention can be drawn to additional and marginalized accounts. Our research does not offer a definition of bullying—rather, we examine the implications of the different ways in which the term bullying is used. This paper uses data from a case study in a large telecommunications company's call centres. We demonstrate that while employees use the pathologized individual and the facilitating environment to account for bullying, in addition they use the notion of the pathologized organization. This additional narrative brings issues of power and politics in organizations to the fore. Taking a critical management approach, we focus on employee accounts of the oppressive impact of power structures. We argue that marginalizing certain accounts functions to maintain the organizational power balance. By using the term bullying to describe their work experience, employees in this study sought to employ an emotive and highly charged term to highlight their discontent at increasingly difficult work situations.
Gathering data about black holes is difficult because we cannot see them. The gravity pull of the black hole is so strong that light, even at its great speed, cannot escape. We know black holes exist only because of celestial bodies around them, which, for example, change course or behave ''oddly'', sometimes being ''eaten'' by the crushing effect of the gravity-pulls from the black hole. For those who study negative behaviour at work, ''the bully'' is the parallel of black holes – almost invisible to us. We gain all our data regarding ''bullies'' from other people and events that happen around them. For example, when trying to detect pockets of bullying, personnel are directed to look for high exit rates of staff, long-term sickness due to stress and other side-effects that can be associated with a bullying situation. Finding and studying the bully is like trying to study black holes – we are often chasing scattered debris of complex data and shadows of the past. The study reported in this paper used data from subordinates on their managers' behaviour in order to classify how tough the managers were. A spectrum of ''toughness'' of management behaviour was generated. The managers' responses to a variety of measures including stress and mental health were examined as a way of trying to discriminate within the ''toughness'' spectrum. Results were non-significant. The study revealed differences in reporting of negative behaviour of managers and led to the suggestion that three types of manager behaviour might be present. The first is negative behaviour (typical of studies into bullying at work) that causes distress when it is present, but has no positive effect when it is absent – for example public humiliation. Another is spectrum behaviour that causes distress when it is absent and is enhancing to subordinates when it is present – for example being trusted with information. A third type was suggested as a result of the findings, but not included in this study. This third type could be termed positive behaviour (typical of leadership studies) and be enhancing when it is present, but not cause distress when it is absent – for example charismatic leadership. The results are discussed in the light of future research.
In this article the concept of mobbing is introduced. Mobbing means harassing, ganging up on someone, or psychologically terrorizing others at work. Although mobbing is a very old phenomenon, it was not described and systematically researched until the early 1980s. The article begins with a case example, some historical notes, and a definition of mobbing, and then regards mobbing in the context of medical and psychological stress research. Several stages in the development of mobbing are described, based on about 800 case studies. Some epidemiological findings from a representative sample of the Swedish work population are reported. Causes and consequences of mobbing are discussed, and conclusions for prevention and intervention are drawn.
The aim of this study was to identify the work-related risks of bullying in the psychological work environment and the organizational climate. Also the role of some individual and personality characteristics in becoming a victim of bullying were investigated. Altogether 949 municipal employees answered a mailed questionnaire; 10.1% of them felt themselves bullied. Especially some features in the functioning of the work unit, e.g. poor information flow, an authoritative way of settling differences of opinion, lack of mutual conversations about the tasks and goals of the work unit, and insufficient possibilities to influence matters concerning oneself can all promote bullying. Both the victims and the observers of bullying perceived deficiencies in these aspects at their workplace. Gender and age did not explain bullying. The victims of bullying felt that envy, a weak superior, competition for tasks or advancement, and competition for the supervisor's favour and approval were the most common reasons for bullying.
This article develops and tests a comprehensive social structural model of social power and status effects on victimization in organizations. Victimization focuses on the extent to which individuals perceive themselves to be the target of negative or aggressive behaviors by others. The conceptual framework elucidates how formal and informal status differences associated with access to social powers in three different social networks are related to victimization perceptions. Using dyads as the unit of analysis in a sample of government employees, we find that asymmetric relationships between two actors in the friendship and advice networks, and structural equivalence in the advice and dislike networks are associated with perceptual agreement. The results suggest that stratification in a social system may create the context in which victimization thrives because it affects access to informal forms of social power.
This is a theoretical article that integrates and extends a particular program of work on power in bargaining relationships. Power is conceptualized as a structurally based capability, and power use as tactical action falling within either conciliatory or hostile categories. The core propositions are (1) the greater the total amount of power in a relationship, the greater the use of conciliatory tactics and the lower the use of hostile tactics; and (2) an unequal power relationship fosters more use of hostile tactics and less use of conciliatory tactics than an equal power relationship. Distinct research on power dependence and bilateral deterrence provides support for both propositions. Implications are discussed for power struggle in ongoing relationships.
The history and background of the analysis of the basis of power is examined, beginning with its origins in the works of Kurt Lewin and his followers at the Research Center for Group Dynamics, particularly the early research by John R. P. French. The original French and Raven (1959) bases of power model posited six bases of power: reward, coercion, legitimate, expert, referent, and informational (or persuasion; Raven, 1965), Since then, as the result of considerable research, the model has gone through significant developments. A more comprehensive model is presented here that reviews the following: various motivations of the influencing agent; an assessment of available power bases in terms of potential effectiveness, time perspective, personal preferences, values and norms; consideration of other strategies such as manipulation; utilization of various preparatory and stage-setting devices to strengthen one's power resources; implementation of the power strategies; assessment of effectiveness of influence attempt and its positive and/or negative aftereffects; use of various ameliorative devices; and review, reconsideration, and another round of influence strategies. The overall model is examined in terms of its applicability to various settings including hospital infection control, patient compliance with physicians' recommendations, confrontations between political figures, children's influence on their peers, conflict resolution and negotiation, as well as supervisor/subordinate relationships.
A simple theory of power relations is developed in an effort to resolve some of the ambiguities surrounding "power," "authority," "legitimacy," and power "structures," through bringing them together in a coherent scheme. After defining a reciprocal power-dependence relation, attention is focused upon properties of balance and "balancing operations" in such relations. The theory dictates exactly four generic types of balancing process, and discussion of these leads directly into processes of group formation, including the emergence of group norms, role structure and status hierarchy, all presented as the outcome of balancing tendencies in power relations. Within the framework of this theory, authority appears quite naturally to be legitimized power, vested in roles, and "legitimation" is seen as a special case of the coalition process through which norms and role-prescriptions are formed. Finally, through treating both persons and groups as actors in a power-network (two or more connected power-dependence relations) the door is opened for meaningful analysis of complex power structures. Brief reference is made to findings from two experiments pertaining to hypotheses advanced in this theory.
This paper argues that workplace bullying can in some cases be a form of organisational politics, that is, a deliberate, competitive strategy from the perspective of the individual perpetrator. A cross-sectional study conducted among business professionals revealed that there was a correlation between a politicised and competitive climate and bullying. This finding implies that globalisation, increased pressures for efficiency, and restructuring, which limits the number of management positions and thereby contributes to increased internal competition, may lead to more bullying. The findings have important implications for management, since the possible political aspects of bullying must be taken into account in order to be able to undertake successful prevention and intervention measures.