Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace

Theory, Research and Practice

Ståle Valvatne Einarsen, Helge Hoel, Dieter Zapf, Cary L. Cooper, Ståle Valvatne Einarsen, Helge Hoel, Dieter Zapf, Cary L. Cooper

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429869884
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Gesundheit & Sicherheit in der Industrie

Building on the success of two earlier best-selling editions from 2003 and 2011, this benchmark text and highly cited reference work now appears in its third edition. This book is a research-based resource on key aspects of workplace bullying and its remediation, which:

• 
  
  

• Covers the nature and complexities of bullying and harassment in the workplace

• 
  
  

• Presents the evidence on its prevalence, risk groups, antecedents and outcomes

• 
  
  

• Examines cyberbullying and harassment in the digital world

• 
  
  

• Describes the roles of bystanders and the coping possibilities of victims

• 
  
  

• Discusses prevention, intervention, treatment and the management of specific cases

• 
  
  

• Explains legal perspectives, the role of HR and of internal policies

Edited by leading experts in the field and presenting contributions from subject experts, it provides state-of-the-art reviews of the main themes in the field, as well as practical remedies and solutions at individual, organizational and societal levels, providing a much-needed update and expansion of the original work, as the research and literature on this problem with its manifold detrimental effects has expanded radically over the last decade. This book should be of interest to all scholars in the field of organizational behavior and social processes at work. In particular, the book is a much-needed tool for bachelor, master and PhD students, new and experienced researchers in the field, advanced practitioners and policy makers, including labor inspectors, union representatives, HR-personnel, lawyers, management consultants, and counsellors in private practice, family physicians and occupational health practitioners, to name a few.

PART I

The Nature of the Problem

CHAPTER ONE

The Concept of Bullying and Harassment at Work

The European Tradition

Ståle Einarsen Valvatne, Helge Hoel, Dieter Zapf and Cary L Cooper

Introduction

The Development of a New Concept: Some Historical Notes The Development of a New Concept: Some Historical Notes

The Concept of Bullying at Work

Target Orientation

The Frequency of Negative Behaviours

The Duration of Bullying

The Nature of Behaviours Involved

The Imbalance of Power Between the Parties

Subjective versus Objective Bullying

Intentionality of Bullying

Interpersonal Versus Organizational Bullying

Bullying as a Process

A Definition of Bullying at Work

Bullying—A Phenomenon in Its Own Right?

Conceptual Models of Bullying at Work

The Work Environment Hypothesis

Predatory Bullying

Dispute-Related Bullying

A Theoretical Framework

Conclusions

Bibliography

Introduction

During the 1990s, the concept of bullying or mobbing at work found a first resonance within European working populations as well as in the academic community. A wide range of popular as well as academic books and articles were published in many European languages (e.g., Ege, 1996; Einarsen, Raknes, Matthiesen et al., 1994; Field, 1996; Niedl, 1995; Leymann, 1993; Rayner et al., 2002), and public interest spread from country to country. From being a taboo in both organizational research and in organizational life, the issue of bullying and harassment at work became what was called the ‘research topic of the 1990s’ (Hoel et al., 1999). Yet, such a conclusion seems somewhat hasty in hindsight, as the sheer number of publications on workplace bullying annually after the turn of the millennium by far outnumbers those published during the entire 1990s, with an explosion in research output from all over the globe from 2010 onwards (see also Nielsen and Einarsen, 2018 for an overview). In an early meta-analysis on the effects of methodological moderators on the observed prevalence of workplace bullying, Nielsen et al. (2010) noted that of the 91 studies identified, the majority (81.3%) of the studies included were published in the period 2000–2008, 16% in the 1990s, and only two (2.7%) in the 1980s. The identified studies included samples from more than 20 countries across all continents, yet with more than 60% originating in Europe. In a later literature overview of studies on bullying and sickness absence, 11 out of 17 studies had been published between 2011 and 2016 (Nielsen et al., 2016).

The issue of bullying in the workplace is a complex one. It comes in many shapes and shades, with multiple causes on many levels, and with diverging views on its very nature (see also Baillien et al., 2017; Notelaers et al., 2018). Yet, at a basic level, it is about the systematic mistreatment of a subordinate, a colleague or a superior, which, if continued and long-lasting, may cause severe social, psychological and psychosomatic problems in the target. Exposure to such treatment was early on claimed to be a more crippling and devastating problem for employees than all other kinds of work-related stress put together, and seen by many researchers and targets alike as an extreme type of social stress at work (Zapf et al., 1996) or even as a traumatic event (Nielsen and Einarsen, 2012; Tehrani, 2004).

While this phenomenon is usually referred to as workplace bullying in English-speaking countries and as ‘harassment’ (harcèlement) in the French-speaking world, it has mainly been termed ‘mobbing’ in many European countries, although other national specific terms continue to live on side by side, e.g., ‘Pesten (the Netherlands) and ‘acoso’ or ‘maltrato psicológico’’ (Spain) (Di Martino et al., 2003). The term ‘mobbing’ was coined from the English word ‘mob’ and was originally used to describe animal aggression and herd behaviour (Munthe, 1989). Heinemann (1972) originally adopted the term from the Swedish translation of Konrad Lorenz’s (1968) book ‘On aggression’ to describe victimization of individual children by a group of peers in a school setting (see also Munthe, 1989; Olweus, 1991, 2003). Later on, Leymann (1986, 1990) borrowed the term ‘mobbing’ from the research on bullying in the schoolyard (see Olweus, 1991, 1994) to describe the systematic mistreatment of organization members, which, if continued, could cause severe social, psychological and psychosomatic problems in the target. From Scandinavia, the concept spread to other European countries during the late 1990s and further on to become an issue of global concern with interest arising at all continents after the turn of the millennium.

Yet, even with different labels in use in different languages, the European research tradition has been characterized by a high degree of consensus regarding concepts and features. Hence, Europe has avoided the trap often observed in the social sciences, where new issues are coming into focus and a plethora of competing terms and concepts are introduced. In this respect, the European scene has been quite different from what has happened in the US, where a range of overlapping constructs falling under a rubric of ‘hostile relations at work’ has been introduced (see Chapter 2, Keashly et al., this volume).

In practice, only minor differences exist between the concepts of bullying, harassment and mobbing (Zapf and Einarsen, 2005). The term bully may more easily lend itself to descriptions of the perpetrator who behaves aggressively in many situations and possibly acts aggressively towards more than one target. The concept of mobbing, however, is more attuned to the experiences of targets who are systematically exposed to harassment, mistreatment and social exclusion by one or more perpetrators and who over time may become severely victimized by this treatment (see also Zapf and Einarsen, 2005). The concept of harassment is also more attuned to the perpetrator and is a broader concept, encompassing sexual harassment as well as single episodes of more severe mistreatment and violations. Hence, the concepts of bullying and harassment seem to focus on the two different but interrelated sides of the same phenomenon, the perpetrators and the targets. According to Leymann (1996), the choice of the term ‘mobbing’ in preference to ‘bullying’ was a conscious decision on his part, reflecting the fact that the phenomenon among adults often refers to subtle, less direct forms of aggression as opposed to the more physical forms of aggression that may be associated with the term ‘bullying’. Yet, even among those who use the term bullying, empirical evidence suggests that the behaviours involved are often of a verbal, passive and indirect nature (Einarsen, 1999; Keashly and Harvey, 2005; Rosander and Blomberg, 2019). The common stereotype of a bully as a dominant, rude and aggressive figure is probably not typical for many bullying cases, at least as seen in most European countries. Hence, in the present chapter, the terms ‘harassment’, ‘bullying’ and ‘mobbing’ will be used interchangeably to refer to both these phenomena, namely as the systematic display of aggressive behaviour and social exclusion at work directed towards a subordinate, a coworker or even a superior, as well as the perception of being systematically exposed to such mistreatment while at work.

The purpose of this chapter is then to present and discuss the European perspective on bullying, harassment and mobbing at work. We will start with some historical notes and will then discuss various key characteristics of bullying such as the frequency, duration, power balance, quality and content of bullying behaviour, objective versus subjective bullying, intentionality of bullying, interpersonal versus organizational bullying, and bullying as a process. A formal definition of the concept will then be proposed and we will discuss and present various conceptual models of such bullying at work.

The Development of a New Concept: Some Historical Notes

The interest in the issue of workplace bullying originated in Scandinavia in the 1980s, partly inspired by ongoing research and focus on bullying among school children (see also Olweus, 1991, 1994, 2003). The late Professor Heinz Leymann, during his work within the Swedish labor inspectorate, came across a series of incidents of systematic mistreatment and social exclusion not previously described in the literature which he evidenced in the first Swedish book on the subject in 1986, entitled Mobbing—Psychological Violence at Work. Leymann soon became convinced that this problem had less to do with those involved, but rather was deeply rooted within the working environment, being the product of various organizational factors and specific qualities of the psychosocial work environment, including work design and leadership practices. Inspired by Leymann and much public interest and debate, large-scale research projects were initiated in Norway (Einarsen and Raknes, 1991; Einarsen, Raknes, Matthiesen et al., 1994; Matthiesen et al., 1989), Sweden (Leymann, 1990, 1996) and Finland (Björkqvist et al., 1994; Vartia, 1991, 1996), documenting the existence of this phenomenon, and the severe negative effects such treatment and these experiences had on both targets as well as observers. The seemingly ‘new’ phenomenon of bullying, or ‘mobbing’ as it was referred to, also attracted growing interest from the public, from those responsible for health and safety in the workplace and from union representatives with regard to legal changes securing workers the right to a work environment free of harassment (see also Hoel and Einarsen, 2010).

Yet, the very phenomenon of bullying at work had been thoroughly described already in 1976 by the American Psychiatrist Carroll M. Brodsky in an intriguing book entitled The Harassed Worker. Brodsky was inspired by hundreds of years of literature on the cruelty and brutality human beings sometimes show towards both enemies and friends, sometimes even for no apparent reason. In his qualitative study, Brodsky described a range of cases where employees at all organizational levels claimed to have been systematically mistreated and abused by their superiors or coworkers while at work with devastating effects on their productivity, health and well-being. The mistreatment described by the informants of the study was mainly of a psychological and non-sexual nature, characterized by rather subtle and discrete actions, yet causing severe and traumatic effects in the targets by being repeatedly and persistently aimed at employees who felt unable to retaliate. Brodsky described five main types of harassment: Sexual harassment, scapegoating, name-calling, physical abuse and work pressure. Yet, Brodsky’s pioneering work did not receive much attention at the time it was published, being brought to life and rediscovered many years later (Einarsen, Raknes, Matthiesen et al., 1994), long after the first works of Heinz Leymann in Sweden.

However, until the early 1990s, the interest in this subject was largely limited to the Nordic countries, with only a few publications available in English (e.g., Leymann, 1990). Yet, seemingly in parallel with the development in the Nordic countries, UK journalist Andrea Adams in collaboration with the psychologist Neil Crawford, put the issue of bullying at work firmly on the UK agen...