Workplace bullying across the globe: a cross-cultural comparison

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze cross-national and cross-cultural similarities and differences in perceptions and conceptualizations of workplace bullying among human resource professionals (HRPs). Particular emphasis was given to what kind of behaviors are considered as bullying in different countries and what criteria interviewees use to decide whether a particular behavior is bullying or not. Design/methodology/approach HRPs in 13 different countries/regions (n=199), spanning all continents and all GLOBE cultural clusters (House et al., 2004), were interviewed and a qualitative content analysis was carried out. Findings Whereas interviewees across the different countries largely saw personal harassment and physical intimidation as bullying, work-related negative acts and social exclusion were construed very differently in the different countries. Repetition, negative effects on the target, intention to harm, and lack of a business case were decision criteria typically used by interviewees across the globe – other criteria varied by country. Practical implications The results help HRPs working in multinational organizations understand different perceptions of negative acts. Originality/value The findings point to the importance of cultural factors, such as power distance and performance orientation, and other contextual factors, such as economy and legislation for understanding varying conceptualizations of bullying.

Machiavellianism and Bullying Behavior: Conditional Effects of Trait Activating Job Roles and Mediating Mechanism of Impression Management: A Region Based Study

“…This study's results, based on upper-middle and middle level employees of service sector, prove that positive behavioral intervention can be helpful in eliminating the antisocial behavior such as bullying. This study also fulfills the recommended gap by Salin et al (2019) to investigate the behavioral expression as an underlying mechanism. The underlying processes between the Machiavellianism and bullying behavior is validated through the conditional mediated impact of role ambiguous job demands and self-impression management on the premise of TAT.…”

Social Pedagogues’ Definitions Of Three Types Of Bullying

“…Differences between three types of conceptual understanding of bullying behavior among social pedagogues mainly follow previous studies in the area of conceptualizing workplace bullying among adults (Escartín et al, 2011;De Wet, 2014;Salin, et al, 2019), showing that bullying against educators by students and by adults was mainly conceptualized as a hierarchical phenomenon, where the aggression took the form of direct professional work-related strategies, whereby the main differentiating features for this two concepts were the manifestations of workplace bullying forms (public personal or destabilization) and…”

“…Most adult respondents (parents: Monks & Smith, 2006;Sawyer et al, 2011;Smorti et al, 2003; teachers and parents: Madsen, 1996;Mishna et al, 2006;teachers and staff members: Harger, 2016;Cheng et al, 2011;teachers: Menesini et al, 2002;Mishna et al, 2005;Naylor et al, 2006;Siann et al, 1993) incorporated into their understanding of learner-on-learner bullying the key components of the generally accepted bullying definition, whereby the same tendencies were revealed among adults in the area of defining workplace bullying (Salin et al, 2019;Saunders et al, 2007) and among educators (De Wet, 2010;2019) in the area of teacher-targeted bullying conceptualizations. Also, present results among social pedagogues confirmed the tendency for teachers, parents, school staff members to focus on physical and verbal behaviours when they describe learner-on-learner bullying (e.g.…”

“…Definitions of workplace bullying composed by adults from diverse personal and professional backgrounds reflected components used by researchers with stronger support to harmful and negative workplace behaviors and relatively less to power imbalance, intentionality and persistence of behavior. Salin's et al, (2019) qualitative cross-cultural analyze revealed similarities in conceptualizations of workplace bullying among human resource professionalsrepetition, negative effects on the target and intention to harm were typically used to decide if a behavior was bullying or not. Additional analysis of the results indicated that adults across the different countries largely saw personal harassment and physical violence as workplace bullying, whereby work-related negative acts, and social exclusion were construed very differently in the different countries.…”

Personality and Experience of Mobbing: Three Types of Mobbing and the Consequences at the Workplace

“…For example, work-related mobbing such as giving unreasonable deadlines of unmanageable workloads, or assigning meaningless tasks, is more likely to be reported by employees from professional positions compared to non-work related mobbing behaviors such as being ignored (Salin, 2001). It was also shown that in some | 61 occupations and organizations certain negative acts -mostly work related negative behaviors-are expected as part of the culture and may not be considered as mobbing (Archer, 1999;Salin et al, 2018) and physical mobbing was least likely reported type of mobbing (Einarsen & Raknes, 1997). All mentioned studies have supported the idea that various types of mobbing can be perceived and differentiated by employees; however they were not compared in terms of their antecedents and consequences which would help us to develop new interventions for mobbing.…”