Workplace Harassment Interventions and Labour Process Theory: A Critical Realist Synthesis of the Literature

Abstract

Workplace harassment, from a labour process theoretic perspective, is a consequence of the convergence of several historical trends that affect the way work is organized under contemporary capitalism. On this view, interventions such as communication skills training, complaint procedures, and workplace policies have limited chance of eliminating harassment in the workplace. However, there is minimal research identifying, testing, and refining the theories accounting for how and why particular interventions work and under what circumstances. Our critical realist evaluation of the workplace harassment intervention literature responds to this gap. The mid-range theory of workplace harassment interventions presented in this article derives from the synthesized literature, augmented by Habermasian theory of social transformation to elaborate intervention mechanisms as lifeworld impulses. The provisional propositions of the mid-range theory are offered to inspire their empirical testing for the theory’s further refinement.

Ameliorating Workplace Harassment among Direct Caregivers in Canada’s Healthcare System: A Theatre-Based Intervention

“…Care-work is largely devalued due to its gender assignment (England, 2005) and in workplaces where the logic of efficiency prevails over the ethic of care, the processes that help secure the necessary mutual understanding between care workers are pre-empted. In downsized, under-staffed ‘lean’ workplaces, care-work is made more onerous and destabilized social relations among care workers become one of the most insidious consequences (Quinlan et al, 2019).…”

“…Before launching the larger project, a scoping review of interventions in healthcare workplaces was completed with findings indicating that interventions grounded in participatory principles hold the most potential for producing positive outcomes (Quinlan et al, 2014). A synthesis of relevant literature was also undertaken to identify the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of harassment interventions in workplaces that extend beyond the healthcare sector (Carr et al, 2017; Quinlan et al, 2019). The synthesis results (Quinlan et al, 2019) depart from the literature’s dominant psychological explanations for the effectiveness of interventions.…”

“…A synthesis of relevant literature was also undertaken to identify the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of harassment interventions in workplaces that extend beyond the healthcare sector (Carr et al, 2017; Quinlan et al, 2019). The synthesis results (Quinlan et al, 2019) depart from the literature’s dominant psychological explanations for the effectiveness of interventions. Although individual personality traits play a role in explaining harassment, our focus is on organizational and social structures that have been implicated in the frequency, intensity and perpetuation of workplace harassment (Crowley, 2014; Leiter et al, 2011; Roscigno et al, 2009).…”

“…The purpose of this article is to introduce a harassment intervention not found in our review of the relevant literature (Carr et al, 2017;Quinlan et al, 2014Quinlan et al, , 2019. Rooted in the philosophy and embodied activities of the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), the intervention addresses workplace harassment among healthcare workers in a western Canadian province by disrupting hegemonic values and beliefs and challenging the normative codes governing social interactions in the workplace.…”

Hacking work: Critically examining the implications of the new discourse and practices of hacking for work intensification and organisational control

“…While initially, LPT ideas were applied to labour processes in the 'traditional' sense of control being executed by managers over workers in manufacturing settings (e.g. Burawoy, 1979), more recently LPT has served as a lens to gain insights into new issues and phenomena such as the emotional labour of gig workers (Gandini, 2019), control within the food delivery sector (Veen et al, 2020) and the effectiveness of workplace harassment interventions (Quinlan et al, 2020). We use LPT to inform our conceptualisation of 'hacking work' in organisations operating under conditions of 'actually existing neoliberalism'.…”