Articles Review

angelavjdv

Week11.thepresumptionofmutualinfluence.pdf

Home >Psychology homework help >Articles Review

The presumption of mutual influence in occurrences of workplace bullying: time for change

Suzanne Martin and Axel Klein

Suzanne Martin is a Lecturer in

Psychological Therapies at the

Centre for Professional

Practice, Research and

Development Centre,

University of Kent,

Canterbury, UK.

Axel Klein is a Lecturer in the

Anthropology of Conflict,

Criminal Justice and Policy at

the School of Social Policy,

Sociology and Social

Research, University of Kent,

Canterbury, UK.

Abstract

Purpose – The self-reports of bullies or victims of workplace bullying appear to result in confused

responses that fail to clarify who is doing what to whom. The research reported in this paper aimed to

examine how staff from human resources and occupational health conceptualized and assessed cases of

alleged bullying.

Design/methodology/approach – The research relied on semi-structured interviews with managers,

human resource staff, occupational health staff, mediators, trade union representatives, and staff members

who were both victims and alleged perpetrators of bullying. The staff contributing came from an NHS trust,

two universities and a criminal justice agency.

Findings – Staff were reluctant to document or reveal information about the frequency and severity of

bullying within their services. Despite this, three key themes emerged from the interviews that seemed to

inform individual and organisational responses: the ethos of professionalism, the ambiguous role of human

resources and the presumption of mutuality.

Research limitations/implications – Reliance on interpretations of workplace bullying that defend both

individual staff members and the organization had implications for victims. By not naming reported problems

as bullying, the organization could limit its responsibility to act. Failure to identify and document bullying

limited the research but also poorly served victimized individuals.

Practical implications – Services require training to help them move beyond a presumption that the

self-reports of bullies are a reliable source of assessment data.

Social implications – Effective identification and assessment of bullying situations would be the first step

towards reducing the psychological impact of the problem. Experience of workplace bullying is highly

correlated with health and mental health problems of targeted individuals.

Originality/value – This paper capitalizes on insights from the field of domestic violence in highlighting the

need for clarity about the nature of coercive control. The paper will be valuable to individuals and

organisations charged with the task of tackling workplace bullying.

Keywords Workplace bullying, Domestic violence, Coercive control, Assessment, Mutuality, Bullying

Paper type Research paper

Bullying in the workplace is recognized as a major problem by employers, trade unions, medical

and mental health professionals and academic researchers. Estimates to calculate

accumulated costs for organizations and society at large in terms of lost productivity and

well-being costs run into billions. In response, professional associations, government

departments, trade unions and a clutch of dedicated NGOs[1] have published advice for

alleviating the problem (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, 2012; Health and Safety

Executive, 2013). The presumption is that public interest in reducing psychosocial costs

coincides with organizational interest in resolving interpersonal disputes. While guidance

literature is targeted at management and mediators, staff suffering from bullying are advised

that: “[a] formal complaint should be made to the employee’s line manager or supervisor, human

DOI 10.1108/JACPR-03-2013-0008 VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013, pp. 147-155, C Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j PAGE 147

resources representative or to the line manager of the alleged bully or harasser” (NHS, 2006).

Equally the Health and Safety Executive web site advises to speak to someone: “This may be

your manager, a colleague, a TU or staff representative, your employee assistance programme

or other sources of support” (HSE, 2013). Trade unions have also been publishing guidance

for representatives and offering courses on responding to workplace bullying. In a number

of settings the role of “harassment” or “dignity at work adviser” has been created to provide

support to targeted individuals.

The emphasis on formal measures is echoed in much of the literature tending towards

quantitative studies of incidence, reports on policy developments and case studies. Rising

awareness, expressions of concern and detailed guidance barely cover over the sustained

dissatisfaction with methods and techniques employed to tackle situations where bullying has

been reported, including fear of reprisals (Mistry and Latoo, 2009). The promotion of a proactive

reporting stance relies on the assumption that targeted individuals have identified their

experiences as examples of bullying. It also presupposes that the staff they report to are clear

about the difference between workplace conflict and bullying and are confident about how to

respond. It ignores the organizational factors that may promote or inadvertently lend support to

bullying interactions (Harvey et al., 2009). In our study we heard from several informants that the

role of HR had shifted from ensuring staff welfare to defending the interests of the organization.

Poor organizational responses seemed to arise from HR staff reinterpreting incidents of bullying

as a conflict with two equal players. Having adopted a position of neutrality or moral relativism

HR were then viewed as not believing or protecting the victim. As a consequence further detail

about an individual case was stifled only to reemerge in an occupational health (OH) issue. One

occupational health officer told us: “most bullying goes undetected, with only perpetrators and

victims knowing what is going on until the victim goes sick”. This statement is supported by a

number of surveys linking bullying with higher rates of sick leave amongst staff (RCN, 2002;

Hoel et al., 2001) The difficulty in arriving at the appropriate diagnosis is accounted for by two

structural and ideological factors:

1. the ambiguous role of human resources (HRs); and

2. the presumption of mutuality.

Methods

We draw on our work in several large organizations in the south of England, including a NHS

trust, two universities and a criminal justice agency. We conducted semi-structured interviews

with managers, HR staff, OH staff, mediators, trade union representatives and staff members

who were both victims and alleged perpetrators of bullying. We found it difficult to get historic

data as HR officers interpreted ACAS (2010) guidelines liberally, arguing that unwritten informal

approaches to complaints were usually adequate. When we pressed for access to written notes

on formal complaints we were met with a variety of reasons for notes not being available.

For example, one senior HR officer claimed “that written notes were destroyed to protect

confidentiality”. We were also told that mediators do not take notes. This means that in the

commendable interest of protecting client confidentiality, all records for mediating processes are

erased and the work of the agencies is removed from scrutiny. It frees the organization from the

ballast of cumulative malpractice and preempts any of the professionals ever being held to

account. This code of secrecy has implications beyond the immediate concerns of researchers

intent on data sources. In the first instance we relied on repeat interviews and the patience of key

informants. In the end the need to establish relationships had advantages, as informants had to

develop both trust and sympathy for the undertaking before disclosing information on highly

stigmatized behaviour. We found working in partnership, and particularly repeated joint

interviews useful in establishing rapport, conveying a joint ownership of the prospective

outcome, in teasing out interviewer effect and coming to recognize manipulation.

(i) The ambiguous role of HR

The critical role played by HR departments in negotiating workplace conflict is recognized in the

guidance literature and among HR professionals themselves. Ensuring staff well-being and, as a

PAGE 148 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013

corollary, the effective functioning of the organization, are key responsibilities. In practice,

however, it has been found that HR professionals find it easier to formulate policies, organize

training workshops and provide information on bullying than becoming involved in interventions

aimed at halting actual cases (Lewis and Rayner, 2003). Technological changes, particularly the

introduction of online-reporting facilities, have produced exponential increases in the number of

incidents. In 2009, the East Kent NHS stated that 29 per cent of employees reported bullying in

the past year, roughly in line with national trends of over 37 per cent. According to the TUC’s

biannual survey of safety representatives, bullying has become the second most serious

workplace hazard (TUC, 2010). A defensive response by overworked staff, vague definitions of

bullying, poor understanding by colleagues and spite are blamed for generating a plethora of

complaints. One example cited was that a member of staff was told off by another for eating a

sandwich in an operating theatre. The converse of spurious allegations is the vehement denial by

professionals resentful of the intrusion by HR into their domain. A routine response was

paraphrased as “I am a well established [y], respected in my field, how dare you accuse me of

bullying”. What made it worse was that allegations were not merely repudiated but were often

followed by counter complaints.

Interestingly, in the light of previous research the attitude to such cases was one of sceptical

resignation. One HR professional blamed the very legal provisions that have been put into place

to protect employees. She thought that “the parameters of the employment law do not help but

hamper the work of HR” because they state that bullying allegations have to be investigated. Yet

the dismissal of counter complaints as spiteful ignores how the very facility of being able to lodge

bullying accusations at colleagues has simply provided office bullies with a new weapon. The

poor assessment capacity of HR linked to a nominal commitment to anti-bullying practice has

simply opened the field to malicious allegations (Klein and Martin, 2011). Worried about being

overwhelmed by a deluge of complaints and insufficiently skilled at diagnosing bullying where it

does occur, HR officers were reluctant to diagnose situations as a bullying scenario (Ferris, 2004)

and preferred to reroute complaints (similar responses occur with health and safety officials).

One way of negotiating these different demands was to refer employees reporting

“work-related” stress to the occupational health department to find an alternative route out of

the problem. This had an interesting consequence in that such a referral would often trigger a

chain of self-referrals from colleagues in the same office. According to one OH nurse it was “like

releasing a cork from a bottle”.

Once employees present with stress-related problems they are interviewed according to a fixed

format – employment history, medical history, previous mental health history, physical and social

history. Much care is given to depersonalize any conflict situation by simply taking note of the

aggression related stress factors and their impact on other areas of life. Organizational health

practitioners can find themselves caught between their ethical duty towards the patient, and

their contractual obligations towards their employer and senior management. While they can flag

up a problem when there are clusters of patients from a particular department presenting with

“stress” they have in fact little choice but to return them to HR.

Informants from occupational health were clear in their response to avoid medicalizing what was

in their view a personnel management issue. One said, “we have to advise the individual that this

is not a health issue and pass the problem back to our HR colleagues”. Here is an opportunity to

make a diagnosis of bullying or conflict, and to look at processes and structures within the

organization that might support it but this chance is rarely taken. Instead, HR reported that their

preferred option was batting the case back to line managers, which left the employee

disappointed and exposed. Having acknowledged the physical and psychological

consequences of the problem, most employees prefer to present as patients and have them

framed as a health issue, warranting medical help and time off. Instead, HR steps in, redefines

them as part of an interpersonal problem, and offers simply more meetings: coaching, arbitration

and mediation.

The established reluctance to acknowledge bullying scenarios owes much to the rebalancing of

the triangular relationship between HR, management and employees over the past decade.

Increasingly, HR are prioritizing supporting management over a pastoral role with responsibility

VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j PAGE 149

for employee welfare (Harrington, 2007). Typically this finds expression in aggressive behaviour

being interpreted as managerial style, and victims of bullying as not being up to the requirements

of the organization. Unable to distinguish between personality conflict and bullying, many HR

officers line up with organizational hierarchies to hold bullying victims responsible for their own

“inadequacies” (Ferris, 2004).

The role is complicated further by emerging tensions between organizational interests in

promoting individual “profit centres” and the well-being of subordinates, colleagues and support

staff. In a competitive field, organizations try to hold on to staff members who are seen as adding

value to their operation and will reward them accordingly. Yet dispersion of benefits has negative

consequences for staff morale, and can result in profitability loss elsewhere in the organization

(Pfeffer, 2007). It comes to a head in the negotiation of conflict where placating higher valued

employees is seen as more important than protecting victims of aggression.

When embarking on an investigation, HR are not primarily concerned with victim protection even

though staff in many organizations are advised to contact personnel if suffering from bullying or

harassment. But the main role of HR lies, in fact, in protecting the organization from costly unfair

dismissal claims, and to safeguard the reputation of organization and management. One of the

main objectives is to avoid employment tribunals, where the decisions are made not beyond

reasonable doubt, but “in the balance of probability”.

In most cases the intractable complexity of a conflict situation rules out an easy diagnosis of

bullying behaviour. Yet, much is at stake in terms of management time, professional reputation

and compensatory claims. HR’s preoccupation with organizational liability, when combined

with the ethos of professionalism are then complicated by a second factor that has come to

dominate the official response to workplace conflict.

(ii) The presumption of mutuality

It is important to state that our interpretation of individual bullying behaviour as rooted in coercive

forms of interaction between individuals was not understood by many of our respondents.

We were keen to see how staff differentiated bullying from other types of interpersonal problem

and were informed by the work of Stark (2007) on coercive control:

To distinguish abuse from fights, [y] it is necessary to know not merely what a party does – their

behavior – but its context, its socio-political as well as its physical consequence, its meaning to the parties

involved, and particularly to its target(s) and whether and how it is combined with other tactics (p. 104).

This perspective emphasizes the systematic rather than episodic nature of bullying and

highlights the harmfulness that may underpin what appear to be innocuous events. Our

informants offered numerous examples of “conflicts” between employees that lacked context

and therefore obscured the coercive nature of the behaviours being described. When pushed

for more contextual detail it became evident that informants had suspected or known that an

interpretation of bullying was possible. What they lacked was the means to identify, track and

evidence the type of coercive tactics linked to workplace bullying. In this skills gap, staff were

adopting what they perceived was a neutral stance in which conflict seemed an objective

classification. That their suspicions might warrant more detailed and systematic investigation

was viewed as too subjective. Neutrality is not a viable position when dealing with the abuse of

one person by another. Reframing cases as conflicts involved a move from individual

accountability for abuse to a shared or mutual responsibility for interpersonal clashes.

De Dreu (2008) states:

Workplace conflict emerges when one party – be it an individual or a group of individuals – perceives

its goals, values, or opinions being thwarted by an interdependent counterpart (Pondy, 1967;

Thomas, 1992; Wall and Callister, 1995).

Although bullying may emerge from such a perception, not all differences of goals, values or

opinions result in bullying responses. Our respondents made no distinction between conflict

situations and bullying ones. They appeared to overlook the ways in which the imbalance of

power limited mutual influence and therefore the potential for individuals to negotiate or

participate equally in mediation. Whilst most relationships involve degrees of mutual influence,

PAGE 150 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013

the use of coercion in sexual abuse, domestic violence and workplace bullying deliberately alters

the power balance in favour of the perpetrator. Coercion as a strategy to curtail negotiation of

differences is often evident in situations where there are pre-existing inequities (of status,

resources, etc). HR understanding of the dynamics of power imbalances seemed restricted to

these more overt cases of discrimination against minority or marginalized groups. When bullying

was suspected, staff had a tendency to impose an interpretation of mutuality in which bully and

target were presented as equal contributors to the problem. From this perspective the neutral

stance held by HR was defended as offering objectivity and diffusing tensions. In some

interviews, it seemed evident that HR officers continued this defence despite recognizing that

their “neutrality” had been exploited by the bully as a further bullying tactic. Zizek (2008) talks

about the subjective and objective violence in organizations with the objective violence (i.e. the

institutional supports for bullying) being the less visible. In the domestic violence field challenging

institutional supports for abuse has led to a call for “coordinated community responses” in which

doing nothing is not an option. It can reasonably be argued that a position of neutrality is a

form of bystanding which colludes with the abuser. Presumptions about bullying scenarios

being mutually constructed is also collusive – allowing the organization to turn its back on its

ethical responsibilities to the targets (Rhodes et al., 2010). The presumption of mutuality was

particularly egregious to the targeted individuals we interviewed. One woman explained: “the HR

officer was shaking when my boss started to pick holes in his questions. Afterwards he admitted

to feeling intimidated but still suggested our problem was about a misunderstanding between

us. When you hear that kind of thing it makes you feel like no one can stand up to her”.

A critical factor in managing interpersonal or communication problems is the process of

distinguishing between conflict and coercion. This process is familiar to forensic psychologists

and practitioners in the domestic violence and sexual abuse fields (Klein and Martin, 2011).

Borrowing knowledge from those fields we argued that the assessment process for bullying

required the triangulation of self-reports with any third-party observations. We would now add

that each claim and counterclaim needs to be examined closely with an emphasis on supporting

a presumption of conflict or coercion. As bullying often involves reported behaviour that is

contested and has no witnesses, practitioners are forced to adopt a position of scepticism

(rather than neutrality) and remain alert to the possibility that they are being recruited by the bully

into a collusive interpretation of the problem. From our interviews we noted it was common for

HR and OH practitioners to be aware of the coercive pressure directed at them by one

of the parties. Despite feeling the pressure to collude HR staff assessing the situation were

reportedly reluctant to formalize their “hunch”. In several instances HR officers and mediators

acknowledged (albeit informally) that one of the participants injected the “negotiations” with a

general sense of menace. Body language, an insistence on either/or statements, interrogation of

the target or HR officer and an assumption by the bully that they offered objective fact seemed to

generate an atmosphere of intimidation. Interestingly, such feelings of intimidation were

considered irrelevant to the process and had not been formally registered.

Our observations of the interviews we conducted led us to speculate about why the

presumption of mutuality might be used. As well as a defence against the unease of talking

about bullying, we would agree with Rhodes et al. (2010) that it served to protect the

organization from the need to review its subtle forms of abuse. Whilst HR staff were keen to

support anti-bullying policies they were reluctant to screen for or identify bullying. It was less

stressful to view problems as arising from either poor communication, authoritarian managerial

styles or sociopolitical factors including the recent financial crisis. The complex interplay of

context, meaning and impact alluded to in Stark’s view of coercion seemed to be absent.

If individual factors failed to account for the problem and the threat of something more

systematic, targeted and psychologically sinister emerged, the preferred explanation was

mutuality rather than coercion.

Where it became evident that a case was not mutual but involved one person systematically

targeting the other, the response was one of incredulity. It has been argued that the prospect

that an adult employee arriving in the workplace with the psychological motivations of a

child seems unthinkable (Obholzer and Roberts, 1994). Mutuality as a concept served to uphold

the hope that maturity arrives with adulthood and that human beings are essentially pro-social in

VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j PAGE 151

the workplace. Once these beliefs are challenged, the rules of engagement in conflict are lost

and the risk of being targeted increases. The field of organizational psychology usefully

describes unconscious beliefs as powerful mechanisms that motivate workplace behaviour

(Stapley, 2006).

Exploring the underlying, systematic coercive pattern of relating in our questioning of

interviewees gave us a richer source of data to draw on. Combining psychological and socio-

political perspectives on bullying proved particularly useful in sifting conflict from coercion.

The presence of coercive tactics appeared to distinguish interpersonal conflict from bullying

interactions. This finding was not new but replicated knowledge from the domestic violence

field where a specialized assessment of coercive behaviour supplanted notions of mutuality

(Dobash et al., 1998; Dutton et al., 2005). In the realm of the family, terms like “marital disputes” or

“volatile relationship” served to mask the presence of domestic violence and promoted instead

the idea that both parties were mutually engaged in abusive behaviour (Stark, 2007). By contrast

focusing on coercive control revealed an underlying pattern of instrumental behaviour from the

abuser. Dutton et al. (2005) examined the instrumental nature of coercive control as a

means of establishing power in the intimate relationship. Dutton et al. (2005) model for

measuring coercive control includes: social ecology; setting the stage; coercion involving a

demand and a credible threat for non-compliance; surveillance; delivery of threatened

consequences; and the victim’s behavioural and emotional response to coercion. Where

perpetrators have established their positions they also make clear that resistance comes at a

high price. The importance of linking domestic violence and bullying is evident in the research

demonstrating that children raised in families where domestic violence is occurring are more

vulnerable to bullying either as victims or perpetrators Bowers et al. (1994). Recent research by

Falb et al. (2011) discovered a correlation between men’s reports of bullying their childhood

peers in school and their later physical or sexual abuse of female partners in adulthood. We

cannot assume that children simply “grow out” of relating patterns that have been set down in

their developmental process.

Research provides some support for the observation that individuals who bully are more likely to

attribute hostile motives to the actions of others (Dodge, 2006; Neuman and Baron, 1998).

As a means of survival, this reading of others has significance to those who grow up with

experiences of abusive parenting. Ireland (2002) demonstrated that in a prison environment pure

bullies revealed a bias in favour of hostile problem solving. She suggested that this aggressive

style of problem solving could have arisen in response to context and may have been reinforced

by early successes. These research connections between early environmental influences, social

processing, problem solving and current context are echoed in the field of domestic violence.

In this context it has been shown that domestic violence is most prevalent in cultures with

greater degrees of gender inequality (Ferguson et al., 2004), supporting the view that individual

factors and cultural supports combine to make violence an intractable problem. When the

workplace replicates the atmosphere of a dysfunctional family it runs the risk of spawning

increased anxieties, competitiveness and interpersonal hostility. This atmosphere may suit

the purposes of the organization. Rhodes et al. (2010) argue that the bullying is as much

embedded in the organizational cultures as in the behaviour of the individual and state that:

“where excessive demands, market-driven perspectives, long hours of work, insecure

structures, and multiple organizational changes are taken for granted, [y] we find the

institutionalization of objective violence”.

In many university departments, academics work in intense isolation in both research and

teaching capacities. Often cooperation occurs only in the performance of administrative tasks.

In other respects colleagues effectively compete for research funds, esteem, publications and

student favour, all of which determines their career progression.

One of the roots of conflict lies in the opacity of merit measurement. In a domain of work where

communication is central, colleagues often fear competitors advancing. Hence the solidarity

inherent to symmetrical relationships is at risk of being usurped by an asymmetrical redefinition

of rights and obligation into dominance and subordination. The very flexibility of institutional

structures, like job descriptions, organizational routines, creates the potential for conflict when

people feel at risk.

PAGE 152 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013

Conclusion

The importance of mapping context, meaning and impact in work with coercive individuals

(Stark, 2007) informed both our line of questioning and data analysis in this research. As we have

highlighted, the narratives we heard from our informants lacked this level of clarity. Informants

appeared to have limited grasp of the types of behaviours listed under most of the current

definitions of bullying available to them in their work. Unqualified claims of objectivity were used

to support a “neutral stance”. The importance of maintaining neutrality was presented as an

argument for not conducting a systematic assessment. Without a systematic assessment cases

of bullying remained unidentified and unrecorded. Training that is structured to define bullying

and its behavioural manifestations although crucial are not sufficient to reverse this trend.

The ambiguous role of HR in protecting the organization from protracted and costly disputes

plays a part in derailing adequate assessment. The organizational culture may also militate

against notions of accountability when competitive practices are favoured over collaborative

ones. The question of individual or organizational accountability are key to understanding

the dynamics of bullying. We argue that bullying is not a problem in which a presumption

of mutuality is appropriate. Bullying dynamics are often asymmetrical with inequity being a

contributing factor.

What we discovered in our research was that informants felt this asymmetrical pattern in

response to their here and now encounters with the alleged bully. But it was a felt response that

informants viewed as subjective and therefore not neutral or evidential. A psychologically

informed understanding of this response to the less obvious communications of others may well

be a useful aspect of training in this field. In the field of counselling and psychotherapy, the

capacity to empathize is inextricably linked to noticing one’s counter-reactions in relation

to the other. These gut responses can assist the interviewer in attending to the kind of non-verbal

cues that contribute to a deeper sense of relating styles. Further research to test whether

the “gut reactions” of people assessing bullying is linked to the relational style of the bully

would be of value. Bullying tends to be viewed as a dynamic that is contained in a specific

relationship with the target. We argue that this assumption can be used to support the idea

that the target is mutually responsible in some way by failing to resist coercion. Our findings

raise a further question: do bullies relate coercively in all relationships where they can make

credible threats?

The non-coercive management of people and a commitment to promote their well-being at

work is a pre-requisite to reducing bullying. Currently HR staff find themselves between a rock

and a hard place, unable to critique the organizational culture or confront abusive individuals

within it. In this sense vagueness has a strategic and protective function. The downside of

vagueness is that bullying becomes medicalized because OH professionals are prepared to

systematically assess the underlying causes of “sickness”.

If the topic of bullying is ignored, there is a dual risk. On the one hand, organizations faced with

financial constraints may not simply turn a blind eye, but encourage aggressive behaviour within

the workplace to hasten cost-cutting processes. And second, as a consequence of such

passive tolerance it will accelerate the spread of incivility in the workplace. At a time when

traditional institutional protection such as trade union representation has been systematically

degraded, and the external forms of communal support are marginal to the operation of the

modern corporation, the apparent indifference to workplace bullying beckons a significant

change to workplace culture in post-crises Britain. The challenge we all face is how to play our

part to ensure the integration of training, policy and organizational culture in identifying and

reducing workplace bullying.

Note

1. UK NGOs dedicated to fighting bullying in the workplace. www.andreaadamstrust.org – non-political

non-profit making charity focusing on problems caused by workplace bullying. www.dignityatwork.org –

a web site for the Dignity at Work Partnership the worlds largest anti-bullying project. www.jfo.org.uk –

Just Fight On is a non-profit making anti-bullying organisation. www.workplacebullying.co.uk – a non-

profit site providing legal resources to those fighting against workplace bullying.

VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j PAGE 153

References

ACAS (2010), “Bullying and harassment at work”, available at: www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/l/r/

Bullying_and_harassment_employer_2010-accessible-version-July-2011.pdf (accessed 27 June 2013)

Bowers, L., Smith, P.K. and Binney, V. (1994), “Perceived family relationships of bullies, victims and bully/

victims in middle childhood”, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 11 No 2, pp. 215-32.

Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (2012), “Harassment and bullying at work: resource

summary – Dec 2012”, available at: www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/harassment-bullying-at-

work.aspx (accessed 27 June 2013).

De Dreu, C.K.W. (2008), “The virtue and vice of workplace conflict: food for (pessimistic) thought”, Journal of

Organizational Behavior, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 5-18.

Dobash, D., Cavanagh, K. and Lewis, R. (1998), “Separate and intersecting realities: a comparison of men’s

and women’s accounts of violence against women”, Violence Against Women, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 382-414.

Dodge, K.A. (2006), “Translational science in action: hostile attributional style and the development of

aggressive behavior problems”, Developmental Psychopathology, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 791-814.

Dutton, M.A., Goodman, L. and James Schmidt, R. (2005), “Development and validation of a coercive

control measure for intimate partner violence”, National Institute of Justice Office of justice Programs,

Washington, DC, available at: www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/214438.pdf

Falb, K.L., MaCauley, H.L., Decker, M.R., Gupta, J., Raj, J. and Silverman, J.G. (2011), “School bullying

perpetration and other childhood risk factors as predictors of adult intimate partner violence perpetration”, Arch

Pediatr Adolesc Med, available at: www.newscastmedia.com/bullying.pdf, doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.91.

Ferguson, H., Hearn, J., Gullvag Holter, O., Jalmert, L., Kimmel, M., Lang, J. and Morrell, R. (2004), “Ending

gender based violence: a call for global action to involve men (SIDA)”, available at: www.sida.se/shared/jsp/

download.jsp?f¼SVI34602.pdf&a¼3108 (accessed 27 June 2013). Ferris, P. (2004), “A preliminary typology of organizational response to allegations of workplace bullying: see no

evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”, British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, Vol. 32, pp. 389-95.

Harrington, S.O. (2007), “Seeking understanding from inconsistency: an exploration of human resource

management’s response to bullying”, Paper presented at the 1st Portuguese Conference on Workplace Bullying:

Increasing Awareness of Workplace Bullying: Concepts, Research and Solutions, Lisbon, November 2007.

Harvey, M., Treadway, D., Heames, J. and Duke, A. (2009), “Bullying in the 21st century global organization:

an ethical perspective”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 85 No. 1, pp. 27-40.

Health and Safety Executive (2013), “Bullying and harassment”, available at: www.hse.gov.uk/stress/further

advice/bullyingharassment.htm (accessed 27 June 2013).

Hoel, H., Faragher, B. and Cooper, C. (2001), “The experience of bullying in Great Britain: the impact of

organisational status”, European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 10, pp. 443-65.

Ireland, J.L. (2002), Bullying among prisoners: evidence, research and intervention strategies, Brunner-

Routledge, London.

Klein, A. and Martin, S. (2011), “Two dilemmas in dealing with workplace bullies – false positives and

deliberate deceit”, International Journal of Workplace Health Management, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 13-32.

Implications for practice

’ Alleged cases of bullying require a systematic assessment in which the context, meaning and impact

of the bullying behaviour are formally mapped.

’ The organizational culture has a significant role to play in helping or hindering workplace bullying. The

integration of training, policy and organizational culture is needed to reduce workplace bullying.

’ Practice does not reflect research findings that demonstrate the asymmetrical nature of bullying.

Training courses should challenge conceptualizations of bullying as a problem that is mutually

generated by the bully and their target.

’ Practitioners appeared to experience being coerced in their interactions with alleged bullies. More

research is needed to examine whether bullies relate coercively in all relationships where they can

make credible threats.

PAGE 154 j JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH j VOL. 5 NO. 3 2013

Lewis, D. and Rayner, C. (2003), “Bullying and human resource management: a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”, in

Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D. and Cooper, C.L. (Eds), Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace,

Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 370-82.

Mistry, M. and Latoo, J. (2009), “Bullying a growing workplace menace”, British Journal of Medical Practice,

Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 23-36.

Neuman, J.H. and Baron, R.A. (1998), “Workplace violence and workplace aggression: evidence concerning

specific forms, potential causes, and preferred targets”, Journal of Management, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 391-419.

NHS Employers Guidance (2006), “Bullying and harassment”, available at: www.nhsemployers.org/

Aboutus/Publications/Documents/Bullying%20and%20harassment.pdf (accessed 27 June 2013).

Obholzer, A. and Roberts, V. (Eds) (1994), The Unconscious at Work, Routledge, London.

Pfeffer, J. (2007), “Human resources from an organizational behavior perspective: some paradoxes”, The

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 115-34.

Pondy, L. (1967), “Organizational conflict: concepts and models”, Administrative Science Quarterly,

Vol. 17, pp. 296-320.

Rhodes, C., Pullen, A., Vickers, M.H., Clegg, S.R. and Pitsis, A. (2010), “Violence and workplace bullying: what

are an organization’s ethical responsibilities?”, Administrative Theory and Praxis, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 96-115.

Royal College of Nurses (2002), “Working well: a call to employers – a summary of the RCN working well

survey into the wellbeing and working lives of nurses”, available at: www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/

0011/78527/001595.pdf (accessed 27 June 2013).

Stapley, L.F. (2006), Individuals, Groups and Organizations Beneath the Surface: An Introduction, Karnac

Books, London.

Stark, E. (2007), Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Thomas, K.W. (1992), “Conflict and negotiation processes in organizations”, in Dunnette, M.D. and

Hough, L.M. (Eds), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2nd ed.), Consulting

Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 651-717.

TUC (2010), “Focus on health and safety: trade union trends survey TUC biennial survey of safety reps”,

available at: www.tuc.org.uk/extras/safetyrepssurvey2010.pdf (accessed 27 June 2013).

Wall, J. and Callister, R. (1995), Conflict and its management, Journal of Management, Vol. 21, pp. 515-58.

Zizek, S. (2008), Violence, Profile Books, London.