Workplace bullying: exploring an emerging framework

Abstract

To date, emphasis within the literature on workplace bullying has been on gathering empirical data with a focus on individual acts, actors (targets and perpetrators) and consequences. This analytical focus has resulted in an understanding of workplace bullying as fundamentally an individualized phenomenon. This article begins with a brief discussion of the theorization that currently predominates in the workplace violence and bullying literature and the outcomes of this theorizing. An emerging framework, conceptualizing violence broadly, is then outlined for understanding violence and bullying. Through this framework, it is argued that the discourse and research on workplace violence – in all its forms – must explore explicit connections between these social phenomena and the interrelatedness of all forms of oppression. Workplace violence must be examined within a framework where power cannot be separated from social dimensions within and outside the workplace.

Keywords

continuum of violence power social relations workplace bullying and violence

To date, emphasis within the literature on workplace bullying has been on gathering empirical data (Beale and Hoel, 2011) with a focus on individual acts, actors (targets and perpetrators) and consequences. However, as Menjívar (2011: 226) argues, ‘violence does not reside only in individuals’ intentional acts’. Focusing the analytical gaze on individual acts and actors has resulted in an understanding of workplace bullying as fundamentally an individualized phenomenon exerting a profound influence on the practices taken up by organizations to counter it. Also, the conceptualization of violence on an individual level contributes to an emphasis on intervention rather than prevention practices (Ertürk and Purkayastha, 2012). In this article, an emerging alternative framework is outlined for understanding and researching violence and bullying. From a critical perspective, violence is conceptualized broadly to include multiple, interrelated forms, including bullying.

Current theorizations of workplace bullying

The psychological perspective, in particular that of organizational psychologists, has dominated the early research focus on workplace bullying (Einarsen et al., 2011). The focus thus far has been on empirical studies to examine ‘who does what to whom; when, where, why; and with what kinds of consequences for the organisation and for those targeted’ (Einarsen et al., 2011: 9). More recently the field has become interdisciplinary; however, according to Einarsen et al. (2011: 24) bullying remains a phenomenon that ‘should be understood primarily as a dyadic interplay between people, where neither situational nor personal factors are entirely sufficient to explain why it develops’. While acknowledging that bullying is a relational issue, a framework is needed that allows us to move beyond a focus strictly on the dyadic relationship to one that views this relationship as a product of processes and practices beyond individuals.

The emphasis on interpersonal dynamics is central to the study of violence from a behaviour science perspective (Bulhan, 1985). According to his critique of this paradigm, Bulhan (1985: 132) states:

This approach narrows violence to what is measurable and quantifiable. It assumes an identifiable perpetrator and an equally identifiable victim. It searches for the immediate observable antecedents and consequences of violence. Less immediate causes and long-term effects introduce unwanted complexities and overload established methods of verifiability.

While Bulhan’s discussion pertains to violence, it can also apply to bullying. Violence and bullying are typically seen as separate phenomena, but a view that calls for an expanded definition of violence that includes bullying is needed.

The most popular framework used to theorize workplace bullying is based on Bronfenbrenner’s (1997) ecological model focusing on micro, meso and macro influences. The causes and consequences of workplace bullying are generally examined at five different levels: individual; dyadic; group; organizational; and societal (Hoel and Cooper, 2001). While this model has great potential for understanding bullying, its use has not fully integrated the relationship between the levels. Attention has focused on the individual and dyadic levels with emphasis on the personality traits and pathologies of both targets and perpetrators leading to the dubious use of personality profiling, employee pre-screening (Day and Catano, 2006; Neuman and Baron, 1998) and the blaming of targets for provoking the perpetrator’s behaviour or lacking the ‘strength’ to defend themselves. Organizational and societal-level factors have been typically viewed as antecedents, or situational factors, exasperating existing tensions among individuals and groups.

At the organizational level, bullying is often naturalized as part of contemporary work environments where social and job stressors are utilized as the main explanatory models (Hoel and Salin, 2003; Leymann, 1996; Zapf, 1999). The organization has typically been viewed as playing a background role (Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey, 2001, 2003) and providing an environment whereby the rise of conflict between individuals is facilitated. In large part, the dominant discourse portrays organizations as reacting to the current economic environment in order to survive (e.g. Hoel and Salin, 2003; Yamada, 2000). In an increasingly competitive marketplace caused primarily by globalization, organizations’ actions are driven by a cost-cutting objective (Hoel and Salin, 2003). Of course, the reverse can also be argued. Organizations’ action plans have been dominated by restructuring and downsizing measures exerting pressure on organizations (resulting in greater risk-taking and work intensification to decrease costs) and individuals, for example through the increase in hours worked and greater pressure to bring work home (Hoel and Salin, 2003). The main argument regarding globalization and its outcomes needs to be placed within a wider analysis related to the capitalist economic system and its driving forces.

Revealing findings are emerging from researchers who are placing individuals in relation to a broader context and tracing the micro- and macro-level processes and practices that are integral in causing and sustaining violence, in various forms, at work. Of particular importance is the contribution of researchers who have contextualized forms of violence within the labour process. From a broader structural view, highlighting the employment context and the managerial control of labour, Beale and Hoel (2011: 5) argue that ‘bullying is better understood as an endemic feature of the capitalist employment relationship’. This has profound consequences for advocated anti-bullying best practices, in particular, as Beale and Hoel state, for the credibility of zero tolerance policies and the role of management and unions in their enforcement.

Only recently have researchers begun to look at organizational practices themselves as bullying (e.g. D’Cruz and Noronha, 2009; Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey, 2001, 2003) which Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey (2001) refer to as depersonalized bullying. They consider this type of bullying as a form of ‘institutionalized bullying’ and suggest a link with racism (Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey, 2003). This opens a window into connections between forms of institutionalized violence, including bullying and racial, gender and sexual harassment. Including the organization (and powerful agents and institutional practices within it) as an actor also opens up avenues for examining bullying as a form of revenge and resistance against the organization (Hoel and Beale, 2006). Workplaces cannot be examined as isolated from the greater social context and, as Bannerji (1995) points out, oppression is possible in organizations because they reflect society. Additional avenues are opened up for research if organizations are considered as ‘particular social collectivities that result from … acts and processes’ of social organizing (Hearn and Parkin, 2001: 1, emphasis in original) and workplace bullying as intertwined with those organizational processes.

Viewing the organization as removed from social structural relations constructs work and bullying as divorced from gender, race, class and other social divisions (Hearn and Parkin, 2001). It also constructs forms of violence as separate phenomena (Hearn and Parkin, 2001; Lim and Cortina, 2005; Lopez et al., 2009), hiding their interrelated nature. Instead, hierarchical social relations are created and maintained through mechanisms of power and control constructed into and exercised through organizations. Viewing the design of workplace practices simply as complicating social relations and hence causing the violence, obfuscates the reality that these organizational realities construct and are constructed by social relations. As stated by Hearn and Parkin (2005: 105), ‘structural relations of oppression and mundane experiences of [violence] are not mutually exclusive’.

While organizations and society are included in the ecological model, in large part the process of bullying is decontextualized; that is, it is constructed as being produced outside the workplace as opposed to an integral part of workplace practices. For example, perpetrators are viewed as bringing their ‘bad character traits’ into the workplace. As a result, the workplace is also constructed as an entity divorced from society. In her essay, ‘In the matter of ‘X’: Building ‘race’ into sexual harassment’, Bannerji (1995) uses an intersectionality framework to show how multiple oppressions (in the particular case of ‘X’, gender and race) are integral and interactive components of sexual harassment. She undertakes this analysis by examining the workplace, and states:

[The] workplace … cannot be seen only as a place of economic production, but must also be understood as a coherent social and cultural environment which is organized through known and predictable social relations, practices, cultural norms and expectations. What happens in this environment, which is daily and highly regulated, cannot just be treated as random or unpredictable behaviour. (Bannerji, 1995: 130)

Bannerji (1995: 131, emphases in original) collapses micro- and macro-level boundaries by further linking individual and socio structural realms when she states that ‘individual behaviour, workplace relations, daily life within its precincts all come within the purview of social behaviour and greater social and economic forces’. Individual experiences cannot, according to Bannerji, be examined as discrete events separate from the experiences of others and decontextualized from their social space.

In their richly contextualized sociological study of violence at work, Baines and Cunningham (2011) do not treat micro and macro processes as antecedents to violence, but constructive of the violence. Using labour process theory, they analyse how the organization of work has changed in the non-profit care sector, with a predominantly female workforce, under new public management, and lay out how violence is naturalized as part of the work. Baines and Cunningham (2011: 765) state that:

In order to understand abusive work environments, it is necessary to consider the influence of alternative forms of control that are designed to elicit consent among employees at the level of the workplace (Burawoy, 1979) and the ways that these forms of control draw on feminized roles and expectations.

Other researchers have highlighted the centrality of social structures as core components of the violence process highlighting the increased risk and impact for particular groups of workers related to their social location (see Boyd, 2002; Deery et al., 2011; Fevre et al., 2013; Pollert and Charlwood, 2009; Roscigno et al., 2009). Expanding the definition of ‘vulnerability’ (Pollert and Charlwood, 2009) allows these researchers to contextualize the experiences of groups of workers within government policies, employment rights, (non-)unionization, the structure of and power within the labour market and the employment relationship, social isolation and exclusion in wider society and how these shape the labour process. This has profound consequences for organizational practices. In particular, organizations need to view anti-violence policies and practices as interrelated to those countering inequities in the workplace.

Exploring an emerging framework

An alternative way of theorizing violence and bullying is offered by the continuum of violence. It does away with binary thinking where individual and social structural spheres are unrelated and views forms of violence as interrelated. The notion of a continuum centralizes the need for systemic change, thereby emphasizing prevention rather than intervention. The notion of a continuum holds great potential for deeper, long-term change.

There are three key interrelated components to this framework for understanding and researching workplace violence and bullying. First, bullying – and other forms of harassment – must be seen as a form of violence. To do this an expanded definition of violence is required that goes beyond the inclusion of strictly physical violence. Second, once this expanded view of violence is taken, it becomes possible to apply the concept of a continuum of violence. This challenges the conceptualization of workplace bullying as restricted to the psychological or emotional realm and as an individualized issue. Third, an expanded view of violence and the notion of a continuum allows us to adopt a broader notion of power than is presently used in the literature on workplace bullying. As will be argued later in this article, an analysis of power imbalances within the workplace must move beyond one of formal power linked to hierarchical relations based on organizational positions. Workplace violence in all forms must be examined within a framework where power cannot be spoken of as separate from social dimensions within and outside the workplace.

An expanded definition of violence

Violence is a highly contested concept that is contextually and temporally sensitive (de Haan, 2009) and difficult to define (Bulhan, 1985). Among the numerous and ongoing debates regarding the concept of violence is that of adopting an expansive versus a restrictive definition. Any elements included or excluded when defining violence can have significant implications for understanding the range of people’s experiences (Bulhan, 1985), as well as potential methodological and analytical implications for research. A definition of violence based solely on direct physical acts precludes emotional, psychological, economic and social harm or suffering.

An expanded view of violence as a process helps shift the focus away from a singular explanatory model and the emphasis on individual acts and behaviours decontextualized and circumscribed in time and space. An act of violence is a ‘moment’ along a timeline in which all that preceded it, surrounds it and is part of it becomes crystallized and thereby visible. The process of violence does not end with an act of violence as it continues to change those involved (the victim, perpetrator, witnesses), the community, the organization, society and so on. A processual view of violence is attentive to the conditions that produce it. The focus is on how it has come to be.

The continuum of violence

The notion of a continuum allows us to explore how multiple forms of violence are interrelated in ways that (re)produce and sustain each other. It allows us to move away from an exclusive focus on individual actors and acts, towards a concept of violence that is ‘integral to relations and social conditions’ (Bulhan, 1985: 134) and processes. When the conceptualization of violence is limited to a particular area, for example, when it is individualized, pathologized or limited to physical acts, it:

misrecognize[s] the extent to which structural inequalities and power relations are naturalized by categories and conceptions of what violence really is. They also fail to address the totality and range of violent acts, including those which are part of the normative fabric of social and political life. (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, 2004: 4)

The model for a continuum of violence outlined in this article is influenced by Kelly (1987, 1998) and Bourgois’s (2004) work on the notion of a continuum. Kelly developed the notion of a continuum of violence to explore how various forms of sexual violence are related. She defines a continuum as ‘a basic common character underlying many different events and as a continuous series of elements or events that pass into one another’ (Kelly, 1987: 58). Kelly argues that control (and therefore, power) should be at the heart of any analysis of violence and that, although recognizing the role of social structural relations within violence, individual accountability must not be minimized or discarded. However, a central question is how individual and social structural relations can be integrated, placing power at the centre of these relations, within the continuum of violence. The emphasis in such a continuum shifts from a sole focus on understanding the reasons why individuals behave in specific ways to how individual and social structural relations are interrelated and mutually constitutive and sustaining.

The continuum of violence allows us to view and analyse violence generally as well as name various forms of violence (Kelly, 1998). Therefore, research need not focus strictly on specific forms of violence in isolation or within limited time frames (Kelly, 1998). Central to the concept of a continuum is that there are no clear boundaries separating forms of violence and the existence of common threads that weave through the various forms; that is, forms of violence possess both unique characteristics as well as characteristics shared with other forms of violence. They are interrelated, but not hierarchically. A systemic analysis would provide the necessary mapping of, for example, behaviours, similarities, distinctions, causes and consequences, as well as victims’ increased risk to and impact of violence due to their social location. Thus relationships can be revealed between forms of violence, in particular psychological, racial and sexual harassment, that are normally considered as separate phenomena (Hearn and Parkin, 2001; Lim and Cortina, 2005; Lopez et al., 2009). Viewing forms of violence as distinct can have a profound influence on the construction of some forms (e.g. bullying) as less injurious and as unworthy of extensive prevention efforts.

Specifically related to workplace violence, the notion of a continuum allows for the examination of forms of violence ranging from covert, indirect and non-physical incidences of abuse (e.g. incivility) to extreme, overt, direct incidences of violence (e.g. physical assault, sexual assault and homicide) (Glomb and Cortina, 2006; McCarthy and Mayhew, 2004; Tobin, 2001). The continuum foregrounds the escalating nature of violence, thereby highlighting the need to assess the varying degrees of risk that exist at each point (Einarsen et al., 2011). Accordingly, the development of programmes for prevention and response must include the ‘lower’ levels of the continuum with a view to preventing the escalation of violence. This article now turns to a brief description of this continuum that includes social structural violence, symbolic violence and interpersonal (everyday) violence and with power at its centre.

Power at the centre of violence and bullying

The imbalance of power is a widely recognized definitional component of workplace bullying within the literature. It is currently conceptualized as existing prior to the commencement of the bullying behaviour (most often circumscribed to hierarchical relationships within the organization, in particular between workers and managers) or as developing during the bullying process as targets feel progressively powerless and unable to defend themselves (Saunders et al., 2007). Lopez et al. (2009: 3) go further to affirm that bullying is ‘a widespread and devastating form of inequality and social exclusion in organizations’. The concept of power needs to shift from an exclusive understanding of it as illegitimately located and exercised by individuals – and often manifesting itself through violence – to a broader exploration of power relations within and around the organization (Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey, 2001). Hoel and Salin (2003: 205) state that ‘bullying may stem not so much from abusive or illegitimate use of power as from power which is considered legitimate, and tightly related to the labour process and managerial prerogative to manage’. D’Cruz and Noronha (2009) add to the work of Liefooghe and Mackenzie Davey with emphasis on a broader structural view. They examine the link between organizational practices and the influence of the extra-organizational context, mainly relations between clients and the organization and profit-focused capitalist labour relations.

Social structural violence

Social dimensions (gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, class, age, ability and so on) are inherent components of organized patterns of relations, processes and activities/practices (i.e. structures). Therefore, the term social structural is preferred rather than structural alone as it brings social dimensions into the conceptualization of structural. Concepts such as violence cannot be examined outside their social and historical context (Bulhan, 1985). Further, the continuum of violence must integrate within it a framework that enriches the analysis by including the multiple ways in which individuals and groups are located within interrelated hierarchical social relations of power, as well as institutional structures such as the family, the state, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and patriarchy in and through which social relations are organized and practised. This view of social structures allows a move away from a view of structures as monolithic entities in which structures and individuals are seen as external to each other.

For Galtung (1969), who brought the term structural violence into academic debates (Bourgois, 2004), tracing structural violence back to a concrete actor is meaningless: ‘The violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances’ (Galtung, 1969: 171). These characteristics of social structural violence often render it invisible and normalized (Menjívar, 2011) as it becomes ‘part of the routine grounds of everyday life’ (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, 2004: 4). Specifically related to workplace violence and bullying, these characteristics make it possible to bring the organization into the analysis of these phenomena. Organizations cannot be examined in isolation of social, economic and political structures.

Symbolic violence

Bourdieu (2004: 339–40) refers to symbolic violence as a ‘gentle and often invisible violence’ to refer to the insidious way in which social structures become inculcated in the unconscious of individuals and groups. Bourgois (2004: 426) best summarizes Bourdieu’s conceptualization of symbolic violence ‘as internalized humiliations and legitimations of inequality and hierarchy ranging from sexism and racism to intimate expressions of class power’. This form of violence is often decontextualized from social structural relations, processes and practices rendering these links invisible. According to Bourgois (2004), social structural and symbolic violence express themselves through interpersonal conflicts.

Symbolic violence contributes to possible explanations for several important aspects of workplace bullying. First is the necessity to contextualize bullying within the workplace and not as a phenomenon imported from external sources; a view which contributes to its individualization. Second is the construction of bullying as a completely gender neutral phenomenon implying that both women and men bully equally divorcing the organization from society in general. The shortcomings in these approaches ignore ‘the ways in which organizations are constituted through gender [which] make it impossible for [bullying] to be understood outside this gendering’ (Hearn and Parkin, 2001: 72–3). Therefore, instead of focusing the analysis strictly on ‘who does what to whom’, a consideration is needed of the gendered (and other social dimensions) nature of specific types of work and organizational practices, norms and attitudes (Lee, 2002). Third, the internalization process described by Bourdieu (2004) can help to explain the shame and self-blame often experienced by targets of bullying, as well as the blame inflicted by others. Similar to intimate partner violence, targets of bullying hear accusations regarding why, for example, they do not confront the perpetrator or why they do not leave their jobs to end the bullying. Fourth, symbolic violence can help us understand and make visible practices used by organizations to naturalize bullying as part of certain jobs so that it is accepted by workers.

Interpersonal violence

Interpersonal violence can be defined as those ‘daily practices and expressions of violence on a micro-interactional level’ (Bourgois, 2004: 426). Referring to these violences as ‘everyday violence’, Scheper-Hughes (1992) argues that these forms of violence tend to normalize or render invisible violences at a meso-level (e.g. the community) and macro-level (e.g. the state). When the analytical gaze then focuses strictly on interpersonal violence, their interconnections with social structural and symbolic dimensions become invisible. With regards to violence and bullying, specific types of work (e.g. nursing and call centres) are constructed as ‘naturally’ violent (Bishop et al., 2005; Hutchinson et al., 2006); that is, violence is viewed as an inherent part of the work rather than as a constructed component of the labour process.

Rather than moving completely away from a consideration of individual actions, the importance of viewing these forms of violence – social structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence – as interrelated is essential: ‘None of them can be understood apart from the [others]’ (Bulhan, 1985: 137). They (re)produce and sustain each other. As Smith (2005: 58) explains, the social is not ‘some kind of entity existing externally to individuals’. Individuals’ ‘capacities to act derive from the organizations and social relations that they both produce and are produced by’ (Smith, 2005: 18).

Conclusion

This article has outlined a framework founded on three main components: an expanded and processual definition of violence that includes physical, emotional, psychological, economic and social harm or suffering; a view of violence within a continuum that renders visible the interrelationship between forms of violence; and a recognition of the role of power as central within the continuum of violence. The emphasis in such a continuum shifts from a sole focus on understanding the reasons why individuals behave in specific ways to how individual and social structural relations are interrelated and mutually constitutive and sustaining. This framework requires embedding worker experiences of various forms of violence within a broader organizational and societal context. Examining organizations and their practices must be within their wider economic and socio-political context, such as those shaped by global capitalism. The framework contributes to the future development of research, theory and constructive organizational practices to counter workplace bullying. These interrelated practices must include a broader structural and societal perspective in which organizations constitute but one part of a comprehensive model to counter all forms of violence at work.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Adriana Berlingieri is a PhD Candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her professional experience has focused on areas of workplace learning and development within organizations worldwide, including private, public, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Her research interests include workplace bullying and violence; adult education; critical perspectives on organizational development and learning; and technology and learning.

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