Premilla D'Cruz - Böcker

Workplace bullying, a pattern of persistent and targeted emotional abuse within the context of an evolving unequal interpersonal relationship, has so far not received academic attention in India. This book explores the phenomenon of workplace bullying through a series of quantitative and qualitative inquiries conducted in India’s Information Technology-Enabled Services–Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) sector.Through quantitative evidence from two multi-city surveys, the book highlights the incidence of interpersonal bullying at work and the organizational measures available to deal with it. Over one-third of the survey respondents experienced bullying, which was usually from superiors though cross-level co-bullying was also reported. Approximately 70 per cent of the survey respondents described organizational measures including anti-bullying policies, employee awareness and training programmes, encouragement of witnesses/bystanders to intervene in bullying situations, and organizational actions. Through qualitative data, the book provides insights into both interpersonal and depersonalized bullying. The lived experiences of targets and witnesses/bystanders of interpersonal bullying underscore the critical influence of human resources management (HRM) on target coping, the long-term identity work targets engage in as they respond to identity disruptions and the effect of workplace friendship on witnesses’/bystanders’ behaviour. The presence of institutionalized bullying facilitates the development of the emergent construct of depersonalized bullying. Across both quantitative and qualitative inquiries, the inclusion of socio-cultural, micro-organizational, macro-organizational, and business, dimensions deepens our understanding. The book goes beyond a country-specific contribution to address gaps in the international literature on workplace bullying and will be of interest to academics and practitioners in the fields of management, organizational behaviour (OB), human resources (HR), industrial relations, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and law as well as to the general reader.

Workplace bullying, a pattern of persistent and targeted emotional abuse within the context of an evolving unequal interpersonal relationship, has so far not received academic attention in India. This book explores the phenomenon of workplace bullying through a series of quantitative and qualitative inquiries conducted in India’s Information Technology-Enabled Services–Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) sector.Through quantitative evidence from two multi-city surveys, the book highlights the incidence of interpersonal bullying at work and the organizational measures available to deal with it. Over one-third of the survey respondents experienced bullying, which was usually from superiors though cross-level co-bullying was also reported. Approximately 70 per cent of the survey respondents described organizational measures including anti-bullying policies, employee awareness and training programmes, encouragement of witnesses/bystanders to intervene in bullying situations, and organizational actions. Through qualitative data, the book provides insights into both interpersonal and depersonalized bullying. The lived experiences of targets and witnesses/bystanders of interpersonal bullying underscore the critical influence of human resources management (HRM) on target coping, the long-term identity work targets engage in as they respond to identity disruptions and the effect of workplace friendship on witnesses’/bystanders’ behaviour. The presence of institutionalized bullying facilitates the development of the emergent construct of depersonalized bullying. Across both quantitative and qualitative inquiries, the inclusion of socio-cultural, micro-organizational, macro-organizational, and business, dimensions deepens our understanding. The book goes beyond a country-specific contribution to address gaps in the international literature on workplace bullying and will be of interest to academics and practitioners in the fields of management, organizational behaviour (OB), human resources (HR), industrial relations, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and law as well as to the general reader.

The book advances the nascent concept of depersonalized workplace bullying, highlighting its distinctive features, proposing a theoretical framework and making recommendations for intervention.

This book showcases issues of work and employment in contemporary India through a critical lens, serving as a systematic, scholarly and rigorous resource which provides an alternate view to the glowing metanarrative of the subcontinent’s ongoing economic growth in today’s globalized world.

This volume embodies the twin purpose of highlighting topics beyond the purview of themes commonly associated with workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment and of presenting insights into those occupations, professions  and sectors which either have received extensive research attention or hold a pronounced propensity to trigger workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. Section 1, which comprises special topics, depicts the intersection between workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment and specific circumstances such as whistleblowing and customer abuse or particular attributes such as violence and ostracism. In so doing, it extends the boundaries of the substantive area, stimulating new themes for further inquiry and indicating new areas for action. Section 2 draws attention to how misbehaviour inheres in particular kinds of tasks and livelihoods due to job design, work organization and other elements such as power, external environment, employment patterns and so on. An array of occupations, professions and sectors such as academe, nursing, law, hospitality, precarious work and so on is covered, reflecting emergent developments in the labour market so as to include those with long-standing and considerable research findings and those where empirical inquiries are more recent.

This book showcases issues of work and employment in contemporary India through a critical lens, serving as a systematic, scholarly and rigorous resource which provides an alternate view to the glowing metanarrative of the subcontinent’s ongoing economic growth in today’s globalized world.

This volume captures themes and debates around elucidating and studying workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment.

The agenda of respectful workplaces is no more urgent than in the context of workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. The chapters constituting Section 1 speak to the spectrum of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention undertaken within and beyond workplaces to tackle workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment.

Workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment unfolds as a process, usually recursive and escalating, that involves multiple actors and stakeholders.

This book, recognizing that workplace bullying is a significant employment relations and occupational health and safety problem in India which warrants urgent and holistic intervention, presents empirical studies examining contextual factors, antecedents, mediators, moderators, processes, outcomes and solutions, thereby deepening our understanding of the phenomenon. The chapters showcased in the volume emphasize the paradoxical Indian sociocultural ethos whose simultaneous embrace of humanism versus identity-based, personalized and hierarchical relationships, materialism versus spiritualism and individualism versus collectivism both fuel yet quell misbehaviour. The inquiries which constitute this book engage both positivist and postpostivist paradigms, draw on several theoretical and substantive frameworks, utilize an array of methods, investigate numerous foci and cover various geographical regions in India, a range of industrial sectors and all levels of the organization. In so doing, they make pathbreaking contributions beyond country-specific insights to advance the frontiers of the thematic area worldwide. The chapters include important findings pertaining to digital workplaces, child labour, forgiveness, customer bullying, psychological contract violation, perceived organizational support, psychological capital and comprehensive prevention strategies encompassing psychosocial risks.  As well as building on a decade of knowledge about workplace bullying in India, the book puts forward a research agenda on the topic for the subcontinent in particular and the field in general. The volume is of interest to researchers, practitioners and students of organizational studies, human resource management, industrial relations, labour law, corporate law, health sciences and social work.

This book showcases empirical studies on workplace bullying from a range of Asian countries, including China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam,  and is the first-of-its-kind single academic project documenting workplace emotional abuse in the world’s largest continent. It encompasses the ‘varieties of workplace bullying’ conceptualization in addition to category-based harassment and abusive supervision, and presents target, bystander and interventionist perspectives, along with contextualized insights into the phenomenon. The book speaks to the significance of sociocultural factors and draws on several theoretical and substantive bases including dignity, social cynicism, coping, gender, sexual orientation, job insecurity, turnover intention, affective events theory, attribution theory, regulation and policy initiatives. Covering all major regions in Asia where workplace bullying has been foundto occur, namely West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, the book portrays studies which engage both positivist and postpositivist paradigms, utilize an array of methods and include a range of industrial sectors and employment contracts and all levels of the organization. While focused on Asia, the book’s insights have international relevance and are of interest to the worldwide community of researchers, practitioners and students of organizational studies, human resource management, industrial sociology, work psychology, industrial relations, labour law, corporate law, health sciences, social work and Asian studies.