Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment – serie

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 volume captures themes and debates around elucidating and studying workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. The chapters presented here underscore the complexities and nuances of the phenomenon and showcase the various techniques relevant to and concerns associated with researching it. Debates abound as to what workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment is and what it is not, leading to a construct bind. Viewpoints are exchanged over how best to uncover the topic so as to ensure that recommendations for action are anchored in rigour. Section 1 portrays the gamut of variants that constitute workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment, such as interpersonal bullying, depersonalized bullying and cyberbullying, alongside theoretical underpinnings, contentious stances and contemporary contextual influences. Section 2 speaks to the challenges of studying a sensitive, multi-person, multi-level problematic, highlighting the possibilities offered by quantitative, qualitative and mixed paradigms. Advanced designs and innovative strategies that facilitate explanatory power, reliability and validity are put forward.

The agenda of respectful workplaces is no more urgent than in the context of workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. This becomes even more significant in the face of mistreatment linked to social identity and national culture. 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. As well as organizational-related mechanisms, therapy, collective action and legislation are described. Normative angles, the challenges of actual practice and the contours of effectiveness are pinpointed. The increasing recognition of the conflation between category-based harassment and workplace bullying and the burgeoning cross-cultural lens of the substantive area are captured through the chapters of Section 2. Identities revolving around gender, sexuality, disability, caste and ethnicity serve as markers for mistreatment, underpinning the needto explore the dynamics of these situations in terms of causes, manifestations and consequences. Variations in the unfolding of negative acts due to cultural influences have been found, emphasizing that though misbehaviour is universal, it has country-specific characteristics.