Session 4: Bullying in the Work Place (1)
1st Global Conference
Friday 6th November – Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria
A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective of Workplace Bullying: Boundary Testing, Vacuums and Risk
Sheila White
WhyBulliesBully.Com, United Kingdom
This paper draws on psychoanalytical theory and in-depth qualitative research, in two contrasting public sector organisations in the UK, to illustrate how bullying scenarios are generated from a systemic interplay of factors.
The paper is in three parts. The first part focuses on the concepts of boundaries, containment and projection and argues that bullying may occur when individuals feel very insecure within a given context. To defend against deep, and often denied, unpleasant feelings bullies project their anxieties on to others, testing the boundaries of colleagues in an attempt to find suitable containers for their anxieties.
The second part of the paper presents the key findings of the research. Drawing on examples of field work, the research shows how bullying occurred around vacuums of support within the organisations. Negative aspects of the culture of the organisations were ‘reflected’ more in bullying scenarios than where there was no bullying. As bullying escalated individuals became isolated from each other and fantasies replaced reality. Employees became subservient and impasses developed in the group dynamics. A comparison is made between the in-depth characteristics of bullying and non bullying scenarios.
Based on the theoretical concepts and research findings, the paper concludes with a risk analysis, a means of identifying where bullying is most likely to occur within organisations.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
Bullying Harassment and Toxic Personalities in Abnormal Romanian Work Situations
Violeta S. Rotarescu
University of Bucharest, Romania
The multiplicity of abnormal work situations in Romanian organizations (harassment, psychic or sexual abuse, bullying, etc) we noticed or documented in the last years represents the starting point of this questionnaire. Among the most important causes would be certain patterns of behaviour, usually called “difficult personalities” (ex. Lelord & Andre, 1996), sometimes impossible to diagnose in selection process. Analyzing the existing tools for the assessment of personality (MMPI, HDS, DA-307, etc), we made the decision to create an instrument for some of the most toxic types of personality for organizations: the narcissic, the hystrionic, the A type and the sadic (machiavelic or malign).
We commenced with the analysis of the main dimensions, from the literature, and the analysis of specific behaviours. A list of 343 items emerged, with 82 to 94 items per type of personality. The answering mode was a 7-step Lickert scale (1-„it does not apply to me”, 7- „it is exactly me”). We applied the list on 450 employees (age range between 18 and 55) from different organizations, and calculated then the Alpha-Cronbach coefficient for each type of personality (between 0.78 and 0.92).
We also re-applied the list on 47% of the initial sample of employees, to be sure of the stability of the results in the previous session of testing.
We experienced problems in dealing with data for the A type of personality, probably due to different characteristics of this type, compared to the other types (the minimal tendency for manipulating people of A people, for example), which makes necessary the separation of items in two different but related instruments.
In work now are the decreasing of the number of items for every type of personality, toward the 32 most powerful and relevant ones per type, the expanding of the initial sample of subjects, and the validation of the instrument in Romania.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
The Perception of Post-Graduate Students Regarding Workplace Bullying
Christoff Botha
Potchefstroom Business School, North-West University, Republic of South Africa
The eventual aim of this research is to study bullying in Africa, by focussing on the experience of Post Graduate Business Administration students and their colleagues at their places of work.
Very little research has been done in Africa regarding bullying in the world of work or bullying in the broader society. For the authors of this paper, workplace bullying, at its core, can always be traced back to the abuse or misuse of power. In the introductory part of this study the authors aim at measuring the exact frequency of this phenomenon in the workplace.
The revised Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (NAQ – R), an instrument designed to measure exposure to bullying in the workplace, will be used with the permission of the Bergen Study Group in Norway.
At this stage, based on the literature, we view bullying in the workplace as a process that is influenced by organisational, individual and contextual factors that has consequences for the perpetrator, victim and organisation. Regarding bullying in Africa, we want to determine prevalence, organisational factors, consequences, perceptions, leadership, cultural aspects, management perspective, antecedents, and perpetrator profile.
Without theoretical justification, the contribution of any study to improving our understanding of the phenomena that develop in work and organisational settings is seriously reduced. This paper therefore was constructed with a sound theoretical and literature background by the authors.
Post Graduate students of the North West University, specifically Masters in Business Administration students (MBA) will be asked to complete a questionnaire on workplace bullying. Business environments and workplace backgrounds differ widely and a lot of environments were included. These differ from manufacturing to the service industry.
Workplace bullying is perceived as undesirable in organisations and has negative results for harmony in working relations and is caused by continuously negative acts. The aim of this study is to establish numbers of incidences, frequency of incidents and perception of enrolled MBA students on the occurrence of workplace bullying in their working environment. The population for this study consists of all post graduate students enrolled for the MBA programme with the Potchefstroom Business School in South Africa (N=276).
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