Workplace Bullying and Power Distance

Bullying is found in the workplace as well. Types of workplace bullying can include: threat to professional status, threat to personal standing, isolation, overwork, and destabilisation. Questionnaires were sent to 1,580 National Health Service community trust employees and 1,100 completed surveys were recorded. Out of these, 294 employees (27%) reported being destabilised and 255 (23%) reported being isolated in the workplace (Quine 230). Destabilisation in the workplace often entails giving an employee meaningless tasks or not giving them the credit for what they have done. Withholding training or special opportunities away from an employee are types of isolationism. While being destabilised and isolated are both passive acts, they are forms of bullying. Even though bullying is considered a childish act, it occurs in adulthood, and that is

Bullying and harassment within the workplace can be attributed to a myriad of factors. The work

Bullying has been a problem for a very long time; however in these present times bullying is becoming an epidemic. Maybe the reason behind this is the new occurrence of social media in our society, and the new strategies used by bullies to harass there victims. In this report the topics that will be covered are why bullying is an issue to study in human development, describe three components or types of behavior in bullying that are observed by researchers. Explain how gender and sexual orientation that influence the styles of bullying, how bullying affects self-esteem and what affect does the family system have on bullying.

Bullying influences everyone within an organization, not just those people who are being targeted. It also impacts the families and friend of those being bullied. People who witness bullying are also affected by this behavior. The idea of bullying has been an international matter of concern for the past 20 years. When bullying was first identified, it was called as “mobbing” by Heinz Leymann (1996).

The article provide five table illustrations. Table one is about the demographic characteristic of the targets of the workplace bullies. The table displays the characteristics of social workers ranging by age, gender, and demographic. Table two is about organizational settings and roles of targets. The table displayed supervisors, colleagues, subordinates, and clients were all identified as bullies. It showed that women were more than twice as likely (67%) to be identified as bullies as were men (33%). Table three is about the most troubling bullying behaviors. It showed that verbally and covertly hostile actions were the most troubling bullying behaviors in the workplace. In addition, being treated with disrespect and having work de-valued as the hardest aspects of being bullied at the workplace. Table four was the summary characteristics of bullies. The study showed the characteristic were either passive or assertive by the Coping Scale. The passive behavior had a ranging score of 24 and assertive was of 60. The median and mean scores were 42.5, and a multiple modal score. Table five was the classification of responses to coping scale as passive or assertive

Bullying which is the intentional act to inflict harm, threaten or abuse of others, can range in many ways. Kathryn Hawkins on the article the Office Bully, outlines various issues of this concept. Kathryn states that sometimes people become overconfidence that they left bullies in their past lives maybe high school, but later found out the bullies have ultimately become their bosses. Secondly, bullying may occur when bullies wants to dominate and gain back their powers if they feel endangered. So they tend to overcome their fear by threatening others. Also Kathryn articulates that even the conditions of the workplace can cause bullies to abuse their targets and workplace bully can be difficult to deal with. Although Kathryn has suggested some solutions about these issues, the claim presented does not put up with the issues, rather an encouragement.

Cleary, M., Hunt, G. E., Walter, G., & Robertson, M. (2009). Dealing with bullying in the workplace. Journal of psychosocial nursing and mental health services, 47(12), 34-41. doi:10.3928/02793695-20091103-03

The sample population for article one was comprised of 2,539 Norwegian employees who responded to the anonymous self-report questionnaire. The study had 19.8% supervisors respond. The study consisted of 48.5% males and 51.5% female participation, and the average age was 37 years old.   The study looked at age, gender, and hierarchical position as factors for workplace bullying (Hague et al., 2009.)

In such a diverse society that encompasses of wide variety of socioeconomic statuses, ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, and education levels, bullying is unfortunately becoming more and more common. According to the American Psychological Association, on the most basic operational level, “Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions” (Stop Office Bullying, p. 1). The root of bullying can usually be traced back to a power imbalance, often with the superior discriminating based

Companies may not have initiated an anti-bullying policy, since not every workplace experience bullying; not to mention, the misunderstanding of what is considered as bullying. According to Porteous (2002), “organizations without codes of conduct or policies of behavior may encourage bullying by omission;” however, the various forms of intimidation is difficult to define as bullying (Gumbus, 2011, p. 373). By the way, culture does play an important role in the interpretation of bullying.

Workplace bullying is something that seems to be an issue these days. Workplace bullying is inevitable, but does not mean that it is an ignored behavior or neglected to handled (Randle, Stevenson, Grayling, & Walker, (2007). As an organization, creating the definition of workplace bullying is ideal. As a manager, workplace bullying can affect patient care so creating a resolution to this problem is a must. The manager needs to create an action plan to correct this behavior once it is determined a

As stated above, the causes of workplace bullying are complex and multi-faceted. Research has shown that stress within the workplace and exposure to bullying is two causes of workplace bullying (Hauge, Skogstad, Anders, & Einarsen, 2009). There is a higher proportion of bullying in any size organization when there is a culture that does not promote social and human values (Baillien, Neyens, & Dewitte, 2011). Other common causes are emphasizing a competitive work environment by managers, also setting unreasonable demands, and goals and lack of authority from management, these factors can all lead to bullying within the workplace (Alsever, 2008). “There is good research available to suggest that strongly hierarchical or feudal organizations are more likely to have an inherent structure which invites, tolerates and supports bullying behaviors” (McCulloch, 2010). These are just a few examples of the many causes of workplace bullying.

Interestingly bullying has been identified and studied internationally with the earliest work in the field initiated in the late 1970s by Dan Olweus in Scandinavia. Also, other researchers in Great

It has been investigated that there are two main features found in bullying behavior, power-concerned to bullying and affiliation-concerned to bullying, are connected to being violent and hurting others. (Fekkes,Pijpers,& Verloove-Vanhorick;2004).

Heeman, V. (2007). Workplace Bullying: A Distinct, Interpersonal, and Communicative Phenomenon. Paper presented at the meeting of the National Communication Association.