Bullying and incivility in higher education workplaces

Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions: A Scoping Review

Workplace bullying is broadly defined as a detrimental form of negative micro-political interaction(s) incorporating a range of aggressive interpersonal behaviours. While targeted toxic behaviour based upon legally protected grounds such as ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is conceptualised as harassment, this paper positions harassment as a constituent subset of workplace bullying-distinct, but inextricably linked to the broader landscape of workplace predation and incivility. Meta-analyses of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies demonstrate a robust relationship between being bullied and compromised health, and some sectors, e.g., education, display higher than average levels of exposure, suggesting that contexts matter. The higher education sector is the focus of this scoping review. High rates of bullying have been reported in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), where many of the organisational factors that drive bullying are present. One systematic literature review has been carried out on bullying in HEIs, reviewing papers prior to 2013. Since the sector has seen considerable contextual change since that time, another review is timely. This systematic scoping review aims to identify the volume, range, nature, and characteristics of studies of workplace bullying in HEIs between 2003 and 2023, with a specific focus on how the context of HEIs contributes to the enactment and/or the response to workplace bullying. To this end, 3179 records were identified, with 140 papers charted to identify methods, institution, population, and country. Forty-seven papers were subjected to full-text review for the exploration of contextual factors. Priorities for future research lie in addressing the pernicious effects of neoliberal governance models as well as the complex and intersecting power relations that are unique to higher education.

Praying the Psalms as a Nursing Resilience Intervention

ABSTRACT

Nurses face a range of unhealthy organizational, physical, psychological, and spiritual issues that can lead to burnout, turnover, and leaving the profession. Nurses who use prayer for support may find their faith to be another source of tension when stressors endlessly continue without change despite prayer. Walter Brueggemann's states of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation in his classic work on praying the Old Testament book of Psalms offer a means for managing spiritual tension. Praying using the psalms can become a self-care tool for building resilience.

Power and inaction: why organizations fail to address workplace bullying

Purpose

Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.

Findings

There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.

Research limitations/implications

The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.

Practical implications

The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.

Social implications

Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.

Originality/value

That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.

Known and Unknown Aspects of Workplace Bullying: A Systematic Review of Recent Literature and Future Research Agenda

Last decades showed a high interest in studying the workplace bullying (WB) phenomenon in a variety of disciplines and in a number of WB areas such as concepts and forms of WB, antecedents and consequences of WB, WB interventions, etc. This study offers classification and description of current WB literature, and identifies research gaps to be bridged by further empirical research. In the first part, authors systematically review 167 refereed journal articles, classify the WB research into five main research themes and summarize their findings. In the second part, the article uncovers various unknown aspects of WB and provides concrete directions for future empirical research. Thrust areas of attention are highlighted for industry and policy makers.

Development of a Taxonomy of Workplace Bullying Intervention Types: Informing Research Directions and Supporting Organizational Decision Making

Recently much has been done to increase our understanding of workplace bullying including its causes, consequences, and prevalence. Although identification of possible interventions has advanced the field, systematic evidence on the efficacy and effectiveness of specific interventions is lacking. At the same time, organizations are under increasing pressure to prevent and manage workplace bullying more effectively. The aim of this study is to develop and refine a taxonomy of workplace bullying intervention types. Although it does not assess the evidence base of interventions per se, the taxonomy is designed to support the development of research into the future and guide organizations in their decision making when implementing interventions. Using a two-round Delphi process, the expertise of international academics and practitioners ( n = 51 and n = 39) was sought to refine the taxonomy, which classified interventions in terms of mode, focus, agent, specificity, and timecourse. Eleven core intervention types were endorsed as appropriate inclusions in the taxonomy of workplace bullying intervention types. A further six, including mediation, failed to reach consensus among the expert panel. The resulting taxonomy forms a framework to guide workplace bullying intervention efficacy and effectiveness research from a common understanding of the definition, scope, and properties of interventions. Once this occurs, the taxonomy can be used by organizations to audit their existing programs, prioritize new interventions, and consider alternate options. Intervention types that did not reach consensus highlight areas of particular research need, which, when undertaken will add to an evidence base and will be included in future versions of the taxonomy.