Interpersonal bullying behaviours in the workplace

In this paper employing a phenomenological method to explicate seven informants’ experience of interpersonal bullying behaviors in a South African work context, I demarcated four general themes namely: lack of recognition, discrimination, obstructionism, and isolation. Moreover, I found that perpetr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Charlotte Pietersen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: AOSIS 2007-10-01
Series:SA Journal of Industrial Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://sajip.co.za/index.php/sajip/article/view/256
Description
Summary:In this paper employing a phenomenological method to explicate seven informants’ experience of interpersonal bullying behaviors in a South African work context, I demarcated four general themes namely: lack of recognition, discrimination, obstructionism, and isolation. Moreover, I found that perpetrators (male and female managers) predominantly used verbal and indirect negative acts to bully subordinates. Finally, racial tensions contributed to bullying behavior. While a phenomenological approach shows promise to explore local bullying behavior more research is needed to broaden our understanding of the phenomenon, including explicating bullying through the eyes of bystanders and alleged bullies.
ISSN:0258-5200
2071-0763