Chapter 2 Literature review part one: theoretical framework
2.14 Bullying and harassment in the workplace
2.14.1 Conceptual models of harassment at work
Leymann (1990b, 1993, 1996), who has been influential in many European countries, argues strongly against individual factors as antecedents of harassment, especially when related to issues of victim personality. Instead, Leymann “advocates a situational outlook, where organisational factors relating to leadership, work design and the morale of management and workforce are seen as the main factors. He asserts that four factors are prominent in eliciting harassment behaviours at work
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(Leymann, 1993:35): (1) deficiencies in work design (2) deficiencies in leadership behaviour (3) the victim's socially exposed position (4) low departmental morale.
Leymann (1996) also acknowledges that poor conflict management might be a source of harassment, but in combination with inadequate organisation of work.
However, Leymann (1996) again strongly advocates that conflict management is an organisational issue and not an individual one. Conflicts escalate into harassment only when managers or supervisors either neglect or deny the issue, or if they themselves are involved in the group dynamics, thereby fuelling conflict. Since harassment takes place within a situation regulated by formal behavioural rules and responsibilities, it is always by definition the responsibility of the organisation and its management”.
Some research has been conducted on the work environment hypothesis of Leymann (Agervold, 2009:276; Hauge, Skogstad & Einarsen, 2007:228). “Some 30 Irish victims of harassment described their workplace as a highly stressful and competitive environment, plagued with interpersonal conflicts and a lack of a friendly and supportive atmosphere, undergoing organisational changes, and managed by means of an authoritarian leadership style (O'Moore, Seigne, McGuide & Smith, 1998). In a Norwegian survey of 2 200 members of seven different trade unions, both victims and observers of workplace harassment reported a lack of constructive leadership, lack of possibilities to monitor and control their own tasks and, in particular, a high level of role conflict (Einarsen, Raknes & Matthiesen, 1994a:383).
In a Finnish survey, victims and observers of harassment described their work unit as having the following features: poor information flow, an authoritative way of settling differences of opinion, a lack of discussions about goals and tasks and a lack of opportunity to influence matters affecting themselves (Vartia, 1996:207). A few studies, for example, Skogstad, Einarsen, Torsheim, Aasland and Hetland (2007:82), have also shown a link between organisational changes and bullying at work”.
It should be noted, however, that these results are based on cross-sectional studies that do not allow the researchers to interpret relations as cause and effect. Although researchers believe that, in many cases, organisational deficiencies contribute substantially to the development of harassment, it is equally plausible that severe social conflicts at work may be the cause, rather than the effect, of organisational
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problems (Zapf, 1999b:72). Conflict may, for example, negatively affect the information flow and thus impair leader-member relationships. Moreover, relations between harassment and low levels of control can also be explained by the fact that restricting someone's opportunities to affect decision-making has been described as a harassment strategy (Leymann, 1990a:44). Yet, a study by Agervold (2009) supports the hypothesis that departments with high levels of harassment also have a poorer psychosocial work environment. Agervold (2009) studied the relationships between organisational factors and harassment on a departmental level, ruling out the effect of dissatisfied victims and supporting the hypothesis that the pressure of work, performance demands, autocratic management, and role conflict and lack of role clarity, as well as a poor social climate in a working group, can contribute to the emergence of higher incidence of harassment. The same conclusion was reached by Hauge et al. (2007) in a representative sample when comparing targets and observers of harassment with non-involved workers. Furthermore, the latter study showed that a lack of leadership in the form of laissez-faire leadership, as predicted by Leymann (1996), moderated the relationship between role conflict and exposure to harassment.
Yet, Einarsen, Raknes and Matthiesen (1994a:381) found that work environment factors explained only 10% of the variance in the prevalence of workplace harassment within seven different organisational settings, and in no subsetting was this greater than 24%. Thus, there is certainly room for alternative explanations.
Leymann (1996) himself never presented any empirical evidence for his strong focus on organisational factors and disregard for the role of personality. Harassment is the product neither of chance nor of destiny (Einarsen et al., 1994a). Instead, harassment should be understood primarily as a dyadic interplay between people, where neither situational nor personal factors are entirely sufficient to explain why it develops. Although one may agree that the organisation and its management are responsible for intervening in cases of interpersonal conflict and harassment, this may still be caused by a wide range of factors, both on an individual level and on dyadic, group, organisational and societal levels (Hoel & Cooper, 2001; Zapf, 1999b). Zapf (1999b) provides some preliminary evidence for these various potential causes of harassment by identifying subgroups of harassment victims for which such
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causal factors as the organisation or characteristics of victims themselves are likely to dominate.
Assuming that the concept of workplace harassment refers to a range of situations and contexts where repeated aggressive behaviour may occur and where targets are unable to defend themselves, Einarsen (1999:16) introduced the concepts of predatory and dispute-related harassment to broaden the perspectives and to account for the two main classes of situations where harassment may seem to originate.
2.14.1.2 Predatory harassment
In cases of predatory harassment, the victim has personally done nothing provocative that may reasonably justify that behaviour of the harasser (bully). In such cases, the victim is accidentally in a situation where a predator is demonstrating power or is exploiting the weakness of someone who has become a victim by accident. The concept of petty tyranny proposed by Ashforth (1994) seems to refer to such kinds of harassment. Petty tyranny refers to leaders who lord their power over others through arbitrariness and self-aggrandisement, the belittling of subordinates, lack of consideration and the use of an authoritarian style of conflict management. In some organisations, harassment is more or less institutionalised as part of their leadership and managerial practice, sometimes in the guise of firm and fair management (Brodsky, 1976:17). However, firm and fair may easily turn into harsh and unfair management, which may, again turn into harassment and the victimisation of subordinates.
A person may also be singled out and harassed because they belong to a certain outsider group, for instance by being the first woman in a local fire brigade. If perceived as a representative of a group or a category of people who are not approved by the dominant organisational culture, such employees may indeed be harassed (bullied) without doing anything other than merely showing up at work (Archer, 1999:96). As such, the individual victim of harassment is in fact, a coincidental target.
An employee may even be harassed by being an easy target of frustration and stress caused by other factors. In situations where stress and frustration are caused
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by a source that is difficult to define, inaccessible, or too powerful or respected to be attacked, the group may turn its hostility towards a suitable scapegoat (Thylefors, 1987:66). Bjorkqvist (1992:14) argues that such displaced aggressiveness may act as a collective defence mechanism in groups where much unstructured aggression and hostility prevail.
Allport's study (1954) details the process involved in acting out prejudices and seems to describe well how such harassment evolves. In the first phase, antilocation, prejudicial talk starts, but is restricted to small circles of the "in group” and takes place "behind the back of the victim”. This stage is followed by a second phase, where the victim is openly harassed and discriminated against by being alienated and excluded or subjected to offensive remarks and jokes. In the third phase, physical attacks occur, which may lead to the final stage, extermination. Although the victims of harassment are not literally killed, some do commit suicide (Leymann, 1990b); others are permanently expelled from working life (Leymann, 1996:172) or at least driven out of their organisation (Zapf & Gross, 2001:503). These examples of predatory harassment suggest the following sub-categories: exposure to a destructive and aggressive leadership style, being singled out as a scapegoat and the acting out of prejudice.
2.14.1.3 Dispute-related harassment
Dispute-related harassment occurs as a result of highly escalated interpersonal conflicts (Einarsen, 1999; Zapf & Gross, 2001). Although interpersonal struggles and conflicts are a natural part of all human interaction and must not be considered harassment, there may be a thin line between the disagreements between two parties in an interpersonal conflict and the aggressive behaviour used in harassment (Zapf & Gross, 2001:503). The difference between interpersonal conflict and harassment is to be found not in what is done or how it is done, but in the frequency and duration of what is done (Leymann, 1996:167), as well as in the ability of both parties to defend themselves in the situation (Zapf, 1999a). In some instances, the social climate at work turns sour and creates differences that may escalate into harsh personalised conflict and even "office wars”, where the total annihilation of the opponent is seen as the ultimate goal to be gained by the parties (van de Vliert, 1998:353).
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In highly escalated conflicts, both parties may deny their opponent any human value, thus clearing the way for highly aggressive behaviours. The party placed at a disadvantage in this struggle may become the victim of bullying (Zapf, 1999b:77). It may also be the case that one of the parties exploits their own power or a potential power imbalance, leading to a situation where the other is unable to mount a defence or retaliate against increasingly aggressive behaviours. The defenceless position will then lead to a victimisation of one of the parties.
Interpersonal conflicts where the identity of the protagonists is at stake, for instance, when one party attacks the self-esteem or self-image of the other, are often characterised by intense emotional involvement (Glasl, 1994:119). The latter includes feelings of being insulted, fear, suspicion, resentment, contempt, anger and so forth (van de Vliert, 1998:353). In such cases, people may subject each other to harassment behaviour or resent the behaviour of their opponent to a degree where they feel harassed and victimised even though there are few observable signs of harassment behaviour by the alleged offender. It may also be true that claiming to be a victim of harassment may be an effective strategy in interpersonal conflicts, in some cases even used by both parties. The conflict escalation model of Glasl (1982, 1994) has been proposed as a model suitable to explain how conflict may escalate into harassment (Einarsen et al., 1994a; Neuberger, 1999; Zapf & Gross, 2001). The model differentiates between three phases and nine stages (Figure 3.1). According to the model, “conflicts are inevitable in organisations, and under certain circumstances, are even fruitful, contributing to innovation, performance, and learning” (de Dreu, 1997:19). However, if allowed to escalate, conflicts may turn into so-called office wars and become extremely harmful and destructive on an individual as well as organisational level (see Figure 3.1).
98 Figure 2-3: The conflict escalating model of Glasl Source: Adapted from Zapf and Gross (2001:506)
In the first stages of a conflict, the parties are still interested in a reasonable resolution of conflict about the tasks or issues. Although they may experience and acknowledge interpersonal tension, they mainly focus on co-operation to solve the problems in a controlled and rational manner. However, this joint effort becomes increasingly more difficult as the interpersonal tensions escalate (Zapf & Gross, 2001:509).
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The second phase of conflict is characterised by a situation where the original issue of conflict has more or less vanished, while the interpersonal tension between the parties and their increasingly difficult relationship becomes the heart of the problem.
The issue of the conflict has more to do with who is the problem than what is the problem. The parties cease to communicate and start to seek allies and support from others. They become increasingly more concerned about their own reputation and about losing face and experience moral outrage against their opponents, perceiving them as immoral, as having a personality deficit, or as being plain stupid. At this point, disrespect, lack of trust and, finally, overt hostility evolve. Ultimately, the interaction is dominated by threat as well as openly hostile and aggressive behaviour. In the following phase, confrontations become increasingly more destructive until the annihilation of the opponent is the sole aim of the parties. Both parties in this struggle are willing to risk their own welfare, even their own existence, in order to annihilate the opponent (Zapf & Gross, 2001:509).
Zapf and Gross (2001:509) argue that “harassment may be seen as a kind of conflict at the boundary between phases 2 and 3. In their interview study of 19 German victims of harassment, 14 victims reported a continuously escalating situation which became worse over the course of time. Almost 50% of the victims described a sequence of escalation resembling Glasl's model”.
Although Glasl (1982) argues that the latter stages of the model may not be reached in organisations, Einarsen et al. (1994a:386) argue that they are, in fact, reached in the more extreme cases of harassment. Some victims commit suicide (Leymann, 1990b:119), and many other consider it (Einarsen et al., 1994a:386). Some victims go to court even though they may be unable to afford a solicitor and are likely to lose. Others refuse a reasonable settlement out of court because they want to take their employer to court at any cost (Diegarten, 1994:72). Some work groups even take pleasure in the suffering of the victim.
2.14.2 Theoretical framework for the study and management of workplace