Review

Review of Related Literature

Antecedents to Workplace Bullying

        Many researchers argue that there is no specific reason why people bully in a workplace. They however claim that the root cause include both organizational like role ambiguity, high demands, poor leadership, and perceived injustice and individual factors like the person being bullied are non-confrontational, they are viewed stereotypically and they have features that attract attention.

        Georgakopoulos, et. Al. (2011) claimed in the research that Zapf and Einarsen (2003) reported that there are three main reasons people bully. First, they are attempting to protect their self-esteem. Second, people may bully because they lack social competencies including emotional and intelligence. Lastly, micro-political behavior wherein one person makes decisions that protect his or her own position even though that decision may harm the other’s standing or reputation in the organization.

        On the other hand, Zaph and Einarsen also suggested three reasons individuals become targets of workplace bullying. The following reasons are as follows:

1. Being outside the group;
2. Having low self-esteem and social competence; and
3. Being an overachiever

Other findings reported that power imbalances and organizational culture may contribute to bullying. Organizational changes and leadership styles also often seen as reasons for bullying

.Khalib and Ngan (2006) concluded that the cause of workplace bullying is multi-factorial in nature, ranging from personal factors, organizational factors to social factors.

Acts of Bullying

        In his journal Namie(2003) sorted bullies into four categories as follows:

1. The Screaming Mimi,the stereotypical bully, controls the emotional tone for everyone else. He toxifies the workplace with mood swings and unpredictable displays of anger. Targets are publicly humiliated to convincewitnesses that the bully is to be feared. He usually stops short of physical violence, but this volatile individual poses the violent risk employers fears most.
2. The Constant Critic is the hyper-critical nitpicker. His/her attention to minutiae and obsession over other’s performance is the way she hides her own deficiencies and insecurities. This bully resorts to name calling. She loves to complain about everyone else’s “incompetence.” She invents targets “errors” to belittle and to confuse them. Though she prefers behind-closed-door settings, she can berate targets in public, too.
3. The Two-Headed Snake slithers up the organization chart, reserving brutality for those below. Snakes defame the reputation of targets to boost their own self-image. The snake s[reads rumors and engineers “divide and conquer” schemes within work teams to turn co-workers against the target. His/her version of events is always believed while the target’s perspective is discounted.
4. The Gatekeeper is obsessed with control. He/she allocates time, money, staffing and information in ways that ensure her target’s failure. Then, she has an excuse to complain about ‘performance problems.’ One ludicrous bully actually set office clocks so that everyone seemed to come to work late and leave early.

Effects of Workplace Bullying

        According to Dillon (2010), the highest cost of workplace violence is its toll on the human resource of the organization. Employees who  experience workplace aggression, such as bullying and harassment, have an increased likelihood of physical and mental health issues including insomnia, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal symptoms, insecurity, crying spells, weight loss, depression, increased use of alcohol, and in severe cases suicide. All forms of violence including harassment, bullying andacts of physical violence impact not only the worker directly affected, but co-workers who witness such incident.