Bullying at Work Place - Case Study Example

Running head: Bullying at Work Place: A theoretical overview Bullying at Work Place: A theoretical overview s Definition: "Bullying is a compulsive need to displace aggression and is achieved by the expression of inadequacy (social, personal, interpersonal, behavioural, professional) by projection of that inadequacy onto others through control and subjugation (criticism, exclusion, isolation etc). Bullying is sustained by abdication of responsibility (denial, counter-accusation, pretence of victim hood) and perpetuated by a climate of fear, ignorance, indifference, silence, denial, disbelief, deception, evasion of accountability, tolerance and reward (e.g. promotion) for the bully." (Field, 1999) The employees and the managers undertake bullying in order to hide their inefficiency in managing the inadequacy of the tasks performed by the subordinates and team members. The higher the person bullies the higher the level of inadequacy he shows at his workplace. In today’s a management era when the business missions are comprise of short term goals with a short time span to be achieved in, the work pressure, time constraints and the surge to show high level performance leads to more frustration in case of failure to achieve any of the above mentioned factors. The purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy. Bullying has nothing to do with managing etc; good managers manage, bad managers bully. Management is managing; bullying is not managing. Therefore, anyone who chooses to bully is admitting their inadequacy, and the extent to which a person bullies is a measure of their inadequacy. Bullies project their inadequacy on to others. Leadership, Gender and bullying: The global political changes have transformed the simple role of those who are leading. Instead of one workforce, one way of working one culture, one set of best practices, one leader there are now issues of alignment, of accommodation of differences, of management of diversity, and of synchronisation, in order to present a global view to both internal and external circumstances. In addition, there are different sets of expectations to be managed. Leadership is an important aspect of managing. (Kotler, 1990) As the part of this paper will show what qualities a leader (man/ woman) should posses in order to lead effectively. Managers must exercise all the function of their role in order to combine human and material resources to achieve objectives. The key to doing this is the existence of a clear role and a degree of discretion or authority to support manager’s actions. The essence of leadership is follower ship. (Haller & Til, 1982) In other words, it is the willingness of people to follow that makes a person a leader. Moreover, people tend to follow those whom they see as providing a means of achieving their own desires, wants, and needs. Leadership and motivation are closely interconnected. By understanding motivation, one can appreciate better what people want and why they act as they do. Women leaders may not only respond to subordinates, motivations but also arouse or dampen them by means of the organisational climate they develop. Both these factors are as important to leadership as they are to manager ship. The motivation given by the leadership makes the followers to depict certain behavioural attitudes. These values transformed by the leader in his/ her followers are different in men and women. Valian has presented them as gender schemas. According to Valian (1999) the gender schemas are the stereotypes and bases learned in childhood. The gender schema for men includes “being capable of independent, autonomous action…assertive, instrumental, and task-oriented” (Valian, 1999). For women, the schema is different and includes “being nurturant, expressive, communal, and concerned about others” (Valian, 1999). Both men and women express their personality trials according to the above schema. The organisational trials and values are designed in accordance with the male schema. That’s why the females have to face more bullying as compared to men. (Ely & Meyerron, 2000) The leadership values needed in corporations are also required to have male qualities such as aggressiveness, control and competitiveness. So in order to fulfil the most often the female leaders qualities fully or to over weigh the feminine qualities with masculine qualities (Coarsen & Costen, 2001; Ely & Meyerson, 2000; Valian, 1998). Through bully methods, women supervisors and managers may provide organisations with the underhanded behaviours that keep competent women from being noticed and promoted. When male executives allow female bullies to demonstrate these bad behaviours toward other women, the men remove themselves from the risk of legal and ethical concerns. Thus, female bullies protect and preserve the male-dominated, existing structure while men are able to keep their hands clean. The bully behaviour is tolerated because “organisations of all kinds keep a comfortable place for bosses who will do their dirty work” (Hornstein, 1996) Changing Nature of Work: The nature of the job also effects the level of bullying. Frequent bullying incidents are seen in the service organisations, which involve high level of communication within employers and public. With the increase in interaction among people the chances of personality clash also increases. According to (Namie & Namie, 2000) the ultimate goal in the bully’s mind is winning a competitive game, this give rise to singular goals and aims rather than combine aims. In order to win the bullies try to eliminate and beat up their targets. Effects of Business Environment: With the changing business environment and increased pressure from the customers the reduce costs and high quality provision specially in the case of service sector has given rise to the behavioural problems such as bullying and abusive behaviour by the employers, managers and employees in the organisation. With the changing customer demands most of the organisations are focusing on the process of profit maximisation rather than focusing on the creativity and enthusiasm of their employees. Organisations specially the large corporations are the main conductor of the acts of bullying and mobbing, but when the management of the large organisations undertake the act of bullying it is vied as the effective cost cutting measures in shape of reducing staff levels. In such organisations where the mangers themselves are engaged in the process of bullying how it can be expected from them to undertake any step to respond to the increasing complaints of bullying and discriminating behaviour in the organisations. (Learmonth, 2004) With the increasing customer expectation the work loads and the work hours are also increasing multiplying the pressure of work on the employees and the manager. Bullying is too wide spread at job places now days some theorists as (Namie) indicates that that bullying should be treated as same as several harassment and racial discrimination. The authorities should establish code of conduct and should establish code of conduct and should introduce penalties. To solve the problem at greater extent, laws should be passed to minimise and counter the bullying problems. Factors, which gave, rise to bullying: According to a research conducted by university of Illinois bullying was found to be more prevalent than that of physical harassment or racial discrimination. Since bullying is not illegal, it is easier to practice. Both men and women are found as undertaking bullying activities. On the other hand both have found as being the victims of bullying. Same sex bullying incidents are more common as compare to opposite sex bullying. According to the research by Gary Namine (2000) in the case of a woman being the victim of bullying, 63% of the women found to be bullied by women; on the other hand when the male bullying victims were researched 62% of them found to be bullied by males. The overall ration of women is very high in bullying victims, which is 80 %. Most often employers are reluctant to recognise the bullying practise rather than taking any action or remedial measure to stop the incidents. Bullying doesn’t get attention because it is invisible. It is an of pschychological violence. Through pinpointing and accusing the target being unproductive the bully tries to control the other person and put the whole balance of in-adequacy of job on the victim. As a result the victim has to suffer a psychological damage. The victimised workers often found to be less productive. It is suggested that employers should respond to the bullying complaints by the victims and should provide counselling and proper attention to the revival of such persons. Bullying damages the health of the victim by making him suffer with the stress. “Bullying is persistent, offensive, abusive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, abuse of power or unfair penal sanctions which makes the recipient feel upset, threatened, humiliated or vulnerable, which undermines their self confidence and which may cause them to suffer stress.” (Workplace Bullying, Employment law and you) Employers have a general duty to protect employee’s health and safety at work and failure to address a problem of bullying may contravene this legislation. Many social factors such as lack of knowledge, cultural backwardness, lack of training facilities and social structure, improper check and balance procedures also play an important role in multiplying such events. (Tombs, 1993) In business ‘what gets measured gets managed’. The incidents of sexual harassment and work place homicide receive attention but the psychological harassment in shape of bullying and abusive behaviour remains neglected when the action is taking to make the environment safe for the employees. A further criticism that can be levelled is that, most often issues such as work place bullying and abusive behaviour are not complained or hide by the victims. A corporate disregard for the safe work environment for the employees can be lethal with both long and short-term consequences culminating in organisational set-up. Many corporations have and will escape responsibility for such incidents due to the sheer difficulty that exists in identifying them. Clarkson (1999), justly asserts one of the core issues with identifying the bullying incidents is ‘the fact that private civil litigation depends upon an identifiable victim with the necessary resources to commence litigation (which) weakens the deterrent impact of civil litigation.’ , There is much controversy with respect to the trade-off between economics and mental health of the employees. The provision of safe environment and establishment of check and balance process is quite costly and employers contend that the perfectly safe environment is not possible. The need for some type of effective policy is underscored in many studies showing that in several British companies with a heavy concentration of mixed cultural environment, there were significantly higher rates for, the events of bulling employees by their managers and colleagues. Another factor, which can prove to increase the bullying events, is the unaccountability of corporations and managers at higher levels. As in case of the employment laws regarding the rights of the employees in past, Invisibility, unaccountability and inappropriate sanctions are worsened by the ‘class bias of courts’. Businessmen, will more often than not, avoid legal action probably owing to the fact that they are able to influence it. It is usually in intense circumstances that corporate crime is identified but identification is no guarantee for conviction. Once a corporate crime has been identified, there is the tendency for the corporation to act as the blanket under which the above-mentioned ‘individual authority’ seizes operation. But as Clarkson (1998) maintains ‘it is the individual within the company who is the culpable agent deserving punishment’. It is granted, that whilst corporations reject individual responsibility, punishable omissions are limited; but the implications of pursuing individuals can prove two-fold. Nevertheless, these requirements are still left to the corporations and there are little or no ramifications for inadequate Clarkson rejects Khanna’s (1999) argument that civil liability, ultimately, serves the same purpose as criminal liability by maximising deterrence and stigmatising through penalties; stating that civil and criminal liabilities differ in four ways. Firstly, the requirement proofs beyond reasonable doubt. Secondly, in administration: through enforcement agencies. ‘Thirdly, criminal punishment involves stigma and censure’. And finally, that criminal liability serves as a deterrent to the offender and wider society. Naturally, with such influence it is not clear ‘who’ the regulator is. And as Clarkson’s (1999) earlier quote suggests money and power, in corporate activity, are paired. Suggested Steps: With the increasing number of cases regarding the cases of bullying many scholars and researchers have proposed different ideas and steps in order to punish the responsible. A careful analysis of the choice between liberal reform and radical social change should be done. Although corporations provide extensive benefits to the society but many scholars have exaggerated its benefits without having solid evidences for these. (e.g., Luban, Strudler, & Wasserman, 1992; Stone, 1986; Tomkins, Victor, & Adler, 1992). There is a surge to implement a legal reform in order to deal with the limitless power of corporations in the larger capitalist economy. Hawken (1993) has suggested a drastic step in shape of imposing limitations and penalties and in last resort dissolving the irresponsible corporations. Some of the scholars have emphasised the need of strong accountability for corporations harming the workers emotionally or psychologically. (Reiman, 1990). Hansmann & Kraakman (1991) find shareholders responsible for the harm a corporation gives others state that corporate leaders should compensate and do every thing, which can be done for the victims. (Bender, 1990). (Flynn, 1987, p. 150) emphasises the need of reducing corporations to a size and scope controllable by local communities; preventing corporations from owning other corporations; recognising the obvious distinction between immense corporate power centres and the more numerous, but less powerful, tiny corporations that are "the alter ego of an individual or small group of individuals." With the increase in the bullying complaints the RCO (responsible corporate officer) doctrine is being reconsidered, an important corner stone in criminal law. According to the law the officer should be held liable in substitution of the subordinate for the corporate law violation, since he has the authority and can stop the violation but fails to do so. It also states that the officer can be allocated responsible for the law violation without any need of proof for his participation in the act of psychological harassment. It will help in minimising the events through the increase in the accountability on every level. The strategy of allocation the culprit should include all the people who are responsible. No discrimination should be made in shape of economic status, power or position. Whether they are at individual level, corporate level, or industry level. The process of responsibility allocation should be done in a very cost-effective manner. This process should not put unfair economic burden on the consumer. The procedure undertaken should be fair enough. No discrimination should be made to any person found guilty. It should safeguard the rights of the corporation, the individual and the suspect’s rights. All the suspects should be equally treated and on equal grounds. The sanctions on the responsible should not effect the rest of the others who are not found responsible. (Fisse) Another important step, which can be taken, is to introduce awareness programs for the employees and common people regarding the knowledge required for their professions and its standards. The Government should launch web sites regarding this information. Rules and regulations should be implemented regarding the ethical and professional value in order to improve the working conditions especially for women employees. References Bender, L., (1990). Feminist (re) torts: Thoughts on the liability crisis mass torts, power, and responsibilities, Duke Law Journal, 1990, 848-912. Corsun, D. L., & Costen, W. M. (2001). Is the glass ceiling unbreakable?: Habitus, fields, and the stalling of women and minorities in management. Journal of Management Inquiry, 10(1), 16-25. Clarkson, Max B.E. 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New York: Springer-Verlag Valian, V. (1998). Running in place. The Sciences, 38, pp. 18-23. Valian, V. (1999). Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Workplace Bullying, Employment law and you, Trade Union Representatives Checklist on Tackling Workplace Bullying, available at http://www.workplacebullying.co.uk/unionind.html Read More