An Investigation of Aggression and Bullying in the Workplace

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2011 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: none, Northcentral University, course: Bullying in the workplace, language: English, abstract: ABSTACT: Workplace bullying has been studied extensively in the United States, Austria, Germany, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom. Previous studies of bullying have focused on types of bullying (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2003; Keashly, 1998; Pearson, Andersson, & Wegner, 2001), frequency of bullying (Zapf, Einarsen, Hoel, & Vartia, 2003), the organizational and social factors that permit or encourage bullying (Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Fox & Stallworth, 2004; Vartia, 1996; Zapf, 1999), bullying’s adverse effects on the victims (Zapf, Knorz, & Kulla, 1996), ways to counter bullying (Richards & Daley, 2003), and the attributes of bullies and their victims (Zapf). However, a review of the literature did not uncover studies focusing on the attributes of workplace bullies in particular. The proposed study will help fill this gap in the literature by constructing a psychological profile of workplace bullies. This profile will help organizations recognize bullies, mitigate their effects, and prevent bullying.