Explaining bullying: using theory to answer practical questions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build a practical understanding of the workplace bullying process through the perspective of multiple theories. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents a number of questions regarding bullying in the workplace that a practitioner, described in the paper, may have. Then, each question is answered through the vantage point of a particular theoretical perspective. In particular, theories are referenced that have not typically been used to explain workplace bullying, but that have proven useful for understanding behavior in other contexts. Findings The answers to a number of practical questions are informed by multiple theoretical perspectives on workplace bullying. These questions include why people engage in and persist in bullying others, why certain individuals are targeted by bullies, how targets deal with bullying, and why bullying may be tolerated in organizations. Bullying is complex and multi‐determined. It is, in part, an individual level problem concerning the dyadic relationship between two individuals. In this manner, it can be seen that there are various personality attributes, both strengths and weaknesses, and personal background characteristics at play in the bully‐target relationship. However, it is grounded in a social context, at the team level and more broadly, that permits it to happen and indeed fosters its development. This context includes other individuals in the workplace who support it in some fashion, the work team and the organization itself. Practical implications Although there are no simple answers, managers and human resource professionals can draw upon the insights that are presented as a means of planning multiple points of intervention in the bullying process. Originality/value The paper builds a bridge between theory and practice as a means of connecting researchers and managers. The sampling of theoretical perspectives that are employed answer relevant questions in a coherent manner and, in doing so, provide a unique way of understanding bullying.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.033 | 0.042 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.027 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.021 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".