Conceptualizations of Workplace Bullying

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to examine the significance of gender for how employees define workplace bullying and how severe they rate different forms of bullying to be. The first study showed that female employees emphasized emotional abuse and professional discredit more than male employees in their definitions of bullying, while men emphasized abusive working conditions more than women. The second study showed that female employees rated the severity of many types of negative acts as somewhat more severe than men did. These studies question the prevailing assumption that bullying is a gender-neutral phenomenon and instead provide converging support for the notion that perceptions of bullying are gendered. The discussion addresses implications for interventions and HR practice.