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The Presence of Workplace Bullying and Harassment Worldwide

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Concepts, Approaches and Methods

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment ((HWBEAH,volume 1))

Abstract

Workplace bullying and harassment has been a growing area of interest worldwide during the last decades. One of the main topics within this area has been establishing the magnitude and incidence of the phenomenon. A wide range of prevalence percentages have been reported in the literature which has opened up a discussion about both the best way to capture and measure these subtle negative acts at work and the factors that may explain the differences in the prevalence rates found in previous studies. Thus, in this chapter, we report the findings from a systematic literature review regarding the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment across several countries. In doing so, we take into account methodological (i.e. different estimation methods) and contextual issues (i.e. sociocultural factors) that may affect prevalence rates. As was expected, independent of the estimation method used and the country being studied, our results from 97 inquiries, reporting information about 98 samples comprising more than 220,000 workers across the globe, highlight that bullying and harassment at work is a widespread phenomenon that needs attention to develop safer working environments in which work can be performed with dignity. Particularly, our results revealed quite alarming prevalence rates in previously under-represented countries in the literature such as those from South America, Asia–Pacific and Middle Asia regions. Thus, we call for further cross-cultural research to address similarities and differences both in the prevalence rates (i.e. number of workers exposed to bullying and harassment at work) and the nature of the negative acts (i.e. in which form such bullying and harassment behaviours are expressed) in order to find more effective and global solutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    Jose M. León-Pérez

  2. Department of Social Psychology and Qualitative Psychology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Escartín

  3. Department of Psychology, Universitá Europea di Roma, Roma, Italy

    Gabriele Giorgi

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  1. Jose M. León-Pérez
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  2. Jordi Escartín
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  3. Gabriele Giorgi
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Correspondence to Jose M. León-Pérez .

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  1. Organizational Behaviour (OB), Indian Institute of Management Organizational Behaviour (OB), Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

    Premilla D'Cruz

  2. Organisation Behaviour, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Organisation Behaviour, Ahmedabad, India

    Ernesto Noronha

  3. University of Bergen, Department of Psychosocial Science University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Guy Notelaers

  4. Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth Portsmouth Business School, Portsmouth, UK

    Charlotte Rayner

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León-Pérez, J.M., Escartín, J., Giorgi, G. (2019). The Presence of Workplace Bullying and Harassment Worldwide. In: D'Cruz, P., Noronha, E., Notelaers, G., Rayner, C. (eds) Concepts, Approaches and Methods. Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5334-4_3-1

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