Workplace violence and bullying Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Workplace violence and bullying - Research Paper Example In simplified terms, workplace violence is in physical forms and workplace bullying is in psychological forms. Workplace bullying is also part of workplace violence. Because of possible overlapping of discussion and there is yet no internationally recognized definition for workplace violence, this paper intends to treat the two terms interchangeably. However, difference between the two is to be recognized as strategies to prevent them may have to be in varying degrees (Barron, 2013). Workplace violence and bullying has been recognized since 1990s as an organizational misbehavior or rather misbehavior in organizations. Organization misbehavior is a deliberate act on the part of the members in an organization that challenge and breach of organizational norms and expectations and/or core values of society, mores and standards of conduct which are fertile grounds for workplace bullying. It can be a workplace aggression or misbehavior or a parallel occurrence that is not subordinate or identical. Incivility which is a low-level violation of organizational conduct can turn into bullying overtime (Fritz, 2013). Bullying is characterized by frequency of the behavior, imbalance of power between the bully and victim, and hostile working conditions. Bullying has been defined as an aggressive behavior aimed at causing physical or psychological attack on others (Lipinski, Albright, & Fenclau, 2013). The book The Harassed Worker is the earliest study of workplace bullying by the psychiatrist Carol Brodsky in the 1970s by interviewing over 1,000 workers from California and Nevada who were making workers’ compensation claims but no interest was shown towards the book. It was only in 1980s that workplace bullying began to be studied by nursing professor Helen Cox who examined the abuse suffered by her nursing students at the hands of staff nurses in her institution leading to quitting the nursing