Workplace bullying research has frequently drawn on psychological and social-psychological perspectives (Fevre et al., 2012; Hutchinson et al., 2010; Vickers, 2012), with a focus on interpersonal aggression and on individually focussed behaviours and interventions.
While the role of organizational factors has been identified in the literature (Baillien et al., 2011; Salin and Hoel, 2011), it is often done through correlations or through mediating factors, thereby maintaining research focus on change at the level of individual behaviour.
The role of culture is likewise often discussed (Archer, 1999; Hodgins and Mannix McNamara, 2017; Salin and Hoel, 2011; Vickers, 2012), and this also has not as yet translated meaningfully into effective organizational-level interventions. Fevre et al. (2012) maintain that the reason we have failed to resolve workplace bullying is because bullying is frequently (almost always) cast as a “private” trouble, requiring an individualized solution (albeit provided by the organization such as training, education, awareness raising).
There can be no doubt that in order to meaningfully address the problem of workplace bullying, there is need to challenge the assumption that workplace ill-treatment is a private event.