Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Current Knowledge Challenges for Public and Occupational Health

Dear Colleagues,

Violent and hostile behaviour is a public health issue and a leading cause of physical and mental illness, making its prevention a public health priority. Terrorism, riots, and civil unrest are daily events across the globe [1]. At a local level, aggressive and humiliating behaviour is not only tolerated but is feted, even glorified, on reality TV shows that celebrate the humiliation and rejection of others. Sexual harassment in public spaces is widespread and often normalised, frequently reinforced by cultural values that celebrate hypermasculinity [2]. As abuse becomes alarmingly normalised, it is little surprise that bullying and harassment are pervasive problems in today’s workplaces. 

Over three decades of research on workplace bullying and harassment have confirmed that it is a serious problem in work organisations, exhibiting strong and bidirectional associations with anxiety, depression [3], and, relatedly, with presenteeism, absenteeism, and poor job satisfaction, potentially leading to economic, health, and social costs [4,5]. Workplace bullying constitutes a widespread occupational health threat. When measured using behavioural checklists, bullying is experienced by, on average, 14–15% of workers, rising to 20–28% in certain occupational sectors, such as health care and education [6,7].

Associations between workplace bullying and stressful, poorly regulated and hostile work environments have been demonstrated [8–10], positioning bullying and harassment as complex problems within complex environments.  Despite unequivocal evidence of associations with employee ill health and the potential impact on productivity, several strands of research converge to indicate that organisations fail to comprehensively prevent or effectively manage the problem [11]. As such, bullying and harassment can be interpreted as structural and organisational determinants of health.

Policies are the most common form of prevention; however, these are rarely evaluated and have been subject to critique, particularly with respect to concerns about mutuality and misalignment with research findings [12,13]. The normalisation of bullying and harassment across society is reflected in workplace practices and cultures, a phenomenon that is well documented and potentially linked to other forms of ‘normalisation’, such as  entitlement to exercise power, even when bordering on brutal behaviour or coercive control.

Although debates about conceptual distinctiveness persist, we consider negative behaviours commonly described as bullying, harassment, and incivility to constitute forms of unethical and harmful occupational exposure [14]. This raises the question of how ethical climate can be embedded in contemporary workplaces [15]. 

Moving beyond the substantial body of prevalence and outcome studies, current knowledge challenges identified in the literature include the need for improved theorization; greater attention to causative societal and intra-organisational factors and processes beyond interpersonal dyadic relationships; the development of both evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence; and the need to address the unethical and institutionalised nature of bullying and harassment as a broader public health concern [1,3,14,16,17]. 

Papers are invited across the range of knowledge challenges identified here, including but not limited to the following:

1. Analysis of anti-bullying and harassment policies as public and occupational health interventions, including policy formulation, implementation, evaluation, and health impact.
2. Organisational and institutional thinking and processes that create or contribute to organisational blindness, inaction, and betrayal, and their implications for public health, employee health, and organisational and interpersonal trust.
3. Knowledge translation from research to practice and from practice to research, including interventions with the greatest potential to address the problem, such as prevention strategies relevant to public health and employee health and safety.
4. Explorations of workplace ethical climate as a determinant of public and occupational health, including how ethical climates are created, sustained, and regulated.

 References:

1. Krug, E.; Dahlberg, L.; Mercy, J.; Zwi, A.; and Lozano, R. World report on violence and health. Geneva: World Health Organization. 2002.
2. 2. Hoel, H. and Vartia, M. Bullying and sexual harassment at the workplace, in public spaces, and in political life in the EU. Brussels: European Parliament. 2018
3. Nielsen, M.B.; Einarsen, S.V. What we know, what we do not know, and what we should and could have known about workplace bullying: An overview of the literature and agenda for future research. Aggress. Violent Behav. 2018, 42, 71–83.
4. Liu, M.; Cheng, L.; Wang, Y.; Zeng, Q.; Zeng, Y. The Bidirectional Relationship Between Workplace Bullying and Presenteeism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Work. Heal. Saf. 2025, 73, 248–259.
5. Cullinan, J.; Hodgins, M.; Hogan, V.; Pursell, L. The value of lost productivity from workplace bullying in Ireland. Occup. Med. 2020, 70, 251–258.
6. Chang, P.; Su, A.; Mizanur, M. Workplace bullying and its association with depression and self-esteem among health care workers in selected hospitals in Sarawak. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2018, 18(75), A340-A344.
7. Mazzone, A.; Jones, E.; Freeney, Y.; O’Higgins Norman, J. Report on the National Survey of Staff Experiences of Bullying in Irish Higher Education Institutions. Dublin City University: Dublin, Ireland, 2022.
8. Zahlquist, L.; Hetland, J.; Notelaers, G.; Rosander, M.; Einarsen, S.V. When the Going Gets Tough and the Environment Is Rough: The Role of Departmental Level Hostile Work Climate in the Relationships between Job Stressors and Workplace Bullying. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Heal. 2023, 20, 4464.
9. Trépanier, S.-G.; Fernet, C.; Austin, S.; Boudrias, V. Work environment antecedents of bullying: A review and integrative model applied to registered nurses. Int. J. Nurs. Stud. 2016, 55, 85–97.
10. Einarsen, S. V.; Hoel, H.; Zapf, D.; Cooper, C. L. The Concept of Bullying and Harassment at Work: the European Tradition. In: Einarsen, S. V.; Hoel, H.; Zapf, D.; Cooper, C. L., editors. Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace Theory, Research and Practice. Taylor and Francis: London, United Kingdom, 2020. 3-53.
11. Hodgins, M.; MacCurtain, S.; Mannix-McNamara, P. Power and inaction: why organizations fail to address workplace bullying. Int. J. Work. Heal. Manag. 2020, 13, 265–290.
12. Martin, S.; Klein, A. The presumption of mutual influence in occurrences of workplace bullying: time for change. J. Aggress. Confl. Peace Res. 2013, 5, 147–155.
13. Ahmed, S. Complaint! Duke University Press: Durham, United States, 2021.
14. D’Cruz, P.; Noronoha, E. Mapping “Varieties of Workplace Bullying”: The Scope of the Field. In: D'Cruz, P.; Noronha, E.; Notelaers, G.; Rayner, C. (eds) Concepts, Approaches and Methods. Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment. Springer Nature: Singapore, 2019, 1.
15. Scott, H. S. Extending the Duluth Model to Workplace Bullying: A Modification and Adaptation of the Workplace Power-Control Wheel. Workplace health & safety. 2018, 66(9), 444–452.
16. Rhodes, C.; Pullen, A.; Vickers, M. H. Clegg S, Pitsis, A. Violence and Workplace Bullying: What Are an Organization’s Ethical Responsibilities? Administrative Theory & Praxis. 2010, 32(1), 96–115.
17. Berlingieri, A. Workplace bullying: exploring an emerging framework. Work. Employ. Soc. 2015, 29, 342–353

Prof. Dr. Margaret Hodgins
Prof. Dr. Patricia Mannix McNamara
Prof. Dr. Sarah MacCurtain
Guest Editors

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• workplace bullying
• harassment
• occupational health
• institutional abuse
• institutional betrayal
• ethical climate
• public health prevention
• anti-bullying policy
• unethicality