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June 2008, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND PAPERS
The program featured six keynote/plenary addresses and showcased over 80 presentations of papers, and 37 poster presentations.
Here is the final program distributed at the event.
Featured presentations:
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• David Yamada, J.D. (Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA): Multidisciplinary Responses to Workplace Bullying: Systems, Synergy and Sweat
Read also Yamada's personal reflections on the 2008 Conference.
And visit The New Workplace Institute website.
• Ken Westhues, PhD (University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada): Critiques of the Anti-Bullying Movement and Responses to Them
In addition, visit Westhues' scholarly summary of the Conference at his website.
• Gary Namie, PhD (Workplace Bullying Institute) and Mike Schlicht (NY State Coordinator, WBI-Legislative Campaign): The U.S. Campaign for Anti-Bullying Laws
We will also post a complete record of the extensive collection of abstracts when available.
Exciting forthcoming publications were also announced at the event:
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• The first UK representative study based on over 3,600 face-to-face interviews
• A comparative evaluation of British and Swedish laws to combat bullying
WBI will provide those results when available.
Our brief observations from the keynote addresses we attended.
• New Frontiers: Expanding the Research Agenda of Workplace Bullying
Helge Hoel, PhD, University of Manchester Business School, UK
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Hoel teaches at UMIST in Manchester, England, the home of the industrial revolution which irreversibly mechanized the world and altered forever the relationship between humans and work, as he noted. It seems that in many ways, decisions made by employers can harass and harm large groups of workers with impunity. Unilateral, unquestioned employer power can be abusive accounting for institutional, systemic, impersonal bullying. Since abuse of power is at the heart of bullying, the organization itself can be the perpetrator. Societal economic conditions may predict employer abuse. He summarized trends from the last 15 years of research and called for going beyond definitions and impact on targets and the preference for quantitative empirical studies. Much is yet to be learned from qualitative, smaller sample but in-depth, studies, including case histories which describe context for the expression of the phenomenon -- from the perspective of bullies, the employer's actions, witnesses' experiences, actions taken, actions averted, and more.
[Read some of Dr. Hoel's research.]
• Workplace Bullying in the U.S.: Prevalence, Resistance and Emotions
Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik, PhD, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
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Lutgen-Sandvik enjoys the status of having conducted in 2006 the study which became the most frequently downloaded Management Communication Quarterly article at the time of the 2008 conference -- Nightmares, Demons and Slaves: Exploring the Painful Metaphors of Workplace Bullying. Her presentation showcased this small focus group study. Bullied individuals were asked to creatively draw a representation of the bullying they suffered. Some drawings were shown in the presentation: one with a broken heart representing a shattered identity, one characterization of the bullying as a wrestling match in which she was being held back by managers with dogs nipping at her feet, one who felt the most pain from co-workers who had betrayed her. Lutgen-Sandvik argued eloquently that case studies and small sample focus groups can yield richer information about bullying than large-scale quantitative surveys. She also echoed Hoel's theme of expanding beyond the target-bully dyad into explorations of familes simultaneously affected by the bullying.
Immediately after Lutgen-Sandvik's presentation, Charlotte Rayner announced the results of the just-completed election which placed Lutgen-Sandvik on the inaugural Board of the new organization as its only USA representative.
[Read some of Dr. Lutgen-Sandvik's research.]
• Ostracism vs. Bullying: A Question Worthy of Attention
Kipling Williams, PhD, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
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Williams opened by questioning the accuracy of his chosen presentation title. Clearly ostracism, exclusion of one member of a group by the group, is a common tactic in bullying. He provided an entertaining glimpse into the world of experimental social psychology. His studies indicate that the initial reaction to ostracism is pain, which is similarly felt by all individuals regardless of personality or social/situational factors. Video from his experiments documented how social pain was reflected in the faces of dejected and bewildered research participants. Ostracism, like betrayal, humiliation, and interpersonal loss, causes pain. Social pain seems to be built upon the neural architecture of physical pain, which evolved first. The neurological record of social pain can be mapped using real-time fMRI while the person is being ostracized. He discussed the differences between social and physical pain. One such difference is that social pain can be re-lived over and over again, causing pain on each remembered instance. Physical pain can be recalled as being painful, but is not painful to relive.
Williams' hallmark methodology to induce experimental ostracism is a ball-tossing game -- among live, interacting people (confederates working with the experimenter to create the desired conditions) as well as "Cyberball", which generates the same effects virtually. It is important to note that if such powerful effects can be manufactured in limited experimental settings, the felt consequences of real-life bullying and humiliation cannot be underestimated.
[Read some of Dr. William's research.]
• Antecedents of Bullying and Destructive Leadership: Moving from Individuals and Organisations to Nations.
Stale Einarsen, PhD [University of Bergen, Norway] and
Evert Van de Vliert [Bergen Bullying Research Group]
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Einarsen summarized some of the latest research conducted by his group of current and former students which has increasingly focused on questions relevant to employers and organizational change. For instance, he quoted a study which explored whether the myth of brutal dictatorship in restaurant kitchens (perpetuated by TV shows depicting screaming, but famous, chefs) made the restaurants better in diners' eyes. Bullying in the kitchen was negatively correlated with food quality. Einarsen concluded that bullying is always negative and destructive. In several studies he cited, the best predictor of bullying was negative supervision -- having a bad boss. Bullying never improves work product or morale. He called for future research to become increasingly more practical, to provide evidence useful to employers and policy makers. Supervision and managing has to improve if bullying is to be reduced. Access to research at employer sites remains a worldwide challenge.
[Read some of Dr. Einarsen's research.]
Van de Vliert broadened the antecedents of bullying and work harassment to include societal/cultural conditions. The Bergen Bullying Research Group's global initiative has gathered data in 178+ countries combining NAQ scores by individuals (Negative Acts Questionnaire, the bullying prevalence measuring instrument used in academic studies) with measures of national climate (temperate, tropical, cold), aggregate estimates of wealth, and a measure of "groupism" (the degree to which the society is collectivist with a perceived responsibility to support and help others, as contrasted with individualism in societies where people are left to fend for themselves and can expect little help from others). The data form an international frequency database. Further, Van de Vliert offered a formula (regression equation) to predict/guesstimate the level of Work Harassment in particular countries. Simply put, groupism had a negative coefficient (-0.21, more bullying predicted by individualism, less groupism), climate had a positive coefficient (+0.24, bullying was more likely in colder climates), wealth alone mattered little, but the interaction (mathematical product of) of climate and wealth was the most strongly associated with bullying and it was a negative weight (-0.27). Though the model is very academic, the basic tenet that societal context can predict bullying expands our thinking about causation beyond the personality of the bully, target, witnesses, and managers.
• Pourquoi Tant de Souffrance et de Harcelment Moral sur les Lieux de Travail?
Marie-France Hirigoyen, MD, Psychiatrist, psychotherapist, author of Stalking the Soul, France
- Dr. Hirigoyen, the clinician psychotherapist, echoed the sentiment advanced by many of the other presenters -- society causes much of the malaise suffered by people. Western industrialized societies, including France, are incredibly narcissistic. Unbridled individualism is a root cause which helps us understand the prevalence of interpersonal cruelty or perversity as she and French law describe it. She fixed a great deal of responsibility on managers who can make the difference between a safe, healthy workplace and a sick one which can injure a person's mental and physical health. Her presentation embodied the very European view that employers are solely responsible for the work environment and it is the environment which can predict health or illness. Individualism, revered as the cornerstone of American society, is potentially dangerous.
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