Emotional Workplace Abuse

Everyday capable, hardworking, committed employees suffer emotional abuse at their workplace. Some flee from jobs they love, forced out by mean-spirited co-workers, subordinates or superiors -- often with the tacit approval of higher management. The authors, Dr. Noa Davenport, Ruth Distler Schwartz, and Gail Pursell Elliott have written a book for every employee and manager in America. The book deals with what has become a household word in Europe: Mobbing. Mobbing is a "ganging up" by several individuals, to force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, discrediting, and particularly, humiliation. Mobbing is a serious form of nonsexual, nonracial harassment. It has been legally described as status-blind harassment.

Addressing emotional workplace abuse, this Palgrave Pivot takes a multidisciplinary approach which combines feminist research on violence with organisation and management studies, in order to offer a new approach on workplace violations. The book analyses why it is difficult for targets and organisations alike to name and identify emotional abuse and addresses the severe negative effects of abuse on the targets’ lives. It brings ethical leadership to the fore as a means to foster sustainable organisations. Using empirical data and research, this book highlights subtle forms of violations that take place in the workplace, and provides analysis from the perspective of the target. A valuable read for scholars and practitioners involved in organisational management and HRM, Emotional Workplace Abuse will help readers to understand the importance of sustainable leadership in preventing emotional workplace abuse.

Over the last decade or so research into bullying, emotional abuse and harassment at work, as distinct from harassment based on sex or race and primarily of a non-physical nature, has emerged as a new field of study. Two main academic streams have emerged: a European tradition applying the concept of 'mobbing' or 'bullying' and the American traditi

Workplace mobbing exacts a terrible emotional and physical toll on targets and those who love them. While most books on workplace bullying and mobbing focus on the dynamics of the abuse and advocacy, this book is dedicated to emotional healing. The author has been a working therapist for more than thirty years, experienced the harrowing effects of a workplace mobbing and, most importantly, has reached thousands of people in his articles, videos, website and practice to help them heal. Richard shows how to manage the out of control emotions; the anxiety, loss and trauma of a mobbing experience. He offers advice about on rebuilding relationships with family and loved ones. In addition he examines the pitfalls of seeking help for this misunderstood phenomenon. This is a must read for someone recovering from the nightmare that is workplace mobbing, and for anyone watching their loved one struggle.

Emotional Abuse and Neglect in the Workplace tackles the big questions: How does emotional neglect of employees affect an organization? How can management effectively manage while restoring an organization’s health? When trust is gone, only reliable behavior by senior managers can help - and this takes time. The author explores striking similarities between the symptoms of ailing organizations and abusive or neglectful families. This book explores not only a new theory of neglected organizations, but also a set of methods enabling OD practitioners to restore employees’ trust. It also provides diagnostic tools and guidelines for change agents who confront organizational neglect head-on and includes case studies and real-life experiences of OD practitioners.

This book examines some of the key issues around violence at work which have emerged in the new millennium, including the events of September 11th 2001 and other terrorist-related incidents, identifying these as an extreme form of workplace violence. It builds upon the expanded typology of workplace violence in Violence at Work (Willan, 2001), and identifies four types of workplace violence: intrusive, external violence including terrorism; consumer/client-related violence; staff-related violence; organizational violence. This book also addresses some key emerging and controversial issues facing those concerned with workplace violence, including staff who abuse those in their care, domestic violence spilling over into the workplace, violence against aid and humanitarian workers, and organizations who are themselves abusive to their staff and service users as well as oppressive of their surrounding communities. Workplace Violence goes beyond the current emphasis on equipping 'primary responders' (e.g. police, fire ambulance, etc) to react to terrorist-related and other workplace violence incidents, paying attention to the 'secondary' responders such as human services workers, managers, human resources staff, unions, occupational health and safety professionals, humanitarian aid workers and median staff - and their training and support needs.

This volume captures themes and debates around elucidating and studying workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. The chapters presented here underscore the complexities and nuances of the phenomenon and showcase the various techniques relevant to and concerns associated with researching it. Debates abound as to what workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment is and what it is not, leading to a construct bind. Viewpoints are exchanged over how best to uncover the topic so as to ensure that recommendations for action are anchored in rigour. Section 1 portrays the gamut of variants that constitute workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment, such as interpersonal bullying, depersonalized bullying and cyberbullying, alongside theoretical underpinnings, contentious stances and contemporary contextual influences. Section 2 speaks to the challenges of studying a sensitive, multi-person, multi-level problematic, highlighting the possibilities offered by quantitative, qualitative and mixed paradigms. Advanced designs and innovative strategies that facilitate explanatory power, reliability and validity are put forward.

This volume embodies the twin purpose of highlighting topics beyond the purview of themes commonly associated with workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment and of presenting insights into those occupations, professions and sectors which either have received extensive research attention or hold a pronounced propensity to trigger workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment. Section 1, which comprises special topics, depicts the intersection between workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment and specific circumstances such as whistleblowing and customer abuse or particular attributes such as violence and ostracism. In so doing, it extends the boundaries of the substantive area, stimulating new themes for further inquiry and indicating new areas for action. Section 2 draws attention to how misbehaviour inheres in particular kinds of tasks and livelihoods due to job design, work organization and other elements such as power, external environment, employment patterns and so on. An array of occupations, professions and sectors such as academe, nursing, law, hospitality, precarious work and so on is covered, reflecting emergent developments in the labour market so as to include those with long-standing and considerable research findings and those where empirical inquiries are more recent.