Speaking up or staying silent in bullying situations: the significance of management control

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Michelle O'Sullivan,Juliet MacMahon,Caroline Murphy,Sarah MacCurtain,Lorraine Ryan
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12230

Speaking up or staying silent in bullying

situations: the significance of management

control

Juliet MacMahon, Michelle O’Sullivan,

Caroline Murphy, Lorraine Ryan and

Sarah MacCurtain

ABSTRACT

A frequent prescription for providing voice for employees with respect to bullying is

a policy supported by a procedural complaint mechanism. Yet research points to a

pervasiveness of employee silence in workplaces in situations of workplace bullying.

We examine the efficacy of workplace bullying procedures as a voice mechanism for

employees in countering bullying and explore the role of management in shaping

employee propensity to speak out against bullying utilising procedures. In doing

so, we advance knowledge on workplace bullying by using an industrial relations

perspective and placing employer control as a conceptual lens. Based on a large

survey of nurses in Ireland, the findings demonstrate that managerial actions have

significant influence on employees’propensity to utilise bullying procedures. The

findings also provide some empirical support for the premise that management seek

to use bullying behaviours to constrain employees’contestation of management

decision making.

The efficacy of workplace bullying procedures in countering bullying is examined in nursing using an

industrial relations perspective and employer control as a conceptual lens. The findings demonstrate that

management exert significant influence on employees’propensity to utilise bullying procedures and may

use bullying behaviours to facilitate management decision making.

1 INTRODUCTION

Workplace bullying has been shown to have devastating effects on individuals’health

and well-being and work performance as well as on organisational performance

(Lutgen-Sandvik et al., 2007; Wood et al., 2016). While there has been extensive

research on the antecedents, prevalence and effects of bullying, mainly from the

organisational behaviour/psychology field (Neumann and Baron, 2011; Zapf and

Einarsen, 2011), there is an emerging body of research exploring workplace bullying

from an employment relations/labour process perspective (Beale and Hoel, 2011;

❒Juliet MacMahon, Lecturer, Michelle O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer and Caroline Murphy, Lecturer,

Industrial Relations, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, Lorraine Ryan, Research Fellow, Work

and Employment Studies, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland and Sarah MacCurtain, Senior

Lecturer, Organisation Behaviour, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. Correspondence should be

addressed to Juliet MacMahon, Department of Work and Employment Studies, Kemmy Business

School, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, V94 PH93; email: juliette.mcmahon@ul.ie

Industrial Relations Journal 49:5-6, 473–491

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Holgate et al., 2011). A central tenet of labour process theory is an acceptance of

ongoing conflict between capital and labour. Because of the indeterminacy of labour

as a commodity of production, management will seek to control or minimise this

indeterminacy gap through the development of systems to maximise the exploitation

of labour and the generation of profit. In such a scenario, the balance of power and

control are important constructs in the ensuing employment relationship (Berlingieri,

2015; Hutchinson and Jackson, 2015). The labour process perspective becomes partic-

ularly relevant in light of the consistent empirical research findings that most bullying

is carried out by managers (Hodgins et al., 2014; Lewis, 2006). This in turn has

prompted conceptual observations that instead of management taking action to pre-

vent or resist bullying, it may be in their interests that employees submit to workplace

bullying (Beale and Hoel, 2011). Bullying, which becomes normalised and an

accepted element of workplace culture, can facilitate and extend the parameters of

managerial control and prerogative to manage without challenges (D’Cruz and

Noronha, 2014; Harrington et al., 2015).

A frequent prescription for countering bullying in the workplace is to provide a

worker voice mechanism, and a common voice mechanism with respect to bullying

is a policy supported by a procedural complaint mechanism (Lutgen Sandvig et al.,

2009).

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the variety of conceptualisations of

worker voice across employment relations and organisational behaviours disciplines

with some calls for greater integration of the two. While a deeper discussion of this

is beyond the scope of the article, in summary, our conceptualisation of voice rec-

ognises the constructive contributions of both disciplines but is particularly shaped

by the employment relations assessment of it. The OB approach has added to

knowledge on voice by paying attention to the antecedents of worker voice and

concomitantly, silence (Barry et al., 2018). The employment relations approach

has a broader perspective on voice than OB, constructing it not just in pro-social

terms but also as a means by which workers represent their interests as separate

and, at times, antithetical to management (Wilkinson and Barry, 2016). It places

greater emphasis on formal voice structures and on the context within which voice

takes places. This article examines anti-bullying procedures as a formal voice

structure; a direct and individual mechanism that employees use for the purposes

of expressing dissatisfaction and attempting to improve their working conditions.

The study explores the antecedents whereby workers engage or not with formal

anti-bullying voice structures, that is, to speak up or stay silent. We argue that such

decisions are prejudiced by the structures, social relations and discourse of the

working environment, and the extent to which these are moulded by the distinct

interests of management.

We explore contentions that ‘management behaviour lies at the heart of the debate

on managing voice structures’(Wilkinson and Fay, 2011: 69) and that the effective-

ness of voice practices are dependent on managerial responses (Freeman and Medoff,

1984). If management are perceived not only to inadequately respond to complaints

but also to use bullying as a tool to control labour, then the efficacy of bullying pro-

cedures is undermined. Specifically, the article addresses the research question: how

does management action shape employees propensity to utilise workplace bullying

procedures? The article’s contribution is that it draws out empirically the theoretical

contributions by Beale and Hoel (2011) and Donaghey et al. (2011) on the links be-

tween labour process and employee silence. We advance knowledge on workplace

474 Juliet MacMahon, et al.

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd