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This chapter looks at the discursive dimension of the working environment in research and higher education organizations; more specifically at neoliberal managerial discourse and at how it participates in shaping the way researchers, teachers and support staff perceive themselves and their experiences. It is based on a multiple case study and combines an intersectional and a socio-clinical approach. The empirical data is constituted by in-depth interviews with women conducted in Ireland and Chile, and includes some observations made in France. A thematic analysis of individual narratives of self-ascribed experiences of being bullied enables to look behind the veil drawn by managerial discourse, thus providing insights into power vectors and power domains contributing to workplace violence. It also shows that workplace bullying may reinforce identification to undervalued social categories. This contribution argues that neoliberal managerial discourse, by encouraging social representations of “neutral” individuals at work, or else celebrating their “diversity,” conceals power relations rooting on different social categories. This process influences one’s perception of one’s experience and its verbalization. At the same time, feeling assigned to one or more of undervalued social category can raise the perception of being bullied or discriminated against. While research has shown that only a minority of incidents of bullying and discrimination are reported within organizations, this contribution suggests that acknowledging the multiplicity and superposition of categories and their influence in shaping power relations could help secure a more collective and caring approach, and thus foster a safer work culture and atmosphere in research organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interplay of organizational humorous teasing and workplace bullying in hospital work life in order to investigate how workplace bullying can emerge from doctors and nurses experiences of what, at first, appears as “innocent” humorous interactions.

Based on an ethnographic field study among doctors and nurses at Rigshospitalet (University Hospital of Copenhagen, Denmark) field notes, transcriptions from two focus groups and six in-depth interviews were analyzed using a cross-sectional thematic analysis.

This study demonstrates how bullying may emerge out of a distinctive joking practice, in which doctors and nurses continually relate to one another with a pronounced degree of derogatory teasing. The all-encompassing and omnipresent teasing entails that the positions of perpetrator and target persistently change, thereby excluding the position of bystander. Doctors and nurses report that they experience the humiliating teasing as detrimental, although they feel continuously forced to participate because of the fear of otherwise being socially excluded. Consequently, a concept of “fluctuate bullying” is suggested wherein nurses and doctors feel trapped in a “double bind” position, being constrained to bully in order to avoid being bullied themselves.

The present study add to bullying research by exploring and demonstrating how workplace bullying can emerge from informal social power struggles embedded and performed within ubiquitous humorous teasing interactions.

The chapter elaborates how organizational governance can optimally address workplace bullying, a synergy possible because organizational governance seeks to promote ethical functioning while workplace bullying is considered an unethical behavior. Through its suggestions, the chapter aims at furthering employee dignity and well-being, cohering with international calls for human rights at work.

A review of two literatures was conducted: (a) workplace bullying differentiated on the basis of its situatedness and level into internal bullying – of an interpersonal and depersonalized nature – and external bullying; and (b) organizational governance including its theoretical perspectives, especially the societal lens, and international, national, and firm codes.

Several organizational governance measures at institutional level – both international and national in scope – and at firm level are proposed to deal with varieties of workplace bullying encompassing primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Accordingly, a shift in organizational effectiveness from goal-based models to process-oriented frameworks so that economic and non-economic objectives are balanced, following the stakeholder approach, is advocated. The political dynamics involved in such an initiative are alluded to.

Application, drawing on secondary rather than primary data, is the essential thrust of the chapter, with recommendations anchored in organizational governance, particularly its societal perspective, conceptualized to address workplace bullying in a holistic manner.

First, despite the clear relevance of organizational governance to workplace bullying, the prospect of interventions from this standpoint has never been previously explored. Second, the term “varieties of workplace bullying” is propounded to capture the different types of emotional abuse at work known so far.

Over the past decades the devastating issue of workplace bullying and its “cancerous” impact on workplace emotions has seen “today's costliest secret” become exposed (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf & Cooper, 2003, p. 32; Glendinning, 2001, p. 296; Needham, 2003, p. 12). Bullying at work has become so prevalent within today's workplace that 1 of the 4 of us are estimated to suffer the crippling abuse of the workplace bully, costing Australian organizations between $17 billion and $36 billion each year (Clarke, J. (2005). Working with monsters: How to identify and protect yourself from the workplace psychopath. Sydney: Random House Australia; Rayner, C. (2000). Building a business case for tackling bullying in the workplace: Beyond a cost-benefit analysis. In: Sheehan, M., Ramsey, C., & Patrick, J. (Eds), Transcending boundaries. Proceedings of the 2000 Conference, September, Brisbane). The impending doom faced by the target of the bully demeans the individual to such an extent that bullying has been associated with suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even increased risk of coronary heart disease and has been demonstrated to sever “at home” relationships, with grave implications on work-life balance (Archer, 1999; Geffner, Braverman, Galasso & Marsh, 2004; Lewis, 2006). Yet despite the significant lose–lose outcomes of workplace bullying for both the individual and the well-documented consequences of decreased productivity for the organization, there seems to be little progress toward meaningfully addressing the issues that actually create, promote, and sustain workplace bullying (Bolton, 2007; Dutton & Ragins, 2007; Heames & Harvey, 2006; Peyton, 2003). Rather than narrowly concentrating on bullying and its drivers which limits workplace bullying to an occupational health and safety issue, this chapter demonstrates the practical implementation across five Victorian public sector organizations of a tool developed using the principles of positive psychology. This approach places bullying in the wider context of positive workplace emotions, allowing for consideration of the broader organizational characteristics and the subtle negative behaviors which are suggested to underlie the deep seated and pervasive nature of workplace bullying. The preliminary findings suggests that the tool was seen as valuable in creating a bully-free culture and resonates practically by offering insights into some of the issues organizations should consider to ensure such initiatives provide a genuine source of competitive advantage.