Much blame – little gain? The effects of single vs multi-blaming on labelling and third-party intervention in workplace bullying
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-05-2021-0228 |
| Published date | 09 August 2022 |
| Date | 09 August 2022 |
| Pages | 90-105 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Eva Zedlacher,Allison Snowden |
Much blame –little gain? The
effects of single vs multi-blaming
on labelling and third-party
intervention in workplace bullying
Eva Zedlacher and Allison Snowden
Webster Vienna Private University, Wien, Austria
Abstract
Purpose –Organizational practitioners must often interpret accounts of workplace bullying. However, they
are frequently reluctant to confirm the target’s account and often fail to set effective intervention measures.
Building on novel approaches in attribution theory, this study explores how causal explanations and blame
pattern shape the labelling of a complaint and the subsequent recommended intervention measures.
Design/methodology/approach –187 Austrian human resource professionals, employee representatives
and other practitioners were confronted with a fictional workplace bullying complaint including conflicting
actors’accounts and diverse possible internal, relational and external causes. Since the prior low performance
of a target might affect blame attributions, the previous performance ratings of the target were manipulated.
Data were analysed via qualitative content analysis.
Findings –When respondents reject the complaint, they predominately identify single internal causes and
blame the target, and/or trivialize the complaint as “normal conflict”. Both low and high performance of the
target trigger (single) internal blame. When the complaint is supported, deontic statements and blame
attributions against the perpetrator prevail; however, blame placed on the perpetrator is often discounted via
multi-blame attributions towards supervisors, colleagues and the target. Structural causes were rarely
mentioned. Relational attributions are infrequent and often used to trivialize the complaint. Irrespective of the
attributional blame patterns, most third parties recommend “reconciliatory measures”(e.g. mediation) between
the actors.
Practical implications –Trainings to temper single internal blaming and raise awareness of organizational
intervention measures are essential.
Originality/value –This is the first study to investigate workplace bullying blaming patterns and
organizational responses in detail.
Keywords Workplace bullying complaints, Attribution theory, Victim-blaming, Conjunctive blame, Multi-
blaming, Relational attributions, Intervention, Reconciliatory measures, No-blame approaches, Third parties,
HR professionals, Employee representatives
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The scientific definition of Workplace Bullying in the European tradition entails four criteria:
A person is the target of a variety of negative acts of a mostly psychological nature (e.g.
withholding information, social exclusion, gossiping, persistent criticism) repetitively and
over a long time. This persistent exposure makes the target feel (increasingly) powerless to
defend against the attacks by one or more perpetrator (Einarsen et al., 2020). These features
distinguish workplace bullying from “normal”episodic conflicts. In addition to individual
actors, structural/organizational factors like a stressful work environment, destructive
leadership and a dysfunctional organizational culture contribute to and trigger bullying
(Einarsen et al., 2020;Hodgins et al., 2020).
ER
45,1
90
Funding: This research has been partly funded by the Projektfonds Arbeit 4.0 from the Chamber of
Labour of Lower Austria. The authors want to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as Silvia Feuchtl,
Nina Szogs and all third party experts for their support.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 31 May 2021
Revised 20 June 2022
25 July 2022
Accepted 25 July 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 1, 2023
pp. 90-105
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-05-2021-0228
Qualitative studies from the Anglo-American context indicate that human resource
professionals (HRPs) often find it difficult to interpret bullying complaints (Catley et al., 2017),
and often re-frame the bullying practices as legitimate performance management or normal
interpersonal conflict (e.g. Catley et al., 2017;Cowan, 2012;Hodgins et al., 2020;Thirlwall,
2015). Even trade union representatives were found to engage in “neoliberal performance
discourse”(Harrington et al., 2015) and associate bullying complaints with target
underperformance (Mawdsley and Thirlwall, 2019). Often third parties employ inadequate
or no intervention measures (Salin, 2009), further escalating the bullying and often leading to
formal grievances by the target due to perceived “secondary victimization”(Hodgins
et al., 2020).
We claim that blame attributions prime bullying perceptions (labelling) and subsequent
helping intentions and organizational responses. To the best of our knowledge, no previous
study has investigated in detail how attributions of causes and/or blame (moral
responsibility) affect the man agement of a bullying complaint, an d how the prior
performance of a target affects blaming patterns.
Hence, the overall aim of this study is to empirically analyse how complex attributions of
blame affect the labelling and the organizational responses to workplace bullying. 187
Austrian HRPs and employee representatives (ERPs) respond from the standpoint of their
organizational role to a long ambiguous bullying complaint. The story includes typical
indicators of workplace bullying as well as possible internal, external and relational causes
based on Salin (2011). To investigate the effect on low vs high performance, we manipulated
the following scenarios: In one version, the alleged target’s past performance ratings were
consistently higher than the departmental average (high-performance scenario), with the
other being lower than the departmental average (low-performance scenario).
Attribution theory perspectives are scarce in the European-dominated workplace bullying
research (Neuman and Baron, 2011). We locate the theoretical background of this study as
well as our empirical approach on essentials of attribution theory and blame literature (Kelley
and Michela, 1980;Malle et al., 2014;Shaver, 1985;Weiner, 2010) and workplace mistreatment
literature such as aggression, abusive supervision and organizational injustice from a third
party-perspective (Skarlicki and Kulik, 2004). Importantly, we include novel approaches for
causal reasoning and attributions of blame such as relational attributions (e.g. Eberly et al.,
2011), and conjunctive attributions of blame (Skarlicki and Kulik, 2004)(Wilkerson and
Meyer, 2019). Regarding intervention methods, we build our line of argument on contingency
and multi-level models from conflict management literature (Glasl, 1982;Hodgins et al., 2014;
Saam, 2010). We then provide the resulting propositions and study design, which is followed
by the main findings and a discussion of the implications regarding third party awareness
and intervention in organizational practice.
Theoretical background –organizational practitioners’reactions to workplace
bullying complaints
The bullying process often begins with subtle negative acts against the target, which might
not be easily discernable by direct observers (Samnani et al., 2013), let alone by indirect third
parties. Indirect organizational third parties include organizational roles appointed to prevent
or to intervene in workplace conflict, such as HRPs, ERPs or equal opportunities officers
(Mawdsley and Thirlwall, 2019). Third parties also act as gatekeepers in instigating
organizational responses; if third parties label a claim as bullying, it implies the need for an
organizational response. In practice, third parties lack first-hand information and must
interpret other’s accounts (Skarlicki and Kulik, 2004). Many bullying targets first—if at all—
make an informal complaint, which is often trivialized or ignored (Ferris, 2004;Harrington
et al., 2015).
Blame patterns
for workplace
bullying
91
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