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A workplace bullying dynamic involving multiple individuals targeting victims can lead to the victim losing emotional bonds or affect-based trust with their colleagues, resulting in employee silence. The literature has largely ignored this negative aspect of social dynamics. This study aims to examine the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence behaviors and determine whether affect-based trust mediates this relationship and whether climate for conflict management moderates the mediated relationship.

Hypotheses are tested using surveys and scenario-based experiments among faculty members in Indian Universities. There were 597 participants in the survey and 166 in the scenario-based experiment.

Results revealed that workplace bullying correlated positively with silence behaviors, and affect-based trust mediated the bullying-silence relationship. The hypothesized moderated mediation condition was partially supported as moderated the mediating pathway, i.e. indirect effects of workplace bullying on defensive silence and ineffectual silence via affect-based trust were weaker for employees with high climate for conflict management. However, the study failed to support the moderation of climate for conflict management in the relationship between workplace bullying and affect-based trust and workplace bullying and relational silence. The results of this moderated effect of climate for conflict management were similar in both studies.

This study is one of the few attempts to examine employee silence in response to workplace bullying in academia. Additionally, the study revealed a critical area of trust depletion associated with bullying and the importance of employee perceptions of fairness toward their institutions’ dispute resolution processes.

High incidence of workplace bullying in Indian organizations is well-acknowledged, but less is known about the games that bullies play to create a favorable atmosphere for bullying in academic institutions. This study aims to reveal the “safe game” tactics that the bullies use to chase targets like a predator chases his prey.

The study explores various manifestations of academic bullying by analyzing the victimization experiences of women faculty in academic institutions. The data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and informal discussions to explore the victimization episodes in detail.

The analysis indicates a set of common manifestations framed by bullies in academia to create a favorable environment for bullying. These manifestations often play out in a sequence. Initially, the targets are overloaded with work to portray the victims as incapable and less competent. Then, the bullies lodge many formal complaints with the help of their supporters. Finally, they create an environment of silence by threatening them for their responses against bullying.

This paper is supported by previous research in this area and progresses by exploring the experiences of the victims in academics to find a common sequence in the mistreatment they suffer. The study concludes by showing unexplored areas in research on workplace bullying in the academic sector and provides a foundation for further research.

Workplace bullying generates various emotions, including shame in the target; these emotions can induce employee silence. However, the role of shame in the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence, and the individual differences in how victims experience shame and silence, has not yet been explored. The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature, using the effect of shame as a mediator and core self-evaluation (CSE) as a moderator.

Two thousand faculty members working in different colleges in India were invited to participate in the online survey. The participants were invited to fill in the questionnaire only if they had experienced shame by bullying during the preceding two weeks. Three hundred and twenty faculty members responded to the survey.

The results showed that shame mediates the relationship between workplace bullying and diffident silence. In addition, CSE moderates the relationship between shame and diffident silence but not the relationship between workplace bullying and shame. That is, diffident silence induced by shame was noted to be weaker for employees with high CSE. Importantly, the study could not find any individual difference in experiencing shame by bullying.

Improved CSE can effectively influence diffident silence through shame, helping the management to recognize workplace bullying.

It is a unique attempt to address diffident silence among Indian academicians, and study the role of targets’ shame and CSE while adopting silence on workplace bullying.

Post COVID-19 crisis, healthcare has become a priority for every government. Furthermore, the pandemic has also made us realise why do we need an affordable healthcare delivery service at the grassroots level. As a result, the Government of India has come out with the Ayushman Sahakar scheme. This scheme has been launched by the Union Government with an aim to assist the cooperatives in the creation of healthcare infrastructure in this country. It is pertinent to note that the cooperatives in the last few years have transformed rural areas and have pushed them out of poverty. As a result, it will be interesting to see the impact cooperatives will have in the field of healthcare.

The authors in this work have discussed the history of healthcare cooperatives in India. After this, the authors have analysed the government schemes and legal provisions which regulate the functioning of healthcare cooperatives in this country. In the next part, the authors studied the Ayushman Sahakar scheme. The authors have discussed the features of the scheme and the impact it has generated in the field of healthcare. Lastly, the author has discussed the challenges which healthcare cooperatives face in this country and how we can overcome those challenges.