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The impact that workplace aggression has on organizations and its members has become a focal point for organizational research. To date, studies have primarily examined the perpetrator of workplace aggression, specifically their personality traits. In this chapter, we draw on Institutional Theory to better understand a specific form of workplace aggression, indirect (covert) aggression. We specifically present a model that shows how the normative pressures and social roles within an institution influence the aggressive actions by employees as well as the scripts employees utilize in response to indirect aggression. We assert that an examination of how scripts are used to respond to indirect aggression will be especially helpful in understanding how institutional pressures influence this type of workplace aggression within organizations.

Aggression in the workplace has increasingly become a focus of organizational behavior research given its debilitating effects on employees and consistent links to reduced organizational performance. The current literature on workplace aggression presents a bewildering array of definitions with overlapping meanings creating confusion for researchers and academics. In response to this, we consider a range of definitions of workplace aggression and build a taxonomy of workplace aggressive behaviors based on four dimensions: intensity, impact, intentionality, and indirect/direct aggression. This chapter contributes to the field offering a taxonomy of aggressive behaviors at work that can be used in subsequent research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if the gender of the perpetrator and the gender of the target have interactive effects on the frequency of downward workplace bullying to which targets are subjected.

A cross-sectional design was used on a sample of 125 schoolteachers in Uganda. Self-report data on downward workplace bullying were obtained using the Negative Acts Questionnaire.

The perpetrator’s gender and the target’s gender have interactive effects on the level of downward bullying to which targets are subjected. Although targets in within-gender dyads reported higher levels of overall downward workplace bullying than did targets in between-gender dyads, a significant gender-gender interaction was found for personal harassment and work-related harassment but not for intimidation nor organisational harassment.

The generalisability of the findings is limited due to the sample consisting entirely of schoolteachers in Uganda. Self-report data are a limitation as they are subjective and thus susceptible to various perceptual biases (e.g. social desirability, personality of the respondent). Examining the interactive effects of gender on workplace bullying helps to provide a better understanding of the potential influence of gender in bullying scenarios. The findings from research that considers only the main effects of gender whilst ignoring interactive effects can misinform any theory or policy development.

Organisations need to resocialise their members so that they learn new attitudes and norms regarding aggressive behaviour in the workplace.

This paper contributes to the literature on workplace bullying by examining the interactive effects of gender on the frequency of downward workplace bullying.

We examined the effect of management practices on overt and subtle forms of discrimination in remote working contexts. Management practices (i.e. diversity and equality management systems) may influence employees’ perception of the diversity climate and affect the occurrence of discrimination.

To empirically investigate these associations, we administrated an online questionnaire with self-report measures via a 3-wave longitudinal research design.

Data analysis of our sample of N = 153 remotely working employees show that when managers invest in equality and diversity practices, employees perceive their workplace as more inclusive (i.e. diversity climate). In turn, this reduces the occurrence of subtle discriminations. Conversely, this relationship was not significant for overt forms of discrimination.

This result indicates that creating a diversity climate is especially important when combatting subtle forms of discrimination in remote work contexts. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings in light of managerial studies on discrimination at work and psychological literature on virtual environment and social networking.

Little research has explored individual experiences of cyberbullying in working contexts. To start bridging the gap in our current understanding, we used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore individuals' shared experiences of cyberbullying encountered through work. In-depth interviews, conducted with five cyberbullied workers from the pharmaceutical, charity and university sectors, resulted in five superordinate themes: attributions of causality; crossing of boundaries; influence of communication media richness on relationship development; influence of communication explicitness and openness; and strategies for coping. Overall, some similarities emerged between cyberbullying experiences and traditional bullying research, yet the complexities associated with managing relationships, both virtually and physically, were central to individuals' subjective experiences. Practical implications in developing effective leadership and business policies to support virtual groups and manage behaviours are discussed.