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“Me? A Bully?”: The Different Faces of the Perpetrator in Workplace Bullying

  • Living reference work entry
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Pathways of Job-related Negative Behaviour

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment ((HWBEAH,volume 2))

Abstract

Hyenas, snakes and weasels are among the terms used to describe perpetrators of workplace bullying in popular literature. Such terms depict perpetrators as evil and attribute their behaviour to their toxic personality. Although personality traits such as narcissism, self-efficacy and trait anger predispose an individual to bully, research indicates that work environment factors also play a key role in encouraging or allowing workplace bullying. Thus, this chapter attempts to provide a more inclusive and extensive view of workplace bullying perpetrators by synthesizing both academic research and popular literature and drawing on studies exploring the views of victims of bullying, and importantly the few studies examining the perspectives of accused bullies. We offer a typology of perpetrators that reflects key discussions across the literature and captures the heterogeneous nature of bullying. The six types of perpetrators depicted here are “the bad egg”, “the good colleague turned bad”, “the abrasive performance manager”, “the mob”, “the cyberbully” and “the depersonalized bully”. We begin, however, by providing a brief overview of perpetrators—of who they are, where in the organization they are and what causes them to bully.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Kate Blackwood

  2. School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Moira Jenkins

Authors
  1. Kate Blackwood
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  2. Moira Jenkins
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Correspondence to Kate Blackwood .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Organizational Behaviour (OB), Indian Institute of Management Organizational Behaviour (OB), Ahmedabad, India

    Premilla D'Cruz

  2. Organizational Behaviour, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Organizational Behaviour, Ahmedabad, India

    Ernesto Noronha

  3. Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven Faculty of Economics and Business, Brussels, Brussels Hoofdst.ge., Belgium

    Elfi Baillien

  4. School of Management, North Shore MSC, Massey University School of Management, North Shore MSC, Auckland, New Zealand

    Bevan Catley

  5. The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Karen Harlos

  6. Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen Department of Psychology, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Annie Hogh

  7. Gemzoe Consult, Aarhus, Denmark

    Eva Gemzoe Mikkelsen

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Blackwood, K., Jenkins, M. (2018). “Me? A Bully?”: The Different Faces of the Perpetrator in Workplace Bullying. In: D'Cruz, P., et al. Pathways of Job-related Negative Behaviour. Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment, vol 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6173-8_20-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6173-8_20-1

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