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Concepts, Approaches and Methods pp 55–86Cite as

The Presence of Workplace Bullying and Harassment Worldwide

Part of the Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment book series (HWBEAH,volume 1)

Abstract

Workplace bullying and harassment has been a growing area of interest worldwide during the last decades. One of the main topics within this area has been establishing the magnitude and incidence of the phenomenon. A wide range of prevalence percentages have been reported in the literature which has opened up a discussion about both the best way to capture and measure these subtle negative acts at work and the factors that may explain the differences in the prevalence rates found in previous studies. Thus, in this chapter, we report the findings from a systematic literature review regarding the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment across several countries. In doing so, we take into account methodological (i.e. different estimation methods) and contextual issues (i.e. sociocultural factors) that may affect prevalence rates. As was expected, independent of the estimation method used and the country being studied, our results from 97 inquiries, reporting information about 98 samples comprising more than 220,000 workers across the globe, highlight that bullying and harassment at work is a widespread phenomenon that needs attention to develop safer working environments in which work can be performed with dignity. Particularly, our results revealed quite alarming prevalence rates in previously under-represented countries in the literature such as those from South America, Asia–Pacific and Middle Asia regions. Thus, we call for further cross-cultural research to address similarities and differences both in the prevalence rates (i.e. number of workers exposed to bullying and harassment at work) and the nature of the negative acts (i.e. in which form such bullying and harassment behaviours are expressed) in order to find more effective and global solutions.

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Fig. 1
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    Jose M. León-Pérez

  2. Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Escartín

  3. Department of Psychology, Universitá Europea di Roma, Roma, Italy

    Gabriele Giorgi

Authors
  1. Jose M. León-Pérez
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  2. Jordi Escartín
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  3. Gabriele Giorgi
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Correspondence to Jose M. León-Pérez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Organizational Behaviour Area, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India

    Prof. Premilla D'Cruz

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

    Prof. Ernesto Noronha

  3. Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Prof. Guy Notelaers

  4. Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Prof. Charlotte Rayner

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León-Pérez, J.M., Escartín, J., Giorgi, G. (2021). The Presence of Workplace Bullying and Harassment Worldwide. In: D'Cruz, P., Noronha, E., Notelaers, G., Rayner, C. (eds) Concepts, Approaches and Methods. Handbooks of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0134-6_3

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