Individual Accounts of Workplace Bullying Incidents from Indigenous, Contextualised Perspective

Abstract

Workplace bullying because of its complexity and the many labels and words that researchers, the media, and the public use to describe the behaviour, workplace bullying is a complex and pervasive phenomenon that has grown difficult to comprehend as an organisational phenomenon. Bullying at work is a constant possibility in settings where people engage frequently. Bullying in the workplace is now a common occurrence that, when overlooked, can lead to serious issues. This study endeavoured to identify shared themes from individual accounts of workplace bullying incidents, from an African indigenous perspective with not predominantly continuation of the work from Western countries. This empirical study was conducted in Limpopo province and grounded theory was used as a methodological strategy with twenty-one indigenous research participants selected using purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to generate data with the support of an interview guide. However, interviews were recorded using a cell phone recorder, transcribed, coded, and analysed using Microsoft Excel and interpreted. The findings of the study were analysed using content analysis. The findings of the study identified nine accounts of bullying behaviour. These are disrespect, rumours or bad-mouthing, name-calling, threats, unfair treatment, yelling to cause public humiliation, infringement of rights, work overload and domineering. The study recommends that anti-bullying policies can play a significant role in combating workplace bullying.