Supervisory Bullying, Status Inequalities and Organizational Context

TLDR

Bullying is a growing social problem recognized in schools and increasingly in workplaces, yet its social and organizational foundations remain underexplored. This article investigates how status-based power differentials and organizational context contribute to supervisory bullying in employment. Using multi-method analyses of 204 content‑coded organizational ethnographies, the study shows that structural and social vulnerabilities—such as minority status or low occupational rank—along with chaotic, disorganized workplaces foster bullying. The research finds that poor workplace organization motivates supervisory bullying, that lack of capable guardians heightens vulnerability, and that these dynamics have broader implications for social power and organizational abuse.

Abstract

Bullying has been increasingly identified as a significant social problem. Although much of this attention has centered on the context of schooling, researchers are now beginning to recognize that workplaces are also arenas rife with abusive, bullying behaviors. Personality attributes of bullies and victims have received attention, but much less research has examined the social and organizational foundations of bullying. In this article, we focus theoretical attention on the importance of status-based power differentials and organizational context for the emergence of supervisory bullying in employment. Our multi-method analyses, which draw from content-coded organizational ethnographies (N = 204), highlight the importance not only of structural and social vulnerability — such as being in a racial minority or of a low occupational position — but also of chaotic and disorganized workplaces. Poor workplace organization, we show, creates positive motivations for supervisory bullying. Workplaces without capable guardians create further vulnerabilities to bullying as a managerial control tactic. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of our results for understanding social power, organizational dynamics and the ramifications of abuse in the workplace.