Workplace Bullying in Healthcare Organizations

This article discusses workplace bullying in healthcare organizations and its impact on patient safety. It presents insights from primary and secondary research, including a survey of healthcare workers. The article also explores the regulatory framework and employer liability related to workplace bullying.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
It has been identified that bullying in the workplace in health care organization are
unacceptable and such behaviour are of particular concern in healthcare setting, as certain
they pose a risk not only to peers and but also for the patient safety. Considering this fact in
mind, I have decided to go forward with 5th day working week and with the progress in the 5th
week. When working in the 5th week for the report, I have found the fact that particularly in
healthcare organization, bullying takes place in behavioural health units, emergency
departments as well as in intensive healthcare units. Likewise, there are several other data
facts about workplace bullying in healthcare which I have and presented a brief of the
collection here in the following.
Literature Review
Ariza-Montes et al., (2013) performed a study on workplace bullying and mentioned
the fact that whether it is exercising the power of authority or misusing the hierarchical
structure, some organizational members especially the surgeon sitting at the top of the
hierarchy have been seen to be intimidating other co-workers sometimes with the excuse of
doing the same on behalf of the patients. On the other side, the article on from the journal of
Community and Applied Psychology performed by Woodrow and Guest (2014) categorizes
workplace violence as Threats to professional status, threat to personal standing, isolation,
overwork and destabilization. Author of this article has also mentioned the fact that
workplace bullying is quite similar to sexual harassment and it tends to occur to employees
who do not have good support systems. However, Stagg et al., (2013) mentioned about some
crucial factors that such as a bullying culture, poor staffing levels, excessive workloads,
power imbalance, poor management skills and conflict of role or ambiguity.

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Vogelpohl et al., (2013 (2013) performed a study and mentioned major focus of
regulatory framework against workplace bullying in healthcare convey a common fact that
bullying, harassing and discrimination should be investigated as well as the person affected
needs to be supported by employer. Gardner et al., (2016) mentioned that according to Health
and Safety Employment Act 1992, an employer’s failure to deal with the issues of bullying in
the workplace may lead to legal liability with the prosecution under the health and safety
regulation. In this context, Catley et al., (2013) mentioned the fact that employees should also
be aware that they could be individually liable under both health and safety legislation as well
as under human rights legislations if they have bullied others in the workplace.
Research Methodology
Primary Research
In the last progress report, I have mentioned about the questionnaire that I have used to
survey the respondents of healthcare organization regarding the workplace bullying.
However, in 5th week of progress report, I have developed the work by collecting the data
from the respondents and then I have converted them in numerical number and percent to
present them in a meaningful manner.
Question 4: Have you ever experienced workplace bullying in the organization?
Options No. of responses Percentage Total respondents
Yes 21 42% 50
No 23 46% 50
Neutral 7 14% 50
Table 1: Respondents’ experience in workplace bullying

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41%
45%
14%
Respondents’ experience in workplace bullying
Yes No Neutral
Figure 1: Respondents’ experience in workplace bullying
Question 5: Does your organization take action against workplace bullying?
Options No. of responses Percentage Total respondents
Yes 29 58% 50
No 18 36% 50
Neutral 3 6% 50
Table 2: Organization initiative towards’ workplace bullying

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58%
36%
6%
Chart Title
Yes
No
Neutral
Figure 2: Organization initiative towards’ workplace bullying
Secondary Research
I have merged the work related to the collection of secondary information found in
week 4. However, my quest for the secondary information on workplace bullying in
healthcare led to the regulatory framework that have direct impact on workplace bullying.
Emphasis Changes
My research work follows a prepared or set pathway, which means I have followed
the same techniques to perform the study. Thus, there has not been any major changes but I
have discarded few journal articles that I have collected earlier in the quest of secondary
information. Some of the journals that I have collected were based on bullying in workplace;
so instead of considering those journals, I have collected some journal articles on regulation
or regulatory framework revolving around workplace bullying.
Other information
Since progress report 4, I have completed some additional work such as:

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 I have finalized the type of data analysis tools that I will use to analyse the data
 I have prepared the template regarding the progress of the report
 I have gone through the work completed so far and done few revision to enhance the
quality
 Constructed the interview questionnaire
Coming Weeks plan
Task Contacts Due time/ Date
Preparing the rest of the
quantitative questions and
presenting their responses as
questions 4 and 5 above
Mariah Jones Last week of January 2019
Review and evaluation of all
quantitative questions on
workplace bullying
1st week of February 2019
Preparing the qualitative
questionnaire ( Open-ended
questions)
Charles Fernandez 2nd week of February 2019
Collecting the responses
from the organizational
members in the health care
sector ( Through the
questionnaire)
3rd Week of February 2019
Collecting the qualitative
responses
April McFadden 4th Week of February 2019
Converting the collected James Walter 1st Week of March

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data for data analysis

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Bibliography
Ariza-Montes, A., Muniz, N. M., Montero-Simó, M. J., & Araque-Padilla, R. A. (2013).
Workplace bullying among healthcare workers. International journal of
environmental research and public health, 10(8), 3121-3139.
Catley, B., Bentley, T., Forsyth, D., Cooper-Thomas, H., Gardner, D., O'Driscoll, M., &
Trenberth, L. (2013). Managing workplace bullying in New Zealand: Perspectives
from occupational health and safety practitioners. Journal of Management &
Organization, 19(5), 598-612.
Gardner, D., O’Driscoll, M., Cooper-Thomas, H. D., Roche, M., Bentley, T., Catley, B., ... &
Trenberth, L. (2016). Predictors of workplace bullying and cyber-bullying in New
Zealand. International journal of environmental research and public health, 13(5),
448.
Stagg, S. J., Sheridan, D. J., Jones, R. A., & Speroni, K. G. (2013). Workplace bullying: The
effectiveness of a workplace program. Workplace health & safety, 61(8), 333-338.
Vogelpohl, D. A., Rice, S. K., Edwards, M. E., & Bork, C. E. (2013). New graduate nurses'
perception of the workplace: have they experienced bullying?. Journal of
Professional Nursing, 29(6), 414-422.
Woodrow, C., & Guest, D. E. (2014). When good HR gets bad results: Exploring the
challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying. Human Resource
Management Journal, 24(1), 38-56.