(Non)existent Laws of Workplace Cyberbullying

This chapter chronicles the legislative and jurisprudential history of workplace bullying and analyzes new frameworks for applying employee harassment laws to the digital era. Part I considers the sociolegal underpinnings of workplace harassment found in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The authors discuss how Title VII and its legal progeny gave way to “hostile work environment” claims. Part II discusses leading U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the creation of an affirmative defense for employers, and the limitations of that defense, including those developing in state and local jurisdictions. Part III discusses prevailing solutions and raises questions not yet addressed in the legal literature. Findings reveal that American jurisprudence is ill-set to protect or compensate workers injured by bullying—either cyber or physical.

Personality Factors Predicting Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Today more than half of the world population use the internet and online communication tools. These changes in communication has come with a pay-off, which is cyber aggression. Bullying behavior in physical space has changed its medium. Personality is one of the factors that play a role in traditional bullying and it is related to cyberbullying. Different personality theories examine personality and online harassment behavior relations from different perspectives. Biological theories focus on brain anomalies and hormone-behavior interaction. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes how cyberspace effect personality. Trait view of personality theories found that different traits which are psychopathy, narcissism, machiavellianism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, consciousness, neuroticism are related to cyberbullying perpetration. In this study, how personality traits related to online bullying behavior is examined. Researchers clearly showed that personality is a crucial factor in cyberbullying behavior. As cyberbullying behavior is complex, there is a need for further studies.

Social Media Bullying in the Workplace

Research has identified the prevalence and characteristics of workplace bullying, yet little research has specifically considered workplace cyberbullying. Therefore, in the present study, 49 employees across U.S. workplaces completed online surveys about workplace cyberbullying. Findings suggested that cyberbullying occurred across ethnicities and ages and more frequently reported by women. Women were also more often cyberbullying perpetrators. Cyberbullying persisted from a few days, 43%, to more than a year, 22%. Most reported bullying by more than one coworker, M = 2.41 (6.27), yet only in one workplace. Most victims had no warning signs that cyberbullying would arise. Many reported substantially decreased motivation and productivity from the cyberbullying. Despite known best preventive practices and costs of workplace bullying, most workers believed their companies lacked clear steps for reporting cyberbullying; of those who reported, most felt unsafe doing so, and many, 43%, indicated that reporting did not stop the cyberbullying.

In-Person Video and Peer-Delivered Approaches to Cyberbullying Prevention

In this chapter, the researcher evaluated the short-term efficacy of two theory of reasoned action-based cyberbullying prevention programs in college student samples using different methods of delivery. In Study 1 (N = 335), immediately following a cyberbullying video prevention presentation during class, attitudes and injunctive norms regarding all four types of cyberbullying (i.e., malice, deception, public humiliation, and unwanted contact), intentions to engage in malice, willingness to engage in malice and deception, and empathy toward victims for three forms of cyberbullying, improved. Most differences remained at one-month follow-up. In Study 2 (N = 80), the author evaluated a live skit-based version of the Study 1 prevention program in a voluntary event setting. Attitudes and injunctive norms toward malice, deception, and public humiliation and intentions and willingness to engage in malice decreased, whereas cyberbullying knowledge increased pre- to post-test. Both video-based and peer-led cyberbullying programs may benefit adults. Workplace implications are discussed.

Understanding Cyberbullying and Where We Go From Here

Cyberbullying has become a recent threat to the K-12 age group over the past couple of decades. Per the author, this chapter addresses ways to define cyberbullying, the history regarding when it emerged and current societal challenges, recognition and advancements of regulations, and the introduction of local laws, challenges with enforcing regulations, and recovery efforts to ensure students can move forward in a healthy and safe school environment. There are a few case studies throughout the chapter that demonstrate the dangers of cyberbullying and further exemplify the aforementioned points. Finally, the chapter offers information that allows readers to grasp the concept of cyberbullying, understand the current state of affairs and determine how each individual, including students, parents, school employees, and others, can play a role in recognizing, addressing, and preventing this issue.

Conceptualizing Causative Factors of Workplace Cyberbullying on Working Women

This chapter conceptualizes workplace cyberbullying, with special reference on workplace cyberbullying perpetrated on working women. It shares various causative factors that lead to workplace cyberbullying on women. The situation across the world and with special reference to Indian situations on the social menace of workplace cyberbullying on working women and the traumatizing causatives are discussed in detail. Research reports and survey reports conducted across the world and in India related to workplace cyberbullying are discussed in detail. The psychological issues, socio-psychological triggers that induce bullying on women is discussed with the methods the bullies are inflicting on the victim across the world and with special reference to Indian working situations are analyzed in detail.

Workplace Cyberbullying and Cross-Cultural Differences

This chapter provides an overview of cultural factors that contribute to the understanding of workplace bullying and cyberbullying including gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation. Each of these cultural factors explain the dynamics that occur among cyberbullies, cybervictims, and cyberbystanders. Additionally, because there has been a lack of theoretical incorporation in the workplace bullying and workplace cyberbullying literature, this chapter provides an overview of three intercultural communication theories including conflict face negotiation theory, intercultural workgroup communication theory, and anxiety uncertainty management theory. Recommendations and future directions are also offered to encourage the application of intercultural communication theories in explaining and predicting workplace cyberbullying behavior.

Workplace Cyberbullying and Its Impact on Productivity

In this chapter, the author presents a very sensitive socio-psychological issue of workplace cyberbullying and the ways the employers try to discipline cyberbullying. The technology and digital media access have brought in speed, accuracy, and accessibility to everyone and anyone across the world in a work setting simultaneously brought in the dangerous culture of cyberbullying, which negatively impacts productivity. The author takes up some of the critical issues like browbeating, berating, stealing, excluding, dissing, doxing, snide, threatening, victim, bully, stress, stalking, flaming, outing, and trickery to clarify as to how the workplace cyberbullying issues happen inside the workplace.

Trolling in the Cultural and Creative Industries

This chapter presents an international state-of-the-art literature review of abusive trolling experienced by workers in the creative and cultural industries (CCIs), bringing target experiences and organizational/occupational perspectives to the forefront and contributing to the still-evolving understanding of trolling. The abusive trolling encountered by creative and cultural workers essentially reflects workplace cyberbullying at the interpersonal level stemming from external sources, as captured by D'Cruz and Noronha's ‘varieties of workplace bullying' framework, and provides evidence for the category-based cyber abuse at the workplace. Apart from discussing the responses of creative and cultural workers to abusive trolling, interventions employed to manage trolling in the CCIs are reviewed and future research directions are forwarded.

The Meaning, Prevalence, and Outcomes of Cyberbullying in the Workplace

The increased reliance on information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the workplace, while producing many positive outcomes, may also expose workers to cyberbullying. To date, much of the extant research on cyberbullying has focused on middle and high school youth; however, cyberbullying is not limited to a particular age demographic or setting. Unlike face-to-face workplace bullying, workplace cyberbullying may be brought into the workplace or carried home from the workplace. The current chapter defines cyberbullying, including how it differs from related constructs such as cyber incivility and cyber aggression. The chapter then reports prevalence rates of workplace cyberbullying, followed by a discussion of antecedents and consequences of cyberbullying exposure. Prevention and intervention goals in the workplace are also discussed as employers are now being tasked with tackling this issue in the workplace.