We take a close look at a research paper and explore how its findings can inform OSH practice.
Publication
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Background/aims
Immigration to Sweden has increased steadily in recent decades. Although there are a few studies that use a representative sample to study ethnicity and ill treatment at work, they do not have a specific focus on bullying. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study with a nationally representative sample of the workforce to investigate ethnic minorities and exposure to workplace bullying using a comprehensive measure of the phenomenon. The aim of this study was to investigate the risks of being bullied at work based on country of birth, and compared with natives.
Method and findings
The authors used a representative sample of the Swedish workforce collected in the autumn of 2017 (n=1856). The results showed a more than doubled risk of being bullied for the foreign-born.
Coming from a culturally dissimilar country, the risk of becoming a victim of bullying was almost fourfold. The increased risk was only for person-related bullying, indicating a risk of being excluded from the social work environment. There was a greater risk associated with self-labelling as bullied than with the behavioural experience method. Self-labelling could possibly be construed as a mix of exposure to bullying behaviours and being discriminated against, making it a less suitable method when studying bullying for minorities.
Conclusions
Being born in another country has consequences for how one is treated at work, and the perception of mistreatment is not the result of a general dissatisfaction with one’s work situation. The results indicate the foreign-born are being excluded and are not let in, in the same way as natives, in the social work environment. The risks of workplace bullying are only present when it comes to person-related negative acts, such as social isolation and personal attacks – indicating a predatory origin of the bullying behaviours. The results show the importance of addressing these issues at work, as it severely affects each individual exposed to the negative treatment, but also probably the organisation as a whole and the work group in which the negative treatment is occurring.
Researcher’s takeaway
‘Workplace bullying is a detrimental global problem. This Swedish study investigates what happens when the world comes to you; that is, whether people with another origin than the majority have a higher bullying risk.
The study is unusual as it uses a nationally representative sample and a comprehensive behavioural measure of bullying.
‘From a social identity perspective, foreign-born workers may be in a weak position in the labour market, being a salient outgroup easy to single out. Another finding was that there was only a higher risk for person-related bullying (such as social exclusion), in contrast to work-related bullying (such as excessive work-related critique). There were no differences regarding how natives and foreign-born perceived their general working conditions.’
Stefan Blomberg, co-authorImplications for practice – IOSH’s take
The ideas underpinning the research – particularly the notion of ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups’ – are pertinent to discussions around bullying. They offer a useful frame for discussing the way bullying and discriminatory behaviours/cultures emerge. In other words, where there is a strongly formed ‘in-group’, difference from norms can quickly be perceived as a threat. This might be particularly relevant to certain industries.
One of the recommendations is to focus on the development of organisational cultures, so that in-groups are a broader church based on ‘who we are’ as an organisation, rather than ‘who we are’ as a working group.
Overall, this research is interesting and it works from an equality, diversity and inclusion perspective in the workplace. It links back to the ‘Culture’ tab (under ‘Technical’) in IOSH’s competency framework too.
