The difference in the perception of workplace bullying: The influence of culture and gender

Abstract

This study addressed the influence of culture and gender in the way people perceive workplace bullying. A mixture of interview and survey design was used. 50 Korean and 43 UK employees were asked to define workplace bullying and rate their tolerance level to negative acts. In the quantitative analysis, Korean employees were most tolerant of superior bullying whereas UK employees were most tolerant of peer bullying. Koreans were also more tolerant of being a bully than UK employees were. These results were attributed to Confucian culture and compulsory military service in South Korea. Gender effect emerged in that females were less tolerant of being a ‘bully’ than being bullied whereas males’ tolerance changed little. This result was attributed to social desirability effect and females’ greater tendency to be influenced by their social surroundings than males. The findings have implications for the need of indigenous approach and accounting for individual’s perceptions in addressing workplace bullying. This study was original for its attempts to cross-culturally examine the lay definition of bullying and workers appraisal of bullying items used in previous bullying questionnaire. At the same time, the study carries a limitation of the categorization of imagined profile (i.e. bully vs. victim) instead of actual profile. However, identifying actual bully and victim groups would have required an initial selection process, which was not possible during the course of study.