Workplace Abuse: A New Issue of Human Resource …

1 The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol. 3, Num. 2, December 2007 169 Workplace Abuse: An Unseen Issue of Human Resource management in Taiwan Dr. Yu-Hui Lin, Assistant professor, Department of Business Administration, Nan Kai Institute of Technology, Taiwan Dr. Wen-Yi Chen, Assistant professor, Department of Leisure Business management , Nan Kai Institute of Technology, Taiwan ABSTRACT Unsuccessful conflict management at work results in an imbalance of power at work for employees, and this imbalance of power signals the onset of Workplace abuse in most organizations (Zapf & Gross, 2001).

2 However, Workplace abuse in the Taiwanese context is almost non-existent. This study, inspired by the personal working experiences of the researchers, is the first study that has ever been conducted on the Issue of Workplace abuse in a Taiwanese context. Among the participants, 17% of participants were victims of Workplace abuse. Of the 22 negative acts identified, withholding necessary information, verbal abuse, and neglect of opinions received were encountered at least once by 20% or more of the participants in the past 6 months.

3 Among victims of Workplace abuse, 8% were victims of physical aggressive behaviors, 31% were victims of verbal aggression, and 61% were victims of indirect aggressive behaviors. There were no gender differences between four groups (bullies, bully-victims, victims, and non-involved) in the participants Workplace abuse experiences. INTRODUCTION In the Western countries, Workplace abuse has attracted lots of attention from researchers and governments among developed countries since the 1980s because a significant source of work stress is associated with aggressive behaviors at work (Tehrani, 2004; Zapf & Einarsen, 2001).

4 Taiwan is far behind Western countries, in that it has made almost no effort to investigate the Issue of Workplace abuse. This is in contrast with the extensive research on family abuse, sexual harassment, and school bullying (direct aggression). Research on the working environment has mostly focused on the improvement of organizational performance and Human Resource effectiveness management . Efforts towards improving work environments mostly concentrate on exploring Workplace psychological contract breach, job burnout, Workplace deviance behavior, and turnover intentions in Taiwan (Cheng, 2004; Lai, 2005; Liang, 2003).

5 Only one Taiwanese researcher, to date, has tried to draw attention to direct Workplace violence by reviewing the experiences of the United States and Canadian workers (Yi-Hui, 2005). Lack of awareness of the existence of Workplace abuse puts the Taiwanese workforce in danger of ill-health, both physically and mentally. Leymann (1990) reported that Workplace abuse accounts for one-seventh of the suicides in Sweden annually. In Japan, around to of suicides are related to ijime at work annually (Meek, 2004). As one of the ten major causes of death for the past nine years, suicide has attracted the attention of public health professionals in Taiwan recently.

6 According to the Department of Health in Taiwan, 4,282 people died from suicide last year, a new record. Among the suicides, seventy The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol. 3, Num. 2, December 2007 170 percent were between the ages of 25 and 65. Research indicates that 87 percent of suicide cases are related to depression, and Workplace stress is one of the major causes of depression among adults. That exposure to bullying causes an increase in symptoms of depression and anxiety (Leymann, 1990) might be the explanation of high suicide rates in the Taiwan s adult population.

7 In addition, according to the Bureau of National Health Insurance in Taiwan, billion NT dollars and billion NT dollars were reimbursed for anti-depression medications in 2003 and 2004, respectively (BNHI, 2005, cited in Leang, 2005). In addition, Leang (2005) claimed that depression is next to influenza as a reason for employees absenteeism. However, except for sexual harassment at work, there has been no attention drawn to Workplace abuse in Taiwan. In fact, the phenomenon of Workplace abuse might be more severe in Taiwan s more crowed environment and relationship-focused culture than it is elsewhere.

8 Actually, most of the early research projects in the field of Workplace abuse were carried out in the Scandinavian countries. In a great concentration of articles, books, and media on the negative health effects of Workplace abuse, the Scandinavian academic interest in adults aggressive behavior at work corresponded with strong public awareness in the 1990s. Since it causes a great deal of damage to an individual s life and increases organizational cost, some countries have established laws against Workplace abuse, such as in Sweden in 1993 and in Norway in 1994.

9 In English-speaking countries, the first extensive report on the Issue of Workplace abuse would be Carroll Brodsky s work-- The Harassed Worker, published in 1976. However, his book did not have much impact on this Issue during that time. It was Andrea Adams (1992) book Bullying at Work and her documentary programs about the Issue on BBC radio that brought the pubic and researchers attention to the UK situation. Since exposure to Workplace abuse has been characterized as a more crippling and devastating problem for the working population than all other kinds of work-related stress put together (Zapf, Knorz, & Kulla, 1996) over the past few years, the field of research has grown quickly.

10 The concern, the terms and awareness of the phenomenon of Workplace abuse have been spread internationally (Hoel, Rayner, & Cooper, 1999). Through the efforts of researchers during the last 15 years, the prevalence of Workplace abuse has been investigated internationally. Leymann reported that % of a cross-sectional sample of the Swedish working population were bullying victims (1993, cited in Hogh & Dofradottir, 2001). Research has shown that a rate of of Norwegian employees, ranging from among psychologists to among health care mangers, were bullied within the past half year (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996).