Workplace Bullying and Harassment: Exploring the Dark Side of Workplace Communication

Workplace bullying and harassment have received considerable research attention over the past few decades. Research surrounding these topics is interdisciplinary, spanning such disciplines as communication, psychology, management, education, and nursing, and is global in scope. Past research has greatly furthered our understanding of these complex organizational dynamics. The continued research emphasis on these topics is unsurprising given the devastating consequences of workplace bullying and harassment for employees and organizations. For employees, whether they be targets or bystanders, workplace mistreatment can lead to heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and depression along with job precarity. Organizations experience increased employee absenteeism and turnover along with lower employee morale and commitment.

Despite the known costs and consequences of bullying and harassment and robust research efforts, effective communication and intervention strategies remain elusive. Additionally, COVID-19 has changed the nature of how we do work. Currently, very little is known about how bullying and harassment have been impacted by shifts in the nature of how and where we work. More broadly, the focus of this Research Topic is to explore new directions in workplace bullying and harassment research. Determining how to best address workplace mistreatment in organizations may require innovative and creative approaches to studying the nuances, dynamics, and intervention possibilities available to targets, bystanders, and organizations. The aim of this Research Topic is to develop a collection of articles that represent current and new research trends to advance our thinking about workplace bullying and harassment. Particular themes may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• communication-based solutions
• intervention strategies
• applying new theories to explore these dynamics using a unique lens
• the impact of COVID-19 on workplace bullying and harassment
• cyberbullying
• sexual harassment
• racial and gender dynamics
• emotion
• culture
• resilience
• policy development
• bystanders
• the role of human resources
• innovative research strategies to explore bullying and harassment.

Keywords: Workplace Bullying, Sexual Harassment, Conflict, Cyberbullying, Intervention

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.