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Ethical Issue in the Workplace: Case Study
The article Bullying Bystander Reactions: A Case Study in the Taiwanese Workplace examines an ethical issue of bullying, as well as the responses of colleagues and the organization on it in one of the Taiwanese offices. Various factors influence the occurrence of bullying and the way others perceive this issue at work. Data was collected through employee interviews, and a selective thematic analysis was conducted to explore the experiences of the participants. The results of the interviews have shown that the reaction of bystanders to bullying depends on how the organization deals with this ethical issue. This study contributes to existing research on bullying in the workplace by describing the reactions of others and the consequences for the organization.
In the considered case, the senior manager was engaged in bullying. He aggressively behaved with his colleagues, scolded his subordinates for minor mistakes, and never hid his emotions. As soon as he discovered a mistake, he immediately humiliated his target in an unethical way. He made others feel stupid, inferior, and unable to defend themselves, especially because the manager was a high-ranking senior employee and a member of the staff promotion committee (Wu & Wu, 2019). At first, some colleagues tried to prevent the perpetrator from bullying when they saw him mocking his target. However, they soon stopped doing this when they realized that their good intentions did additional harm to the whole staff since the manager expressed his intolerance and anger at being intercepted. His goal was to intimidate others and prevent them from pursuing goals.
In an attempt to change this situation, both victims and witnesses complained about this managers aggressive behavior to the HR manager, but he ignored the situation and refrained from taking any action. Consistent with the companys standards of business conduct and ethics, the company encourages employees to report any form of unethical behavior they have experienced or witnessed (Wu & Wu, 2019). Therefore, not seeing any effective intervention from the HR manager, some employees anonymously reported the offenders violent behavior. Upon receiving the appeal, the company launched an investigation; however, several months later, no conclusions have been reached.
The position of the senior manager and the companys failure to address the issue has led to total ignorance of the situation. The majority of the staff preferred to be silent due to the fear of retribution. In their opinion, the companys failure to punish the perpetrator meant that the companys leadership accepted his actions. As for the bystanders, they also did not want to oppose since they were afraid to become the next target. They also feared that the company would negatively comment on their anonymous reports (Wu & Wu, 2019). However, some bystanders expressed their thoughts on social media, and as a result, news about the company has spread across the social network. All this harmed the companys image and almost damaged its reputation. Thus, the ignorance of this important ethical issue by the organizations leaders affected the whole companys performance.
The experience of bullying has a significant negative impact on the involvement of participants in the work and their loyalty to the organization. The lack of management involvement in preventing bullying increases the participation of outsiders and negatively impacts the companys performance. The results also show the importance of involving outside observers to combat bullying in the workplace. The following conclusions can be made out of this case study. First, injustice in the workplace has a significantly negative impact on employee performance. Second, the lack of the organizations involvement in bullying prevention increases the number of passive observers. A proper reaction of a leader directly influences the way the company handles this ethical issue.
Reference
Wu, S. H., & Wu, C. C. (2019). Bullying bystander reactions: A case study in the Taiwanese workplace. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 57(2), 191-207.
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