2017
Kelly, Eoin
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology
While cyberbullying in education is a widely studied topic, research into workplace cyberbullying is less well represented in the literature. There are a number of approaches taken in the literature to defining the topic which results in a lack of an agreed definition on which to base future research. Using a qualitative approach involving in-depth face to face interviews with fifteen participants this study aimed to produce a definition of workplace cyberbullying grounded in the literature and supported by real world experience. Additionally, a comparison of the perceptions and the prevalence of workplace cyberbullying between the public and private sectors was undertaken. The definition of workplace cyberbullying produced was: Any act, intended to cause harm or perceived as harmful in the workplace that is delivered through digital means. The results of this study indicate that there is little difference between the two sectors regarding the perceptions of what constitutes cyberbullying in the workplace, with email misuse being the single most reported avenue for workplace cyberbullying. The implications of the study are that email misuse is a common cause of workplace cyberbullying in the workplace and given the high number of participants in the current study reporting experiencing workplace cyberbullying further research is recommended to quantify the extent of the issue.