Table Of ContentEmotional
Workplace Abuse
A New Research Approach
Elina Penttinen
Marjut Jyrkinen
Elisabeth Wide
Emotional Workplace Abuse
Elina Penttinen • Marjut Jyrkinen
Elisabeth Wide
Emotional Workplace
Abuse
A New Research Approach
Elina Penttinen Marjut Jyrkinen
Faculty of Arts Faculty of Arts
University of Helsinki University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland Helsinki, Finland
Elisabeth Wide
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
ISBN 978-3-030-19992-0 ISBN 978-3-030-19993-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19993-7
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Pattern © Melisa Hasan
This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
P
reface
This book emerges from research collaboration and joint publications
between Elina Penttinen and Marjut Jyrkinen, from which we developed
the pilot project on emotional workplace abuse. We had both worked with
questions on gendered violence in local and global contexts; Elina had
worked on experiences of violence and Marjut on gender in organization
and management. Elisabeth Wide joined us as research assistant, and has
started her own PhD research that relates to working life and the organiz-
ing of care. This collaborative work grew from the interest in joining our
diverse expertise on feminist research on violence with the interest in
working life settings and work well-being. Our inspiration took a more
concrete step after we came to know of Kathy Sanderson’s work on work-
place ostracism, and we could recognize how her work resonated with our
intentions for this project.
We wrote this book as feminist scholars with an interest in building on
research in organizational and management studies and research on work-
place violence and violations. One of the most critical insights during the
research process was to identify the connecting links between emotional
workplace abuse and intimate partner abuse. As we began to connect how
the abuse followed similar patterns, we realized that the same dichotomies
which produce distinctions between the workplace and the home, the
public and private spheres, structure our thinking about emotional work-
place abuse. It is still common to perceive this phenomenon as work-
related stress that should be ‘left in the office’ and as such separate from
other areas of life. In contrast to this, we began to see how the experiences
of emotional workplace abuse were overwhelming and totalizing for the
v
vi PREFACE
targets and changed their sense of self as competent workers and value as
human beings. Thus, workplace abuse spilled over into areas to which it
had no apparent connection, yet again blurring boundaries between work
and personal life. Thus, our objective in writing this book was partly to
show how feminist research on violence could allow for new insight on
understanding the experiences of emotional workplace abuse. To connect
these two fields of research could increase our knowledge on the phenom-
enon, and ultimately, help to prevent such forms of abuse in organizations.
Throughout the research process, we became aware of how difficult it
is to identify and name emotional workplace abuse as it is so insidious and
difficult to pinpoint into distinguishable acts of harm. This question
emerged as a central topic for concern during our work process. When we
conducted the research interviews, our informants brought to our atten-
tion various difficulties and obstacles they had faced in trying to address
the abusive behaviours at work. Often the problem was projected onto the
target so that they were made to feel responsible for the abuse, or they
were accused of being overly sensitive. Similarly, several accounts in the
narrative data pointed out how futile it had been to hold the abusers
accountable for their abusive behaviours, as the organization and the
abuser deflected any responsibility. Interestingly, while there is ample
research on workplace bullying that examines distinct markers of abuse,
there is little discussion on why naming, identifying and speaking about
abuse remains so difficult in the organizations where it takes place.
Throughout this book, we discuss why it is challenging to identify emo-
tionally abusive practices and why naming them continues to be difficult,
and offer our considerations on what implications this might have. A cen-
tral conclusion is that to name and identify emotionally abusive practices
and behaviours is one of the most central aspects in breaking the cyclical
process of abuse. We hope that these considerations will offer novel
insights on emotionally abusive practices to our readers.
With this book, we wish to propose a new approach to researching
emotional workplace abuse based on feminist research on violence. This is
an approach that takes seriously the subtle and indirect forms of abusive
behaviours, and recognizes how these are part and parcel of a wider con-
tinuum of violence. We apply the term emotional workplace abuse to
emphasize how abusive behaviours and patterns are normalized in the cul-
ture of the workplace and are not reducible to particular workplace rela-
tionships or individual psychopathologies of the perpetrator or the victim.
Thus, we argue for the urgency of holding organizations, rather than
PREFACE vii
individual targets, responsible for the abuse, as research shows that the
abuse continues even when individual targets leave the organization. A
similar pattern was also evident in our research data.
Emotional workplace abuse remains a major problem in workplaces all
around the world. In the European Union, an average of 5% of workers
experience emotional abuse at work (ILO 2009). In addition, previous
research identifies that women, women with disabilities, individuals from
a migrant background and members of the LGBTQI community are more
likely to be targets of emotional workplace abuse (FRA 2914; ILO 2009).
It is also important to note that this phenomenon intersects with power
relations within the organization, as the abuser is often in a superior posi-
tion to the target.
We also strongly believe that it is necessary to centralize the experiences
of emotional workplace abuse recounted to us by our informants. This
forms a key methodological underpinning for our writing. The semi-
structured interviews we conducted, and the open-access narrative dataset
on workplace abuse, have been immeasurably vital in shedding light on
the practices and behaviours embedded in the organizations in which
abuse takes place. Moreover, these accounts show in detail what emotional
abuse entails for the target and how difficult it is to cope with the fact that
one has experienced abuse at a place where it is the least expected and
where it should never happen. Our informants also perceived that it is
highly important to tackle this issue, and hoped that research such as this
can bring about some change. Nevertheless, it was simultaneously chal-
lenging to address. We recognized that many found it difficult to return to
past situations of emotional abuse, as this often meant reliving the trau-
matic events. Therefore, throughout this book, we hope to correctly
account for, as well as honour and respect, the important contributions of
our informants.
We assert that emotional workplace abuse remains an important ques-
tion to tackle. This book was motivated by a desire to find solutions to this
ongoing pressing issue. We learned that the majority of our informants did
not perceive leaving their workplace as a preferable option to end the
experienced abuse. There were various reasons behind this. Some infor-
mants regarded the work content as highly interesting and motivating.
Concurrently, their work area might be characterized by a high level of
competition and a high level of unemployment. This applies to individuals
in knowledge work areas, which our research focused on. If it is difficult
to obtain work in the field in which one specializes, few feel that they have
viii PREFACE
a realistic option to leave an abusive workplace. Many of our informants
found themselves in such an untenable situation, where the work content
is motivating but the abusive practices make work unbearable. At the same
time, however, we noticed that many of our informants decided to leave
their workplace, as this option appeared to be the only possibility to end
the abuse. Being able to leave and easily find other employment is also a
form of privilege that few of us can obtain.
Looking into the future, we believe that questions concerning the psy-
chological and emotional well-being of personnel will become even more
important for organizations. For this reason we want to develop methods
of interrogation on emotional workplace abuse, and on how to name,
identify and define abusive practices and behaviours. We contend that
organizations can benefit from applying insights from feminist studies to
their structures, in order to better prevent destructive patterns from
becoming the norm. As our knowledge increases on issues such as work-
related stress and burnout and the damaging effects of emotional work-
place abuse, individuals will expect more of their employers in the future.
After arduous research on questions relating to emotional workplace
abuse, we are more convinced than ever that there exists an urgent need
for organizations to develop tools for ethical leadership and management.
As a solution to the pressing concerns raised by the informants in our
research, we offer the model of caring organizational culture as a way to
challenge present notions of leadership. We do not wish to put the blame
on individuals. Rather, we emphasize that organizations carry the main
responsibility for tackling emotionally abusive practices and behaviours.
We need to expand our understanding of emotional workplace abuse, to
encompass not only individuals, but also organizational structures, power
relations and work life as a whole, which often enable and reproduce emo-
tional workplace abuse. Only by creating caring policies and practices
within the organizational culture can we form everyday working practices
based on co-operation and mutual respect.
Helsinki, Finland Elina Penttinen
A pril 15, 2019 Marjut Jyrkinen
Elisabeth Wide
a
cknowledgements
We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to Madeline Holder from
Palgrave Macmillan, who approached us at the European Business Ethics
Network conference in Jyväskylä, Finland, in the summer 2017. She sug-
gested to us the idea to write a book on the basis of our pilot project on
emotional workplace abuse that we presented as a workshop and paper at
the conference. Warm thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for impor-
tant comments and encouragement that emotional abuse is an important
area of study. We wish to thank Liz Barlow, Lucy Kidwell and the copy-
editors for advice and practical help in the last stages of the production of
this book.
This research has been done within the frameworks of two research
projects, namely Incorporating Vulnerability, led by Elina Penttinen and
funded by the University of Helsinki (three-year grants), and the research
consortium Social and Economic Sustainability of Future Working Life,
funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland
2015–2021 (No. 292883, weallfinland.fi), directed by Marjut Jyrkinen, in
collaboration with Professor Anna-Maija Lämsä (Jyväskylä University
Business School). We are grateful for these important research fundings as
well as for the support from many colleagues in these projects. We want to
express our gratitude to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Hanna
Snellman, University of Helsinki, for the starting grant for new professors
(2017–2018). Through this funding for Jyrkinen it was possible to employ
research assistance and collect the pilot interview data.
Our warmest acknowledgements are addressed to all the interviewees
who accepted our invitation to participate in our pilot research project.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This was not necessarily an easy task, as it is understandable that recount-
ing current and even past experiences of abuse can be a heavy process. We
appreciate the courage and willingness to participate, and the use of your
time and energy that hopefully will turn into the seeds to help others in
similar situations. We wish all our research participants success in your
future endeavours.
Obviously, the interviewers, Elisabeth Wide and Kerttu Willamo,
deserve a big thank you for all the careful work with such a sensitive topic.
Special thanks to Professor Johanna Kujala, the School of Management,
University of Tampere, for the suggestion to use the FEAR-data that was
available in the Finnish Social Science Archive (https://www.fsd.uta.fi/
en/). Thereby, another thank you to the Academy of Finland.
We address our heartfelt thanks to Associate Professor Laura Traavik
and Associate Professor Kathy Sanderson for your kind and encouraging
endorsements for our book, but also for all the support you have given us
from early on. It is truly important to have an international network of
colleagues who tackle similar questions and who are interested in creating
sustainable solutions for emotional workplace abuse through research in
different national but also international contexts in the coming future. We
look forward to future collaborations!
We also wish to express our gratitude to colleagues in Gender Studies
at the Helsinki University. Many thanks to our colleague Ada Schwanck
for helpful comments and reflections on trauma-informed methodology.
We warmly thank all WeAll colleagues, including Professors Albert Mills
and Jean Helms Mills, St. Mary’s University, Canada, who introduced the
qualitative approach to study ostracism, and Professor Linda McKie,
University of Edinburgh, and Professor Jeff Hearn, Hanken School of
Economics and Örebro University for invaluable work on gendered vio-
lence over many years, even decades. Many thanks to Professor Denise
Salin, Hanken School of Economics, for advice and reflections on mob-
bing literature and definitions. We appreciate all your support and the
many conversations about research which have been helpful in developing
the ideas presented in this book. Last but not least, we are grateful for the
support from our significant others who have been invaluable during the
process, and thanks in particular for your patience for the intensive writing
during the finalizing weeks of the book.
