Understanding workplace bullying phenomenon through its concepts: A literature review

The past twenty years showed a high interest in studying bullying in the area of work and organizational psychology. This phenomenon was defined through a variety of definitions and concepts in Europe, America and Asia. This article aims to review bullying literature in order to highlight, on one hand, the variety of concepts used to describe bullying and on the other hand, the common aspects of the bullying definitions. For this aim, a literature review was conducted in order to emphasize the common aspects of bullying definitions and large amount of concepts used to define it. Over the years, the bullying phenomenon was described by many concepts from which English-speaking countries preferred the use of the term bullying while, German-speaking countries preferred the use of the term mobbing. Regarding the definitions, these highlighted some common aspects such as a perceived power imbalanced between the aggressor and the victim, negative and systematic acts, a situation in which the victims is finding herself in an inferior position and starts to experience the helplessness situation (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Huseyin Uzunboylu & Dr. Mukaddes Demirok, Near East University, Cyprus