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Devi Akella

Understanding
Workplace Bullying
An Ethical and
Legal Perspective
Understanding Workplace Bullying
 Devi Akella

Understanding
Workplace Bullying
An Ethical and Legal Perspective
Devi Akella
Albany State University
Albany, GA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-46167-6    ISBN 978-3-030-46168-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46168-3

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 Preface

I have more than 17 years of work experience in academia, and I would be

dishonest if I state that I have never faced any form of workplace bullying
and incivility during my working years. I often complain about my stu-
dents, colleagues, and superiors and my working environment in general.
I consider this an acceptable practice, a daily occurrence to relieve myself
of my frustrations and stress, something which revitalizes me and stimu-
lates me to get back to my duties and responsibilities back at work.
I have, however, never really paid much attention to these “daily office
events” until I started researching the topic of workplace bullying a few
years back. A colleague of mine approached me to write a case study with
her on workplace bullying. During the literature review, I found myself
drawn to this field of workplace mistreatment and violence. Being a man-
agement critic, whose doctoral thesis was heavily inspired by critical man-
agement studies and its ideologies; I realized that workplace bullying was
primarily dominated by the functionalist perspective. These initial thoughts
supported with empirical evidence from the healthcare sector got pub-
lished in the form of a journal paper in 2016. This book is a further
endeavor in that direction. It reconstructs workplace bullying outside its
usual functionalist theoretical framework. Workplace bullying is investi-
gated within the boundaries of power and control and the doctrine of the
capitalist regime of society. Workplace bullying is examined from a con-
tested labor relations angle within the historical structuration of society, as
a capitalist employment outcome.
Workplace bullying is developed as a control weapon, highly potent in
the short term to increase employee productivity and levels of

v
vi PREFACE

performance, but with severe long-term psychological impacts for the

employees. I feel such an approach to workplace bullying will allow in-­
depth exploration of this phenomenon as a new type of managerial style
and control technique, thereby increasing its educational boundaries as a
management topic and control mechanism.
For me, these last 18 months, the time it took me to get this manu-
script ready for printing, drastically changed my perspective about work-
places, be it a college, a hospital, a nonprofit organization, or a corporate
organization. My interviewees made me think and reflect about how much
we adjust and compromise while at work every day, which is ironical
because work should not really hurt one at all (Namie & Namie, 2009).

Albany, GA, USA Devi Akella

Reference
Namie, G., & Namie, R. (2009). U.S. Workplace bullying: Some basic consider-
ations and consultation interventions. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice
and Research, 61(3), 202–219.
 Acknowledgments

For me writing this book was not easy; it required time, time which was
very difficult to spare with a growing girl back at home, who complained
and grumbled continuously about me spending hours before the com-
puter during the weekends, summer, and winter break. So, I would like to
thank my “little girl” for her patience, understanding, and support. Also,
to my parents, who always listened to me and motivated me when I got
tired of writing. To my younger sister, for reading the entire manuscript,
for editing it, and for giving me her feedback. Thank you Chinna for being
such a great help.
Also, I would like to acknowledge a few of my colleagues: Dr. Ashok
Jain, Ms. Lisa Jenkins and Dr. Melissa Jordan, and the Dean of the College
of Professional Studies, Dr. Alicia Jackson, for her support during the ini-
tial stages of this book. A word of thanks to Dr. Grace Khoury for looking
at the entire book and for giving me feedback.
Also, a special thanks to all my interviewees, who participated in this
study anonymously, nurses in hospitals, employees at a nonprofit organi-
zation and a private organization, and faculty working at a college. I
appreciate your invaluable time, feedback, and insights from your work-
place. This book would have remained incomplete without all of you.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Workplace Bullying: The Critical Paradigm Approach 11

3 Investigating Workplace Bullying 25

4 Workplace Bullying in a Private Corporation 39

5 Bullying Employees in a Nonprofit Organization 71

6 Nursing Bullying in Hospitals101

7 Workplace Bullying in Academia: A Case Study137

8 Workplace Bullying and Ethical Issues169

9 Workplace Bullying Laws in the United States and Canada183

10 Workplace Bullying Laws in Europe and the United

Kingdom203

11 Workplace Bullying Laws in Asia221

ix
x Contents

12 Workplace Bullying Laws in Australia and New Zealand237

13 Workplace Bullying Laws in Africa and Middle East251

14 Conclusion265

Appendix279

Index285
 List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 Stages of CR. (Source: Mingers, J. & Willcocks, L. (2004).

Social theory and philosophy for information systems. John
Wiley: Chichester, West Sussex, England) 109
Fig. 6.2 CR stages and empirical analysis themes and stages. (Source:
The three stages of CR mentioned: empirically observed
phenomena, actual events & real events adapted from Fletcher,
A. (2017). Applying critical realism in qualitative research:
methodology meets method. International Journal of Social
Research Methodology, 20 (2), p. 187) 110

xi
 List of Tables

Table 4.1 Workplace bullying at the motel themes and quotes 49

Table 5.1 Bullying in the nonprofit sector themes and interview quotes 81
Table 6.1 Critical realism (CR) and nurses bullying themes and quotes 111
Table 7.1 Information about the interviewees 146
Table 7.2 Academia and workplace bullying 147

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1   Workplace Bullying: The Beginning

There has been an increase in scholarly interest in the area of workplace
mistreatment in the last few decades. Degrading work environments and
treatments such as sexual harassment, workplace bullying, and workplace
incivility and its implications in terms of safety, integrity, and dignity of
employees have caught the attention of organizational behavior scholars
and researchers (Akella, 2016; Beale & Hoel, 2011; Roscigno, Hodson,
& Lopez, 2009 to mention a few). Among these negative work practices,
workplace bullying has been acknowledged, ethically and legally, as a
harmful, abusive organizational phenomenon which has drastic long-term
recuperations for employees, organizational performance, and productiv-
ity (Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2005).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bully as an individual who
oppresses others through use of fear and threats (Kumar, Jain, & Kumar,
2012). Commonly found in schools, bullying takes the form of physical
and verbal intimidation and social exclusion (Rayner & Hoel, 1997).
Brodsky (1976) was the first to discuss bullying at workplaces in her book
The Harassed Worker, while Namie and Namie (2003) used “bullying” as
a vocabulary term specific to American employment relations. Workplace
bullying is also referred to as mobbing, psychological terror, workplace
harassment, and emotional abuse (Kumar, Jain, & Kumar, 2012). It con-
stitutes “repeated and persistent negative actions aimed at one or more
individuals” with a singular intent to hurt, intimidate, and humiliate the

© The Author(s) 2020 1

D. Akella, Understanding Workplace Bullying,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46168-3_1
2 D. AKELLA

individual or individuals (Akella, 2016). Workplace bullying evolves from

a desire to hurt, subjugate, and suppress another individual, a combina-
tion of “desire to hurt + hurtful action + power imbalance + repetitive
aggressor + a sense of being oppressed by the victim” (Rigby, 2002, p. 6).
An employee is exposed continuously to constant abuse, offensive remarks,
ridicule, and criticism. These repetitive and negative physical, verbal, or
psychological acts wear down a person (Rayner & Hoel, 1997), make
him/her feel demeaned, inadequate, and incompetent causing distress,
anxiety, stress, and harm to the individual (i.e., victim) (Hershcovis, 2011).
It is a painful process which “persistently provokes, pressurizes, frightens,
intimidates … discomforts another person” (Brodsky, 1976, p. 2), raising
concerns about human rights violations, ethical code of conduct, and legal
protections for individuals while at work (Carbo, 2009).
Bullying at the workplace would involve assigning heavy workloads to
one’s employees, professionally attacking the victim, unfairly criticizing
them, and allocating menial tasks to them (Fox & Stallworth, 2006;
Yildirim, 2009). It also involves ignoring someone, not returning their
phone calls and emails, and ridiculing and making fun of them (Randle,
Stevenson, & Grayling, 2007). Workplace bullying thus results in employee
turnover, absenteeism, higher stress levels, workplace injuries, and illnesses
(Carbo, 2009). Exposure to bullying while at work interferes with one’s
ability to work, heightens anxiety levels, burnout, depression, and help-
lessness, induces negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and fear,
and lowers one’s self-esteem and self-efficacy (Keashly & Neuman, 2004).
Bullying has also been linked with suicidal thoughts, suicide contempla-
tions, and posttraumatic stress disorders (Rayner, Hoel, & Cooper, 2002).
In fact, illness, suicide, and death could be the final chapters in a victim’s
life (Davenport, Schwartz, & Elliot, 2002). Workplace bullying is a “crip-
pling and devastating problem for [all] employees” (Einarsen, 1999, p. 16).
But surprisingly despite these dire consequences, unlike sexual harass-
ment and racial discrimination, which are legally prohibited within organi-
zations, workplace bullying to a large extent lacks legal protection, with
the bully not being punished by the management (Akella, 2016; Baillien,
Neyens, De Witte, & De Cuyper, 2009). Bully’s behavioral tendencies are
ignored or interpreted as an authoritative style of management, which can
be a little aggressive at times (Baillien et al., 2009; Cortina, 2008), and
dismissed as “it’s all in the mind” of an overly, sensitive employee
(McIntyre, 2005, p. 60). Workplace bullying gets managerial acceptance
in this unequal quotient of power and hierarchy between employees and
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

management. It gets approved as a political strategy exercised to achieve

organizational goals and objectives (Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, &
Wilkes, 2010). Managers, after all, need to exercise different types of
power strategies to get things done by their subordinates (Cortina, 2008;
Hutchinson et al., 2010). In these circumstances, workplace bullying con-
veniently gets legitimized as a rational tool to “influence and control
employees when seeking achievement of organizational goals” (Hutchinson
et al., 2010, p. 29). It is a political tactic adopted by managers encompass-
ing petty tyrannical behavior consisting of harassment, intimidation, and
fear to gain an advantage over the employees to ensure completion of
official duties and responsibilities. It is a part of the disciplinary process
used by the ruling managerial class (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) to sustain
order and authority within the organization (Hazen, 1994), similar to
scientific management (Taylor, 1947), bureaucracy (Weber, 1947), theory
X ideology (McGregor, 1960), or the direct form of control advocated by
Friedmann (1977). Thus, all forms of abusive behaviors, instead of being
questioned for their ethical nature, get legitimized as disciplinary mea-
sures used by the management to control employees effectively.
It is possible to expose these hidden power dynamics in workplace bul-
lying (Samnani, 2013), and its relationship to the capitalist framework of
society using different types of theoretical approaches integrated within
the critical management studies (CMS) paradigm. A critique using differ-
ent types of theoretical lens would enable portrayal of diverse and varied
facets and pictures of workplace bullying as a psychological and degrading
type of control measure often used by managers daily at work (Akella, 2016).

1.2   Rationale for the Book

This book will argue for a fresh perspective on workplace bullying that
exposes the dark side of workplace bullying, not as psychological harmful
component, not as a health-related stress issue, but instead as a manage-
ment tool used to exercise totalizing control over the employees (Akella,
2016). Experimenting with different facets of CMS paradigm such as criti-
cal theory, critical realism, labor process theory, and poststructuralism, the
book will revisit issues pertaining to power, control, and domination origi-
nating within a capitalist employment relationship to provide a better
holistic and comprehensive understanding of workplace bullying. A single
phenomenon can be visualized and understood in multiple ways, and
knowledge derived by using multiple theoretical approaches can generate
4 D. AKELLA

a more complete and detailed analysis. Therefore, diversity in terms of

theoretical and methodological approaches can significantly advance
knowledge on a topic, area, or field (Hazlett, McAdam, & Gallagher,
2005). However, to avoid the issues which can arise within a multi-­
paradigmatic approach, such as those apparent in Hassard (1993)’s four
different accounts of work behavior in the British Fire Service, where none
of the accounts were compatible with each other (Johnson & Duberley,
2000), the author decided to adhere to a critical approach, to develop four
critiques which would question workplace bullying as a managerial control
mechanism, and engage in resolving the dilemma of human rights of the
employees while at work.
A critical paradigm, or critical management studies (CMS), unlike the
mainstream thinking and practice, questions the authority and status quo
associated with the capitalist economic system, thereby deviating from a
functionalist perspective so far affiliated with workplace bullying research.
Critical of “established social practices and institutional arrangements”
(Alvesson, Bridgeman, & Willmott, 2009, p. 2), CMS challenges all forms
of domination and exploitation existing within the society with a singular
focus on giving voice to the powerless and emancipating them from their
suffering by developing alternative narratives (Akella, 2003; Alvesson &
Willmott, 1996; Alvesson et al., 2009). Loosely built on different theo-
retical frameworks and ideologies such as labor process theory (LPT),
critical theory, critical realism, feminism, postmodernism, racism, and
environmentalism, CMS has the unequivocal agenda to be critical of prac-
tices such as “profit imperative, patriarchy, racial inequality and ecology
irresponsibility” (Alvesson et al., 2009, p. 15). CMS is passionate about
critique which changes the society by “generating radical alternatives”
(Alvesson et al., 2009, p. 15).
This book also mirrors a similar agenda to deconstruct workplace bul-
lying and generate alternative narratives which are firmly entrenched in
control, power, and suffering. Workplace bullying will be investigated
under four theoretical lenses embodied within the CMS paradigm: critical
realism, critical theory, labor process theory, and poststructuralism. Critical
realism (CR), within the parameters of CMS, provides an analytical focus
on the shifts in the domination structures existing within capitalist systems
(Welsh & Dehler, 2007). CR enables an in-depth understanding of the
micro-political power relations and processes existing in organizational
settings and their connections with wider institutional frameworks of the
society (Reed, 2009). Critical theory seeks to analyze organizations, their
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

structures, and their cultures to conceptualize them as sources of domina-

tion and control (Barker, 1993; Willmott, 1993). A critical approach to
workplace bullying would dwell on “the ethically questionable nature of
management practices” (Samnani, 2013, p. 32) and provide suggestions
on how to create more ethical and fair organizations and management
practices (Phillips, 2006). Labor Process Theory (LPT) divides the entire
society and corporations into two groups, labor and management, which
are always in conflict with each other. Labor sells its skills to the manage-
ment, while the management is interested in utilizing the labor to its maxi-
mum capacity at a minimum wage to maximize its surplus. The management
therefore keeps enforcing different types of control mechanisms, direct
and indirect, to exert control over employees to increase its profits.
Workplace bullying under this theoretical framework can be conceptual-
ized as another form of management control method to accomplish maxi-
mum amount of work within a short period of time. Similarly, the
poststructuralism perspective researches notions of power and control
focusing more on exploring how control is exerted within organizations.
Drawing upon Lukes’ three-dimensional power (1974, 2005), Foucauldian
disciplinary discourse (1977), power ideologies, and other types of hege-
monic theories, this perspective highlights how workplace bullying can be
conceived as a control measure. This allows understanding of how certain
organizational practices and measures can stimulate negative behaviors
from employers.
The book would thus allow critical reflection on workplace bullying,
management responsibilities, and the power enforcement strategies used
by managers. It would force the readers to question the ethical modalities
which managers traverse to accomplish organizational goals and objectives
on behalf of the corporation, and its implications for the employees and
the society at large. The focus of the book is on how workplace bullying
might be used by managers as a control technique. With that purpose, the
book would investigate relationships and interactions between supervisors
and subordinates, managers and employees, or administrators and faculty
members, that is, management and labor. Bullying instances between
peers, customers and managers, and customers and employees, and subor-
dinates bullying their supervisors, will not be covered in this book. Issues
pertaining to racism, gender, and sexual orientation will be explored con-
tingent on context of management control and workplace bullying.
This book while attempting to critique workplace bullying will answer
questions such as the following:
6 D. AKELLA

• Can workplace bullying be conceptualized as a type of control

technique?
• How is power exerted through workplace bullying?
• What are the implications of workplace bullying on a short-term and
a long-term basis?
• What legal protections for workplace bullying are currently existing
globally across the world?

Workplace bullying, with a few exceptions as mentioned earlier, is

grounded in the functionalist literature with deep roots within a positivist
epistemology and a quantitative methodology which measure and gener-
alize all empirical findings. This book deviates from the functionalist para-
digm and therefore from the positivist-based methodologies as well.
Qualitative methods will be used to capture the meanings of the partici-
pants and to give voice to their experiences in workplaces. Case studies
and phenomenological interviews will be used to bring alive the work-
places, the experiences of the participations and allow critical reflection on
the events which took place in the lives of the participants while at work.
To generalize and validate empirical findings, all research issues will be
tested on employees working within a healthcare sector, an academic envi-
ronment, a nonprofit organization, and a private organization.

1.3   The Structure of the Book

The entire book is divided into four parts. Part 1 covers relevant theoreti-
cal and methodological issues. Chapter 1 is the introduction, which intro-
duces the readers to the topic of workplace bullying and provides the
rationale and structure of the book. Chapter 2 covers different manage-
ment theories with a nonfunctionalist perspective which could be used to
conceptualize workplace bullying as a management control strategy.
Critical approaches such as critical realism, critical theory, labor process
theory, and poststructuralism theories, Lukes’ (1974, 2005) third dimen-
sion power, and Foucault disciplinary discourses will be discussed along
with their effectiveness in making sense of workplace bullying as a short-­
term control mechanism. Chapter 3 discusses various methodological
issues, which may arise when investigating workplace bullying, and how it
lends itself to qualitative methods. The following chapter details different
types of qualitative methodologies emphasizing new and innovative meth-
odologies suitable to the changing nature of work and employment.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Part 2 consists of four chapters documenting four critiques on work-

place bullying within the corporate sector, healthcare sector, educational
sector, and nonprofit organizations within the United States. The essence
of these four chapters is to empirically support the assertions that work-
place bullying can be an outcome of the capitalist regime of the society.
Chapters 4 and 5 detail case studies from the private sector and the non-
profit sector. Chapter 6 uses qualitative interviews gathered from nurse
practitioners employed in hospitals to expose the various power and con-
trol forces existing within workplace bullying. Chapter 7 is a case study
from an academic institution.
Part 3 looks at the ethical implications of workplace bullying and at the
legal laws dealing with workplace bullying within the United States and
worldwide. Chapter 8 considers ethical issues which may arise by using
workplace bulling as a short-term management control strategy. The
chapter explores different outcomes of workplace bullying such as stress
factors, health-related long-term issues, and employee productivity.
Empirical data from Chaps. 4, 5, 6, and 7 will be integrated as needed to
support relevant theoretical arguments. Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13
discuss legal laws in place on workplace bullying at the organizational level
in the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Middle East
and Africa, Europe and the United Kingdom, and Asia. These five chap-
ters are comprehensive literature reviews on legal protections for work-
place bullying globally. Part 4 consists of Chap. 14, the concluding chapter,
which summarizes the book and suggests possible research directions.

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 CHAPTER 2

Workplace Bullying: The Critical Paradigm

Approach

2.1   Introduction
The origin of workplace bullying lies in the unequal equation of power
balance between the perpetrator and the target within an organization. It
is power which allows repeated hostile, humiliating, and intimidating acts
to be directed at the victim. Again, it is power which allows aggressive
behaviors and unfair treatment being legitimized as a forceful style of lead-
ership (Akella, 2016; Einarsen, 1999). To understand these dynamic
forces of power integrated within workplace bullying, and reasons for its
continuation despite its disastrous long-term consequences, it is necessary
to deconstruct workplace bullying within the parameters of power and
control ideologies. Researching the exigencies and contours of power
becomes essential to comprehend reasons, scope, and extent of workplace
bullying in organizations. Making sense of workplace bullying from a per-
spective other than a functional paradigm would enable unlocking and
exploring workplace bullying from a variety of fresh angles.
This chapter argues the need for a critical approach which can decon-
struct workplace bullying as a manager’s right, a tactic which is part of
their managerial style to control employees to get things accomplished in
an organization (Akella, 2016). Workplace bullying is no longer just a
personality or psychological disorder; instead, it emerges as a feature of the
employment system—an integral feature which ensures managers can
exercise control over their employees effectively (Akella, 2016). Section
2.2 revolves around features of CMS and its objectives. The subsequent

© The Author(s) 2020 11

D. Akella, Understanding Workplace Bullying,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46168-3_2
12 D. AKELLA

chapter sections discuss theoretical strands of CMS pertaining to critical

realism, critical theory, labor process theory, and post-structuralism. Four
different routes are identified by the author whereby workplace bullying
can be conceptualized as a “feature and outcome” of the contested forces
of an employment relationship (McIntyre, 2005).

2.2   Critical Management Studies

The mainstream theories of management or rather the functionalist per-
spective tend to provide a one-sided perspective of the managerial respon-
sibilities and organizational functions, while simultaneously favoring the
interests of a few elite groups at the expense of others and creating a soci-
ety of inequality and partiality leading to exploitation, discrimination, and
inequity. CMS takes its birth from these imperfections, rejecting the view
that all organizations are rational instruments which produce products
and services. Instead, CMS argues that all positive representations of orga-
nizations tend to portray a one-sided picture of the reality, only expressing
the ideologies of the elite (Alvesson, Bridgeman, & Willmott, 2009).
There is a dark side of business as well where employees are sexually
harassed, discriminated, and exploited, and the organizations pollute the
natural environment. All this negativity is concealed under the garb of
profitability. CMS seeks to overcome this limitation, this lack of critique in
management and organization studies. CMS introduces and applies criti-
cal perspectives (Alvesson et al., 2009) to “expose and reverse the work of
mainstream management theory” (Fournier & Grey, 2000, p. 18). CMS
aims at suspending the taken-for-granted notion of “this is the way we do
things around here” (Mingers, 2000) through deconstruction, reflection,
criticism, and emancipation (Akella, 2008). CMS believes that through
critical analysis of organizations and society it is possible to generate solu-
tions for current deep-rooted problems of racism, pollution, exploitation,
and discrimination (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992, 1996). The objective of
CMS “is to argue that the world does not have to be the way it is” (Akella,
2008, p. 102). CMS, as aptly summarized by Clegg and Dunkerley (1977,
p. 2), generates radical alternatives for “issues [such as] sexism, power and
capitalist development” through critique.
The ideologies of CMS can be traced to the philosophies of Adorno,
Foucault, Habermas, Horkheimer, and Marcuse (Antonacopoulou,
1999), which have influenced the theoretical strands of labor process the-
ory, critical theory, poststructuralism, literary criticism, feminism, cultural
 2 WORKPLACE BULLYING: THE CRITICAL PARADIGM APPROACH 13

studies, psychoanalysis, and environmentalism (Akella, 2008). CMS lays

its research foundation on three distinguishing characteristics of denatu-
ralization, nonperformance, and reflexivity (Fournier & Grey, 2000; Grey
& Willmott, 2005). Denaturalization refers to challenging the existing
order of things or the taken-for-granted way of world. For instance, capital
dominates labor, businesses are run for profit, whites are considered supe-
rior to blacks, and women are subordinate to men (Alvesson et al., 2009).
CMS is interested in going against this naturalized, current state of things,
arguing that these are manifestations of capitalist ideologies.
Nonperformance or anti-performativity feature denies that social relations
are instrumental means to maximize the surplus. The role of CMS here is
to reexamine organizational functioning within the frameworks of manip-
ulation and political strategies (Fournier & Grey, 2000). The characteristic
of reflexivity is described as a notion that allows researchers to overcome
the restrictions of positivist research, interrogate different assumptions,
reflect on conventional policies and knowledge, take sides in research,
advocate critically, question the status quo, and move towards emancipa-
tory change (Fournier & Grey, 2000). Nearly all CMS scholars support
the elements of denaturalization and reflexivity but raise objections about
the concept of anti-performativity. To overcome this opposition, the con-
cept of anti-performativity was redefined as critical performativity which
demanded that CMS scholars suggest emancipation strategies to promote
social change and design democratic working environments (Alvesson &
Willmott, 1996), where individuals can live and work together (Akella,
2008; Smallman, 2005).
To a large extent, all theoretical strands of CMS systematically integrate
and apply power and control ideologies. This chapter identifies four theo-
retical approaches within CMS such as labor process theory, critical the-
ory, critical realism, and post-structuralism as possessing philosophical
content to understand and investigate power and domination structures
existing within organizations and societies. The subsequent sections will
briefly discuss theoretical concepts of critical theory, critical realism, labor
process theory, and post-structuralism.

2.3   Critical Theory

Critical theory is one of the major strands of CMS, and its philosophical
content happens to be an integral part of CMS as well (Scherer, 2009).
Critical theory derives its roots from the enlightenment traditions and has
14 D. AKELLA

been heavily influenced by the philosophies and the writings of Adorno,

Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Habermas (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992).
Critical theory is focused on empirically investigating social conditions,
critically reflecting on the use of power and domination, and emancipating
human beings from their suppression and suffering (Alvesson & Willmott,
1992). The essence of critical theory is to “combine philosophy with
empirical study” to change the world in “an emancipatory direction”
(Alvesson & Willmott, 1992, p. 435). This theoretical framework strongly
advocates the need for people to be liberated from unnecessary power and
domination sources, traditional ideologies, and traditions (Fay, 1987;
Fromm, 1976; Habermas, 1971, 1984; Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947;
Marcuse, 1964). As stated by Alvesson and Willmott (1996, p. 511), criti-
cal theory is all about “the role of power in institutionalizing and sustain-
ing needless forms of oppression, confusion and suffering,” with an agenda
to expose all forms of domination through critique and emancipation.
Human beings need to be freed from suppression, dependency, and sub-
jugation. To achieve this objective, critical theory seeks to understand the
status quo, how individuals within a society are not autonomous from the
historical and cultural processes of the society, and how their conscious-
ness is regulated and manipulated by a few powerful elites
(Horkheimer, 1976).
Subjects are never free or autonomous. It is impossible to separate val-
ues from facts. Knowledge is itself a product of power and therefore can-
not be objective or neutral. The elements of reflexivity and emancipation
integrated in critical theory allow challenging oppressive structures, delv-
ing deep into the dominant forces to reveal underlying practices and their
connections to various historical and structural frameworks (Harvey, 1990).
To summarize, critical theory needs to deconstruct all oppressive social
conditions within the parameters of the historical and cultural frameworks
of the society. The researcher then needs to expose the various power
structures, to reveal the pain and suffering of the marginalized within the
organization or society. It involves engaging with power structures and
questioning current knowledge to understand how individuals are being
oppressed and controlled (Harvey, 1990). All critical theory projects are
critiques that are reflexive and emancipatory in nature (Akella, 2003).
 2 WORKPLACE BULLYING: THE CRITICAL PARADIGM APPROACH 15

2.4   Critical Realism

There are three distinctive types of realism dominant in social science and
management studies (Reed, 2009). The first is scientific realism followed
by theoretical realism and finally critical realism. Scientific realism focuses
on the “philosophical association between positivist epistemology and
methodology” (Reed, 2009, p. 54). Scientific realism believes that there is
an external reality that is independent of the researchers. All scientific the-
ories are true in terms of the entities and tenets they postulate. Scientific
theories and laws provide true facts about the social world and social phe-
nomena, both observable and unobservable aspects, regardless of how
they are interpreted. In this context of interpretation, scientific realism
also supports objective measurement, replication, prediction, and general-
ization of empirical data (Reed, 2009). Scientific theories can be consid-
ered as true knowledge about the universe and the society (Reed, 2009).
Theoretical realism argues that science is all about generation and valida-
tion of theories on structures and processes. In theoretical realism, all
theoretical assumptions are empirically tested to ensure their soundness
and authenticity. Theoretical realism combines deductive logic with
empirical verification of the social phenomena (Reed, 2009). Critical real-
ism scientifically explains how and why things happen in the way they do,
rather than in other ways (Reed, 2009). Ontological assumptions need to
be developed about the social world, the objects and entities it contains,
how these entities evolve and function, and the interrelations which might
exist between them and other objects or entities, before scientific research
can be undertaken. Scientific research is dependent on these ontological
assumptions, which shape the focus and direction of scientific research and
in trying to explain problems and paradoxes as they emerge in the social
world. Critical realism (CR) stresses on the importance of structured nar-
ratives which identify casual sequences and relationships and uses these
analyses to construct and defend explanations about how and why things
happen the way they do in the social world (Reed, 2009).
CR was inspired from the philosophies of Roy Bhaskar. CR enables
challenging traditional sociopolitical theories, scientific models and meth-
odologies, and paradigms of the mainstream business and management
studies (Reed, 2009). CR constitutes a philosophy of social science which
has been developed within the “realist intellectual tradition” (Reed, 2009,
p. 53). CR strongly argues for an ontological perspective of a society that
is mobilized by corporate agents who pursue their own interests and
16 D. AKELLA

values at the expense of other groups (Reed, 2003, 2005). These corpo-
rate agents usually occupy positions of power according to the sociohis-
torical requirements of society. This philosophy concentrates on examining
the emergence and reproduction of domination structures and their influ-
ence on different practices and policies prevailing within capitalist societies
(Reed, 2009). CR analyzes domination structures through which power is
generated over labor in different institutional and organizational arrange-
ments (Scott, 2001). This theory seeks to explore the modalities through
which corporate agents protect and advance their interests and values in
both corporations and institutions, that is, power mechanisms, control
modalities, manipulation strategies, and so on. Using a combination of
models and concepts, structures of power and domination which shape
the social world are deconstructed to provide insights on how social world
is organized to command and subjugate (Reed, 2009). CR deals with
questions such as, how is power exercised? What are the different sources
of power? What political skills are used by ruling elites in positions of
power and control in different domination structures (Scott, 2008)? CR
elucidates the relationship between elite agency and the domination struc-
tures via which power is generated (Scott, 2008). CR aims to be critical
with an emancipatory intent (Sayer, 2000). In CR, social structures, social
practices, and false beliefs are questioned, and their negative influence is
resisted. CR identifies and critiques false beliefs and their adverse effects
on social practices and structures. In this way, in CR new forms of intel-
lectual understandings and explanations are developed to overcome false
beliefs and perceptions of the society. Neo-Weberian control theory is one
theoretical manifestation of CR in action, which critiques organizational
control regimes and logics behind domination structures, to explore exist-
ing dynamic tensions and contradictions within the system (Reed, 2009).
CR thus enables detailed and in-depth appreciation of the assumptions
and objectives of CMS agenda.

2.5   Labor Process Theory

Labor Process Theory (LPT) is primarily a theory about the capitalist
labor process and the constrained workplace relations. LPT’s early con-
tributors consisted of Marx, Braverman, Edwards, Friedman, Burowoy,
and Littler, whose arguments dealt with the contested nature of employ-
ment, post-Fordism, de-skilling, and Taylorism (Alvesson et al., 2009).
LPT’s main concepts revolved around the capitalist society, management
 2 WORKPLACE BULLYING: THE CRITICAL PARADIGM APPROACH 17

and labor, production, and profitability. LPT explained that the whole
capitalist society could be divided into two parts, labor and management.
Labor was forced to sell its labor power in exchange for wages, while the
capitalist in possession of capital acquired instruments of production and
labor power to transform raw materials into products which she/he sold
in the market to earn a surplus. The capitalist’s main objective was to
maximize his/her surplus or profits (Braverman, 1974; Marx, 1970). The
era of industrialization introduced another class of employees, known as
management, who took over the responsibilities of coordination and con-
trol of the labor on behalf of the capitalists. Labor in the meantime, with
the introduction of mass production and division of labor, got reduced to
a mere commodity just like some machinery or a piece of equipment
which could be easily replaced in the entire manufacturing process
(Milkman, 1997). Labor got alienated from all production responsibilities
and was relegated to performing repetitive and monotonous tasks. The
capitalist system now consisted of the capitalists, management, and labor
with managers responsible for exercising effective control over the labor
(Leffingwell, 1925).
New types of social and technical frameworks, structures of power and
domination, were designed to effectively control labor. Control tech-
niques and measures, which would exercise totalizing control over labor,
minimize resistance and ensure absolute labor cooperation were conceived
(Burowoy, 1979; Edwards, 1979; Friedmann, 1977). Control measures
gradually became more insidious, indirect, and hegemonic to secure
employee compliance and cooperation (Akella, 2003). LPT theorists
became involved in discussing these various control techniques, both
direct and indirect, and the impact of these control systems on employees
(Burowoy, 1979; Edwards, 1979; Friedmann, 1977). Quality circles, busi-
ness process reengineering, knowledge management, and other employee
participatory programs were scrutinized under the LPT lens to recognize
their relationship with the capitalist system, with the contested nature of
management, with profit maximization, employee control, and resistance
elements (Edwards, 1979).
Later debates on the role of LPT raised concerns about the “missing
subject” (Willmott, 1990, p. 337). Somehow earlier discussions and
empirical research surrounding LPT had preferred the objective nature of
capital and ignored the subjectivity involved within the labor relationship
(Willmott, 1990). Knights, Willmott, Thompson, Friedman, and
O’Doherty were among a few labor process theorists who revised the core
18 D. AKELLA

concepts of LPT by acknowledging the concepts of subjectivity and agency

and their place within a capitalist relationship (Thompson & O’Doherty,
2009). In all structural issues, regimes of accumulation and domination,
in changing types of work and working relationships, in new organiza-
tional forms and the role of labor, the significance of the subject and his/
her identity was acknowledged (Delbridge, 2006). Subjectivity meant
considering the cognitive thinking process and emotions of the individu-
als, in this case the labor. Identity referred to the distinctiveness of the
labor in terms of their behavior, reactions, and actions in different conflict
situations (Thompson & O’Doherty, 2009). LPT research now showed a
shift in addressing issues pertaining to employee identities, worker identi-
fications, designing corporate clones using Foucault discourses, forms of
resistance, and surveillance mechanisms (Casey, 1995; Collinson, 1992;
Collinson & Knights, 1986; Knights & Sturdy, 1989; Taylor & Bain,
2003; Thompson & Marks, 2007; Thompson & O’Doherty, 2009).
LPT’s boundaries further widened with incorporation of discourses on
age, religion, gender, nationality, and so on when researching subjectivity
and constructing identities of labor. Attention was paid to how workplaces
and organizations, and the identity and subjectivity of labor, were institu-
tionalized according to the structural frameworks of the society (Thompson
& O’Doherty, 2009). The theory now concerned itself in understanding,
examining, and describing the realities of working environments and orga-
nizations, labor control and their struggle, domination techniques,
employee resistance strategies, and mechanisms to democratize work-
places through collaborative means of production (Thompson &
Newsome, 2004). LPT possessed a critical element, being critical of fac-
tors surrounding labor–management relations in an employment relation-
ship within capitalist systems.
LPT in the critical paradigm allows threshing out the labor–capital rela-
tionship, labor issues, labor conditions, in fact all labor experiences in a
capitalist system of production. But now, with special emphasis on liberat-
ing and emancipating the labor from exploitation and domination at the
hands of the capitalists and management, LPT in CMS enables unlocking
the complexed labor–capital relations, working environments, work pat-
terns, control strategies, and actions and reactions of the various actors
involved in the employment relationship through critiques (Thompson &
Harley, 2007). LPT took up the role of critical labor studies in the CMS
paradigm (Thompson & O’Doherty, 2009).
 2 WORKPLACE BULLYING: THE CRITICAL PARADIGM APPROACH 19

2.6   Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism emerged in France in the late 1960s and 1970s. Post-­
structuralism was an outcome of discussion with structuralists, such as
Saussure and Levi-Strauss. This stream of knowledge was influenced by
the writings of Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, and Deluze, among a few
(Jones, 2009). Post-structuralism has been attributed with three main fea-
tures: place of language, subject, and anti-essentialism (Finkelde, 2013;
Jones, 2009).
During the period of post-structuralism, corporate culture was identi-
fied as an effective medium whereby it was possible to understand the
feelings and emotions of employees and the norms and values which gov-
erned the workplace. It was possible to describe what was happening in
organizations by interpreting “the linguistics” being used within organi-
zations, that is, how people talked, communicated, and interacted with
each other (Jones, 2009). Post-structuralism also emphasized the role of
the subject and creation of identities or selves within organizations.
Research concentrated on designing perfect employees and techniques to
govern the soul of employees by encompassing their personal and profes-
sional lives within the confines of the office itself. The subject was now the
target of all managerial interventions. Different types of modalities, which
could intervene and exercise totalizing control over the employees, were
studied. Foucault’s works such as Discipline and Punish, Birth of the
Clinic, and Power and Knowledge became highly popular reads. Foucault
was mainly concerned with how power mechanisms affected individuals in
their daily lives. Power for him was omnipresent, reproduced at all levels
and dimensions. It was possible to create human subjects’ identity using
different types of power strategies (Foucault, 1977). Subjectivity was pro-
duced through an interplay between power and knowledge (Foucault,
1977). “Certain bodies, certain gestures, certain discourses, certain desires
[became] identified and constituted as individuals” (Foucault, 1977,
p. 98). An individual could be rendered knowable and his/her personality
could be developed by exercising power. Individual identity and subjectiv-
ity were not fixed and rigid. On the contrary, through proper usage of
power it was possible to create corporate clones for organizations and
model citizens for the society. The focus was now on knowledge creation
and using it to design effective power modalities (Alvesson & Willmott,
1992). “The exercise of power itself creates and causes to emerge new
objects of knowledge and accumulates new bodies of information … the
20 D. AKELLA

exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and conversely knowl-

edge constantly induces effects of power … it is not possible for power to
be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible to engender power”
(Foucault, 1980, p. 52). This nexus between power and knowledge came
to be known as biopolitics (Finkelde, 2013). The focus of research was
now on “how” power was exercised. Panopticon, timetables, and confes-
sions were some of the disciplinary measures suggested (Foucault, 1977).
Disciplines were able to exercise control over individuals and their move-
ments to ensure they operated according to the speed and efficiency
required by the organizational management (Foucault, 1977). The con-
cept of subjectivity was further clarified by Žižek (2008), who questioned
the identity of the subject and how political and social institutions influ-
enced the subject and his/her perspectives. However, instead of consider-
ing subject-positioning, he argued for the necessity to understand the
process of subjectivization. Subjectivism “designates the movement
through which the subject integrates what is given to them into the uni-
verse of meaning” (Žižek, 2005, p. 276). The subject became a precondi-
tion of subjectivization. An individual’s prior exposure, personality,
experience, and qualifications could influence the impact and outcome of
the power exerted on him/her (Žižek, 2008). Individuals are subjected to
interpellation, but it is not necessary that interpellation is always totalizing
in nature. The inadequacy of interpellation could reduce the effectiveness
of the power mechanisms resulting in the subject not conforming to his/
her role in totality. The individual would now be placed in a situation
where she/he constantly questioned and reflected about himself/herself
and his/her current position in the organization or society. Žižek’s (2005)
ideologies about subjectivity brought resistance issues under critical review
in post-structuralism.
The third element of post-structuralism revolves around the concept of
anti-essentialism, which means to criticize and then move forward in that
area by recommending positive changes. Essentialism is rooted in positiv-
ist thought which seeks to examine things as there are in their natural form
in an objective manner. In contrast, anti-essentialism supports ruthless cri-
tique of existing societal and organizational forms to move toward new
ways of knowing, that is, make small emancipatory contributions
(Jones, 2009).
 2 WORKPLACE BULLYING: THE CRITICAL PARADIGM APPROACH 21

2.7   Conclusion
To conclude the CMS paradigm with the four identified streams of knowl-
edge consisting of critical realism, critical theory, labor process theory, and
post-structuralism would be effective in critically reviewing workplace bul-
lying. It would enable critically researching workplace bullying, reasons
for its existence, and positive and negative outcomes for both employee
and organization. Each strand of CMS would approach workplace bully-
ing from a different episteme. However, all four conceptual frameworks
being a part of the CMS paradigm would focus on deconstructing work-
place bullying and on the power dynamics at play within organizations and
its ethical and legal implications. All four analyses would be critiques which
would build the argument that managers might consider bullying to be
their right, a part of their managerial style and legitimate authority to get
work done by their employees (Akella, 2016). All four critiques, being
CMS projects, would be emancipatory studies which would suggest rec-
ommendations to improve the workplaces and make them fairer and just.
The next chapter will deal with ontological, epistemological, and method-
ological issues pertaining to all four empirical studies covered in this book.

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 CHAPTER 3

Investigating Workplace Bullying

3.1   Introduction
The entire research process starts with clarification of one’s ontological,
epistemological, and methodological underpinnings. The researcher
approaches his/her research project by determining how she/he would
define the existence of reality and the outside world or rather his/her onto-
logical assumptions. How does she/he make sense of the phenomena and
research objects, see them, and understand their existence? The research-
er’s ontological assumptions determine his/her episteme and how to con-
struct reality or describe outside social phenomena. Epistemology is about
“how we know what we know” (Crotty, 1998, p. 8) or “the nature of the
relationship between the knower or would-be-knower and what can be
known” (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p. 201). The researcher’s episteme
underlines the entire research project and influences the choice of the the-
oretical framework, the research issues, methodology, and research meth-
ods (Crotty, 1998). Methodology is the way in which one approaches a
research problem and tries to answer the research issues—simply how
research is to be conducted (Akella, 2003).
It is therefore necessary to be clear on one’s metaphysical assumptions,
worldview perspectives, and basic belief systems or rather one’s positions
with regards to research inquiries and avenues. Different paradigms and
philosophies have been identified which assist resarchers in comprehend-
ing their research stance, their theoretical outlook, and eventually their
methodological choices to answer their research questions.

© The Author(s) 2020 25

D. Akella, Understanding Workplace Bullying,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46168-3_3
26 D. AKELLA

3.2   Meaning of Science

According to Taylor and Bogdan (1998), there are two research approaches
in social sciences: positivism and phenomenology. The first, positivism
belongs to the objectivism stream of investigation, which seeks facts or
causes of social phenomena and describes all scientific facts and relation-
ships in terms of quantification of empirical data (Guba & Lincoln, 1994;
Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). Scientific facts or social phenomena here are
external, outside influences on people and their behavior (Taylor &
Bogdan, 1998). Phenomenology, which belongs to the subjectivism
stream of knowledge, states that social phenomena is influenced by the
feelings, emotions, actions, and behavior of individuals. Scientific knowl-
edge or external reality is not independent of the individuals; on the con-
trary, it is influenced by their behavior and actions (Taylor & Bogdan,
1998). The role of the researcher here is to gather the descriptions of the
world from the social actors as they see it and experience it, and then con-
struct an impression of those narrative accounts (Ratner, 2008).
Guba and Lincoln (1994) pinpoint four paradigms which could further
guide and inform researchers when undertaking research: positivism (as
mentioned earlier), post positivism, critical theory, and constructivism.
Excluding the first and the second paradigms, all others can be bracketed
as primarily qualitative research approaches. Paradigms are a set of beliefs
which define for its holder the nature of the world and his/her role in it,
and relationships with the world and between its various parts. These
beliefs or principles establish one’s position in philosophical debates and
influence one’s definitions of truth and knowledge (Guba & Lincoln,
1994). Positivism to reiterate is hard data, scientific facts derived from
statistical and mathematical propositions, and hypothesis measured and
expressed in functional relationships, all valid and reliable of high quality
(Sechrest, 1992). However, human behavior, unlike physical objects, can-
not be measured and categorized into subsets of mathematical formulas.
Social sciences, unlike physical sciences, is about people, their feelings,
emotions, issues, and problems. Science would remain incomplete if the
mode of inquiry is limited to looking at social phenomena as they happen
and record them objectively. It is impossible to separate the researcher and
the research subjects, that is, “the knower and the known are inseparable”
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 37) because social research produces “multiple
constructed realities that can be studied holistically” (Lincoln & Guba,
1985, p. 37). All research needs to be conducted within the natural
 3 INVESTIGATING WORKPLACE BULLYING 27

setting, as “realities are wholes that cannot be understood in isolation

from their contexts” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 39). The researcher needs
to understand that she/he could also influence the complex interactions
taking place (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). And the research here and the
empirical data are a reconstruction of the combination of realities that
might exist, the researcher, the research subjects, and the natural setting
(Guba & Lincoln, 1989). For instance, in the second paradigm mentioned
by Guba and Lincoln (1994), there is an external reality independent of
the researcher, but unlike positivism, postpositivism believes that the
researcher can influence what she/he is observing. Empirical data can be
measured both quantitatively and qualitatively, and all hypotheses need to
be tested and falsified during the empirical analysis.
Critical theory belongs to the school of historical realism, which
assumes that all social structures need to be explained and understood in
the context of the historical and structural frameworks of the society. It is
impossible to separate the researcher from the human subjects. All empiri-
cal findings are therefore value mediated. Emphasis is laid on uncovering
the truth, emancipating the subjects from their suffering through critique,
and linking all empirical data with the historical struggle and divisions of
society (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). In case of the last paradigm, constructiv-
ism draws heavily from social constructivism, where external reality is a
product of the mental constructions of their human subjects, which is
socially and culturally influenced. These constructions are not perfect
images of the reality and are less informed and sophisticated. The investi-
gator here is more than a neutral and disinterested evaluator of the empiri-
cal data. She/he takes an active role in the entire empirical data collection,
influences, and is influenced by the human subjects, so all findings are
“literally created as the investigation proceeds” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994,
p. 111).
Each paradigm with its own assumptions of the reality and how it can
be accessed influences the research questions, relationships between the
investigator and the human subjects, and the choice of the research
method, that is, aim of the inquiry, nature of knowledge, knowledge accu-
mulation, and quality criteria. This study, as mentioned in Chap. 1, is
strongly advocating for a critique of workplace bullying within organiza-
tions, be it a healthcare or a private organization. In other words, the criti-
cal aspect emphasized in all the varied theoretical approaches of critical
realism, critical theory and labor process theory associates itself with the
ontological and epistemological underpinnings of critical management
28 D. AKELLA

studies (CMS) or the methodology of critical theory. The next section

discusses CMS, and how its ontological and epistemology assumptions are
suitable to investigate workplace bullying, and answers the focal research
question as to whether workplace bullying can be conceptualized as a
totalizing from of control mechanism. Methodological considerations are
also considered, and a broad research design is formulated to understand
the control element ingrained within workplace bullying from an effi-
ciency angle.

3.3   Workplace Bullying

and Critical Methodology

CMS under its broad umbrella encapsulates a variety of critical approaches

such as critical realism, postmodernism, labor process theory, feminism,
and critical theory. All these approaches are united in their skepticism
about knowledge being objective and value free which can be quantita-
tively measured (Duberley & Johnson, 2009). Scientific rationality and
objectivity are rejected for a pursuit of critique through different episte-
mological avenues with a singular emphasis on deconstruction and
reflexivity.
All philosophical commitments of CMS are focused on critique and can
broadly be encompassed under the bracket of critical theory and are heav-
ily influenced by the Frankfurt School and the perspectives of Habermas
(1971, 1984), Horkheimer and Adorno (1947), and Marcuse (1964).
Critical theory is motivated by the effort really to transcend the tension
and to abolish the opposition between the individual’s purposefulness,
spontaneity and rationality and those work processes and relationships on
which society is built. Critical thought has a concept of man [sic] as in
conflict with himself (sic) until this opposition is removed. (Horkheimer,
1976, p. 220)
The researcher has an agenda to expose the various forms of domina-
tion and manipulation techniques existing within the corporations and
societies to reveal the frustrations, sufferings, and exploitation undergone
by individuals as a result of the capitalistic and patriarchal practices. The
role of power in institutionalizing and sustaining regimes of domination is
explored by all critical research projects. An individual is considered not
separate from the historical and cultural practices of the society. Instead,
his/her consciousness and opinions are regulated and formed by the
 3 INVESTIGATING WORKPLACE BULLYING 29

media and the political forces existent within the society. A subject is never
free or autonomous. Therefore, all empirical data needs to be evaluated
within the historical structuration of the society. The instrumental ratio-
nalism in all scientific data needs to be acknowledged. Critical theory is
concerned with revealing how social values and interests are influenced
and reproduced by the power relations in force within societies. As
observed by Jermier (1998, p. 242), the researcher has the responsibility
to access and record the actors’ views and perspectives about their social
world, and then evaluate these observations within the socioeconomic
conditions which sustain the asymmetrical power relations. The “infor-
mants’ words, impressions and activities” need to be blended “with an
analysis of the historical and structural forces that shape the social world
under investigation.” The essence of critical theory is a “combination of
[these] philosophical values with empirical study” (Alvesson & Willmott,
1992, p. 435). It is an epistemology in which “knowledge and critique are
intertwined” (Harvey, 1990, p. 3). Research here is not just an accumula-
tion of facts but an analysis of the social processes to expose the underlying
manipulative and exploitative forces continuing to exist due to the histori-
cal and structural frameworks of the society (Akella, 2003).
This potent combination generates alternative organizational praxis of
more democratic forms of corporations and societies and creates aware-
ness of oppression and discrimination faced by the powerless groups. The
key words in critical theory are empowerment, emancipation, critique, and
displacement of ongoing management practices. All critical projects
attempt to “describe, analyze and open to scrutiny otherwise hidden
agendas, power centers and assumptions that inhibit, repress and con-
strain” (Thomas, 1993, p. 2). Attention is focused on exposing how ordi-
nary work and management practices disguise political struggles of power
and authority, and manipulate identities and social constructions (Forrester,
1992). Critical research requires critical interpretation of organizational
practices, ideologies, and power relations, where all practices need to be
approached from the angle of how one group undermines the interests of
another within a society or an organization (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000).
The normal order of functioning is challenged by critical theory,and all
processes and practices which look ordinary and rational get portrayed as
exotic (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000). Critical theory, thus, with its stance on
creation of democratic organizations and societies and humanization of
social practices, with emphasis on investigation of the subjectivities and
30 D. AKELLA

behavior of the social actors, influences the choice of research methodol-

ogy and research methods (Duberley & Johnson, 2009). The next section
reviews two popular research methods of critical theory.

3.4   Review of Critical Research Strategies

Critical theory is not empirically inclined because it is difficult to constrain
human behavior through observation or from interview extractions within
the structural frameworks of the society (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000).
Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000, p. 131) argue that it is not possible to go
around “asking people about their psychic prisons or false consciousness
or communicative distortions and so on.” People may not feel comfort-
able disclosing episodes and experiences about their pain and sufferings.
So far two popular research modalities of critical theory have been identi-
fied as critical ethnography and participative action research (Duberley &
Johnson, 2009).
Critical ethnography, unlike ethnography, goes beyond the informants’
reports and interprets reality within their socioeconomic contexts (Jermier,
1998). A conscious effort is made by the investigator to examine the views
of the informants critically, to look deep and “dig beneath the surface of
appearances”, to find out how “ideology or history conceals the processes
which oppress and control people” (Harvey, 1990, p. 3). Critical ethnog-
raphers also suggest alternatives to current existing scenarios, emancipate
individuals from their exploitation, and degrading working conditions.
Finally, there is a focus on reflexivity, the researchers constantly question
themselves, their own taken-for-granted assumptions and preconceived
notions (Duberley & Johnson, 2009). The researcher adopts the role of a
detective, is alert and reflective, and thinks and sees beyond what is visible,
spoken, and demonstrated by the informants. Critical ethnography is not
about what is seen but what is perceived and sensed. The researchers are
required to gain understanding of the social world at a local level within
the broader contours of relations of power. However, critical ethnography
fails to sufficiently help those being studied (Jermier, 1998; Jordan &
Yeomans, 1995) because it lacks their perspectives in their own words
about the various exploitation and discriminatory practices existing within
the organizations.
Critical action research, in contrast, implements necessary organiza-
tional changes which are emancipatory in nature. Action research projects
usually consist of change agents who collect evidence and then provide
 3 INVESTIGATING WORKPLACE BULLYING 31

remedies to resolve existing problems. The entire process is rational, tech-

nical, and detached. Concepts such as self-interests, reflection, and becom-
ing involved with the change recipients never enter the scene. However, in
critical action research, critical theorists reconstruct the entire role and
responsibility of the action researcher. The critical researcher critiques
organizational practices, deconstructs them according to cultural, social,
and historical contexts, creates awareness of domination and exploitation,
intervenes and challenges the powerful and their oppressive practices, and
designs more healthy organizations. Critical action projects enable giving
voice to the traditionally silenced groups by freeing them from the “insti-
tutional and personal constraints that limit their power” (Kemmis &
McTaggart, 1988, p. 23). The concepts of self-reflection and emancipa-
tion enable confrontation of power and status quo, going beyond the
conventional change modalities toward dialogue, learning, and
development.
To reiterate, both critical ethnography and critical action research effec-
tively meet the objectives of critical theory. Yet, both have deficiencies
which deem them inappropriate to study workplace bullying. Critical eth-
nography allows the investigator an opportunity to observe the partici-
pants in a natural setting. But, in the context of deconstructing workplace
bullying, the critical ethnographer would be required to “uncover, and
make visible to others” how management threatens and coerces employ-
ees to get work accomplished (Marcus & Fisher, 1986, p. 133). Episodes
of workplace bullying would be difficult for an ethnographer to observe
and capture unless she/he goes completely native during fieldwork. Such
type of access is only possible if the management is interested in investigat-
ing workplace bullying taking place within the corporation. And in this
study, where management itself is being held responsible for workplace
bullying it might not be possible to acquire such type of empirical access.
Further, in case of the second method, action research projects are usually
initiated by the management. This study insinuates that the top manage-
ment intimidates and threatens employees to effectively control them and
get work accomplished. This might not be something which management
of an organization might openly acknowledge, to initiate an action research
project. Therefore, both the methods were considered inappropriate for
this research study.
Workplace bullying as a management control technique is a sensitive
issue especially from a managerial perspective. Acquiring access into orga-
nizations might prove to be a difficult task. In addition to gaining access
32 D. AKELLA

into organizations, interpretation of what might be bullying would be dif-

ferent for each individual and could take different forms in different orga-
nizations. For instance, in this research study, workplace bullying will be
examined in the healthcare environment, academic setting, a nonprofit
organization, and a private company, where bullying could be conceptual-
ized using different terminologies and in different forms. It may not be
possible for the researcher to be aware of the intricacies of each profes-
sional culture in all organizational sectors, be thorough with the profes-
sional code of conduct, responsibilities of these professionals, the language
and expectations of the employees within each working environment. It
would be helpful if the participants themselves could describe their jobs,
working environments, and episodes of bullying experienced or witnessed,
that is, describe the phenomena of workplace bullying in their own words
in a dialogue initiated by the researcher.
In this context, the philosophy of phenomenology would allow over-
coming the problematic issues cited above. Phenomenology would allow
recording of narratives directly from the informants on field about how
their interactions with their managers at their place of employment could
be degrading and hurtful. It would also allow capturing the thoughts and
feelings of victims in their own words and the psychological damage which
bullying can do to them (Lutgen-Sandrik, 2013). But to go beyond the
mere descriptive narratives about the phenomena of workplace bullying,
to explore the bullying phenomena within the historical and economic
framework of the society, there is a need to integrate critical theory as well.
The author therefore decided to adopt a combination of critical theory
and phenomenology, described by Marsh (1988) as the philosophy of dia-
lectical phenomenology. The next section will discuss the ideology of dia-
lectical phenomenology and how it can be used to formulate a broad
critical research design for the four research projects to be covered in
this book.

3.5   Formulation of a Critical Research Design

Marsh (1988) argues that phenomenology should go beyond just being
descriptive, it should also be dialectical. Phenomenology should integrate
three major tasks: first, be hermeneutical devoted to the historical reduc-
tion of the past (Flinn, 1990); second, devote itself to the present happen-
ings; finally, be critical and look to the future. It is the last strand of
phenomenology which integrates the concepts of critical theory derived
 3 INVESTIGATING WORKPLACE BULLYING 33

from the Frankfurt School of Thought (Flinn, 1990). Unlike phenome-

nologists who are neutral and descriptive, the ideology of dialectical phe-
nomenology demands the researcher be suspicious and question all
empirical data within “capitalistic individualism and its handmaidens”
(Marsh, 1988, p. 215).
Marsh (1988) asserts that philosophy and theoretical reduction increase
the possibility of understanding the social phenomena better. In phenom-
enology, the world is established by the subjects; for them, objects outside
in the external world appear different at varying periods of time. Reflection
and critique are therefore needed in phenomenology. Social worlds need
to be constructed through perception, expression, and reflection. As a
method, dialectical phenomenology combines eidetic and descriptive
component with a hermeneutical and critical component (Marsh, 1985).
Hermeneutical component is twofold in nature, combining recollection
with suspicion. Recollection stands for “respectful openness” for experi-
ence and tradition while suspicion is critical “seeing through” of experi-
ence and tradition (Marsh, 1985, p. 177). True interpretation requires the
researcher to be attentive, intelligent, responsible, and critical. The
researcher should look for truth in phenomenological narratives, subject
them to historical distortions and dislocations. It is this critique element
which will unmask the ideologies that lurk behind workplace bullying.
Thus, ultimately it is the critical perspective of the researcher which
redeems tradition (Flinn, 1990). A critical perspective is where the
researcher “attempts to stand back from his/her work and interrogate
his/her findings with a critical eye” (Johnson & Duberley, 2000, p. 21).
Dialectic phenomenology would therefore allow the researcher to give
voice to the local actors’ experiences, give meaning to their phenomena
descriptions, and interpret these within a wider political, economic, and
historic framework to avoid only the voice of the powerful to be heard.
The corporate employees would interpret workplace bullying in their own
language and then the researcher would evaluate these interpretations
within the historical structuration of the society. To simplify, all descriptive
narratives of the informants about workplace bullying will be subjected to
critical scrutiny by the researcher.
This research study is interested in portraying workplace bullying as a
managerial control mechanism, concerned with “finding out how people
experience their lives and frame their worlds” (Richardson, 1973, p. 28).
The research method of in-depth, semi-structured interviews was
34 D. AKELLA

therefore considered appropriate to generate diverse voices on workplace

bullying, negative, skeptical, and affirmative.
Other research methods which might fit with the ontological and epis-
temological underpinnings of dialectical phenomenology would include
auto-ethnography, diary keeping, participant-led video diaries, and single
case studies using either one or a mixture of the dialectical phenomeno-
logical methods suggested. Auto-ethnography is a story of experience, as
recorded by the individual (Kempster & Parry, 2018). This research
method allows the researcher to stand in the “shoes of the respondent”
and observe the world through their written personal narratives (Kempster
& Parry, 2018, p. 169). This method is highly useful when examining top-
ics difficult to research such as sexual harassment, bullying, ethical dilem-
mas, and emotion management (Kempster & Parry, 2018). The researcher
reads the personal story of the informant, gains insights from the perspec-
tive of the victim, and after “understanding [his/her] subjective mean-
ings” effectively uses them “as the basis of social action” (Kempster &
Parry, 2018, p. 169). In the second method, the employees could be asked
to keep a diary and record all the bullying incidents which took place over
a duration of time. This would allow written narratives of the phenomena
in their own language. To allow a more structured flow of thought pro-
cesses, the researcher can provide the research participant with broad
guidelines on what she/he is looking for, that is, description of the bully-
ing incident, when it happened, who was present, the feelings and emo-
tions of the victim, and so on, to help him/her in recording the events in
his/her diary. The next method of participant-led video diaries is an
unconventional research method which is slowing gaining popularity as a
result of recent technological developments and easy availability of tech-
nology. The research participants can be requested to record their bullying
incidents on camera to develop participant-led video diaries, which can be
complemented later with narrative interviews (Whiting, Roby, Symon, &
Chamakiotis, 2018). Capturing real-time events, interactions between
people would provide the researcher with rich data of the actual bullying
incidents. Video diaries also allow the participant to select the incidents
and what she/he considers to be bullying experiences unlike critical eth-
nography where relevance of events is determined by the researcher.
Subsequent follow-up interviews would enable the researcher to ask for
clarifications and further questions as needed. Finally, the last method of
the research strategy of single case study is appropriate when the researcher
is focused on investigating a contemporary phenomenon in a specific
 3 INVESTIGATING WORKPLACE BULLYING 35

working environment (Yin, 1989). Single case studies allow critical testing
of a unique assumption, in challenging an existing theory, and can also be
revelatory in nature (Yin, 1989). Single case studies using a combination
of in-depth interviews with diary keeping or participant-led videos or criti-
cal ethnography can provide a researcher with rich critically phenomeno-
logical data.
This research study, encompassing four different research projects,
decided to use a combination of single case studies and in-depth inter-
views. Single case studies with in-depth interviews was used to explore
workplace bullying in academic environments, nonprofit organizations,
and a private corporation, while in-depth interviews were used to study
nurses and the bullying they faced in hospitals.
Regarding role of the researcher in the research process, it is under-
stood that research can never be value free. It is not possible for a researcher
to be neutral and disinterested. Values determine what we study and how
we approach and evaluate data and influence the overall presentation of
the empirical data. It is therefore better to acknowledge one’s values and
prejudices. It is not new in qualitative research to be political or to take
sides with one section of the society (Becker, 1967; Mills, 1959). In fact,
it is the responsibility of the researcher to understand their participants
and their problems. “It is the political task of the social scientist … to
translate personal troubles into public issues into the terms of their human
meaning for a variety of individuals” (Mills, 1959, p. 187). The author
decided to be political in this research study; she acknowledges that she is
cynical and a critic. To ensure that this research study does not become a
monologue of descriptive episodes of workplace bullying, she decided to
go beyond normative research functions and record, interpret, and report
her findings as a highly involved individual. The “drama of everyday life is
richly textured, multifaceted and dense” (Westwood, 1984, p. 3), and this
can only be reproduced if one transgresses the normalized boundaries of
the research process. The author decided to write from one perspective,
the perspective of the employees and how hurtful and humiliating work-
ing environments could be for them. The author also recommends estab-
lishing a rapport with one’s interviewees, to create a relaxed and informal
atmosphere. The interview questions should be shared with the interview-
ees before the interview process. This, she feels, increases the levels of trust
and generates good interview data (Jones, 1985). Moreover tape-­
rerecording of interviews ensures retrieval of data in an accurate form. It
allows the interviewer to concentrate on the interview, clarify
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 (Larger)

Map of Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts, adapted from a

modern chart for comparison with Champlain’s map of Port St.
Louis, to which it is adjusted as nearly as possible in scale,
extent, and meridian
Reproduced from the Champlain Society edition of The Works of Samuel de
Champlain, plate LXXIV. The compass is Champlain’s, which is supposed to
be set to the magnetic meridian, but the true north is shown by the arrow.

Champlain’s Plymouth visit occurred in 1605, two years after

Pring’s expedition. He had spent several days in Gloucester Harbor
and a night in Boston Harbor, where he had watched the building of
a dugout canoe by the Indians. Coming down the South Shore, his
bark grounded on one of the numerous ledges that dot that portion of
Massachusetts Bay. “If we had not speedily got it off, it would have
overturned in the sea, since the tide was falling all around, and there
were five or six fathoms of water. But God preserved us and we
anchored” near a cape, which perhaps was Brant Rock. “There
came to us fifteen or sixteen canoes of savages. In some of them
there were fifteen or sixteen, who began to manifest great signs of
joy, and made various harangues, which we could not in the least
understand. Sieur de Monts sent three or four in our canoe, not only
to get water but to see their chief, whose name was Honabetha.—
Those whom we had sent to them brought us some little squashes
as big as the fist which we ate as a salad like cucumbers, and which
we found very good—We saw here a great many little houses
scattered over the fields where they plant their Indian corn.”
The expedition now sailed southward into Plymouth Harbor. “The
next day [July 18] we doubled Cap St. Louis, so named by Sieur de
Monts, a land rather low, and in latitude 42° 45’. The same day we
sailed two leagues along a sandy coast as we passed along which
we saw a great many cabins and gardens. The wind being contrary,
we entered a little bay [Plymouth] to await a time favorable for
proceeding. There came to us two or three canoes, which had just
been fishing for cod and other fish, which are found there in large
numbers. These they catch with hooks made of a piece of wood, to
which they attach a bone in the shape of a spear, and fasten it very
securely. The whole thing has a fang-shape, and the line attached to
it is made out of the bark of a tree. They gave me one of their hooks,
which I took as a curiosity. In it the bone was fastened on by hemp,
like that in France, as it seemed to me. And they told me that they
gathered this plant without being obliged to cultivate it; and indicated
that it grew to the height of four or five feet. This canoe went back on
shore to give notice to their fellow inhabitants, who caused columns
of smoke to rise on our account. We saw eighteen or twenty
savages, who came to the shore and began to dance.” Was this a
reminiscence of dancing to the guitar for Pring’s sailor, perhaps?
“Our canoe landed in order to give them some bagatelles, at which
they were greatly pleased. Some of them came to us and begged us
to go to their river. We weighed anchor to do so, but were unable to
enter on account of the small amount of water, it being low tide, and
were accordingly obliged to anchor at the mouth. I went ashore
where I saw many others who received us very cordially. I made also
an examination of the river, but saw only an arm of water extending a
short distance inland, where the land is only in part cleared up.
Running into this is merely a brook not deep enough for boats except
at full tide. The circuit of the Bay is about a league. On one side of
the entrance to this Bay there is a point which is almost an island,
covered with wood, principally pines, and adjoins sand banks which
are very extensive. On the other side the land is high. There are two
islets in this bay, which are not seen until one has entered and
around which it is almost dry at low tide. This place is very
conspicuous from the sea, for the coast is very low excepting the
cape at the entrance to the bay. We named it Port du Cap St. Louis,
distant two leagues from the above cape and ten from the Island
Cape [Gloucester]. It is in about the same latitude as Cap St. Louis.”
 (Larger)
New England

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND, 1614

Reproduced from the Pequot Collection, Yale University Library

Champlain’s map of Plymouth Harbor, which is reproduced

herewith, was a quick sketch which he drew from the end of Long
Beach after his vessel went aground there, probably during the
afternoon of their arrival. Since the expedition stayed in Plymouth
Harbor only over one night, too much accuracy of detail must not be
expected of it. Saquish Head is represented as an island, and no
distinction is made between Eel River and Town Brook. Plymouth
Harbor has probably shoaled a good deal since the early
seventeenth century, since it would now be impossible to find a
seven-fathom anchorage anywhere except immediately around
Duxbury Pier Light; yet Champlain’s anchorage in the middle of
Plymouth Bay is so designated. Martin Pring had even described a
landlocked anchorage in seven fathoms. The chief value of
Champlain’s little map, aside from confirming the locality, is its
evidences of very extensive Indian houses and cornfields occupying
much of the slopes above the shore all the way around from the Eel
River area through Plymouth and Kingston to the shores of Duxbury
Bay.
The expedition left Plymouth on July 19 and sailed around the
shores of Cape Cod Bay before rounding the Cape and arriving the
next day at Nauset Harbor in Eastham. During several days’ stay
there, a French sailor was killed by the Indians in a scuffle over a
kettle. The following year, when Champlain returned to Cape Cod, a
more serious disaster occurred. Four hundred Indians at Chatham
ambushed and massacred five Frenchmen in a dawn raid, then
returned and disinterred their bodies after burial. The French took
vengeance by coolly slaughtering half a dozen Indians a few days
later. But, like the English adventurers, the French then abandoned
Massachusetts and never returned. Champlain reported that in all
his travels he had found no place better for settlement than Nova
Scotia. Two years later, changes of plans in France transferred him
to Quebec, where he spent the remainder of his career laying the
foundations of French Canada along the St. Lawrence.
Massachusetts Indians had again rebuffed the threat of European
penetration.
We have already noted that while Champlain was in
Massachusetts, George Waymouth and Martin Pring had been
exploring Maine. The coördination of these exploratory voyages was
largely the work of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a diligent organizer of
New England colonial preparations. In 1606 the administrative
architecture of the English colonial movement in America was built.
King James gave charters to two companies, the London Company
and the Plymouth Company, providing for settlements respectively in
what came to be known as “Southern” and “Northern” Virginia. The
successful colony at Jamestown was founded by the London
Company in 1607. The coincident attempt by the Plymouth
Company, organized by Gorges, and the Popham and Gilbert
families, to found a colony on the Kennebec River in Maine failed
after a year’s trial. This Sagadahoc Colony failure was a blow to New
England colonization, the effects of which lasted for a generation,
since the impression of New England as a subarctic area, impractical
for settlement, remained in English minds for many years. It needs to
be emphasized, however, that despite this setback to English hopes,
the loss of fortunes invested in the enterprise, and the breakdown of
the Plymouth Company produced by this failure, the enterprise had
come much nearer to success than Humphrey Gilbert’s attempted
colony in Newfoundland. Much was learned about techniques of
living in the new country, getting along with Indians, and the need for
continuous replacement and supply. These ventures were
hazardous: they required courage, teamwork, strong leadership, and
personnel of heroic wisdom and tenacity.
After the Sagadahoc failure, the pattern of English activity on the
New England coast reverted for five years to the former state of
occasional trading and fishing voyages. The only events that
touched even remotely on Plymouth history were Cape Cod visits of
three men from different areas of activity. In 1609 Henry Hudson
landed briefly on Cape Cod on his way from Maine to his
explorations of the Hudson River which led to the Dutch claims in
that region. Samuel Argall from Virginia in 1610 likewise saw Cape
Cod on a voyage designed to supplement Jamestown’s failing food
supplies with New England codfish. And in 1611 Captain Edward
Harlow, sent on an exploring voyage to the Cape Cod region by the
Earl of Southampton, seems to have had five skirmishes with Indians
on Cape Cod and the Vineyard. Harlow’s vessel was attacked by
canoes while at anchor, and lost a long boat being towed astern to
the Indians, who thereupon beached her, filled her with sand and
successfully prevented the English from retaking her. Harlow
returned to England with little except five captured natives. Among
them was Epenow, an Indian whose treachery later accounted for
the death of Captain Thomas Dermer.
In 1613 the French fur-trading activities on the Bay of Fundy
were supplemented by an ambitious project to establish a Jesuit
missionary colony in that region. But this second French attempt to
colonize Maine was nipped in the bud after only a few weeks by Sir
Samuel Argall’s armed cruiser, sent from Virginia for the purpose.
This ended the threat of France as a colonial power in New England
except for occasional incursions into eastern Maine.
The year 1614 opened with a visitor to Plymouth from a new
quarter. Dutch fur traders, following in the wake of Henry Hudson’s
1609 discoveries, were already at work in the Hudson River. Two of
them, Adrian Block and Hendrick Christiansen, were about to weigh
anchor from Manhattan and depart for the Netherlands with a cargo
of furs in the fall of 1613 when one of their ships caught fire and
burned to the water’s edge. Both crews therefore stayed over the
winter on Manhattan Island, and there built a new “yacht,” the
Onrust, which they felt must be given a shakedown cruise before
attempting the Atlantic crossing. Block therefore sailed her eastward,
the first passage of Long Island Sound by a European, and explored
the Connecticut shore and rivers, Narragansett Bay and the Cape
Cod region, to all of which he laid claim for the Dutch as “Nieu
Nederlant.” Contemporary Dutch accounts offer us little of interest
about the Massachusetts phases of this voyage except some sailing
directions in Massachusetts Bay that suggest that Adrian Block
sailed from a place called Pye Bay, usually identified with Salem, to
the Lizard on the English Channel. But the Figurative Map which he
published in 1616 as a part of his report to the States General of the
Netherlands contains many additional details to which Dutch names
are applied, including a wholly unmistakable outline of Plymouth
Harbor, here called Cranes Bay. From this it seems obvious that
Block did visit Plymouth in the spring of 1614, and may be
considered as yet another of its explorers. It would be interesting to
know whether any of the Leyden Pilgrims, living in the Netherlands
for four years after the map’s publication, ever saw it before setting
out for the New World. In view of the controversy over whether the
Pilgrims were indeed headed for the Hudson River, it is interesting to
note that this map of Adrian Block’s would have been the most
accurate one available to them as a guide to the New York region,
yet there is nothing in the Pilgrim chronicles to suggest that they had
it with them on the Mayflower.
Also in 1614 there came sailing into Plymouth Harbor a man
whose map and writings were used by the Pilgrims, though he said
that they refused his advice and his leadership. Captain John Smith
would like to have been the founder of New England, but had to be
content to be its Hakluyt. He named New England, and “Plimouth,”
and Massachusetts, and the Charles River and Cape Ann—at least
he was the first to publish these names. He produced the best
known map of New England of that early period. He spent the last
seventeen years of his life writing the history of New England
voyages and pamphleteering for its settlement. Yet a succession of
misfortunes prevented him from ever revisiting the coast for which he
developed such enthusiasm during his three months’ voyage in
1614. Smith had already been governor of Virginia and had
experience in what it took to plant a successful colony. His writings
had unquestionably a strong influence on the Massachusetts colonial
undertakings, particularly since he was not afraid of Indians and
since he recognized the difference between the bleak coast of Maine
and the relatively better-situated Massachusetts area as a site for
colonial development.
John Smith arrived at Monhegan Island in Maine in April, 1614,
with two vessels. In the smaller of these he spent his time exploring
and mapping the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod, much as
Champlain had done nine years earlier. Thomas Hunt in the larger
vessel remained at Monhegan, fishing. Reaching “the Countrie of the
Massachusetts, which is the Paradise of all those parts,” Smith
entered Boston Harbor. “For heere are many Iles all planted with
corne: groves, mulberries, salvage gardens, and good harbours: the
coast is for the most part high clayie, sandie cliffs. The Sea Coast as
you passe, shews you all along large corne fields and great troupes
of well proportioned people; but the French, having remained heere
neere six weeks left nothing for us.” At Cohasset he wrote: “We
found the people in those parts verie kinde, but in their furie no lesse
valiant. For upon a quarrell we had with one of them, hee onely with
three others, crossed the harbor of Quonahassit to certaine rocks
whereby wee must passe; and there let flie their arrowes for our
shot, till we were out of danger,—yet one of them was slaine, and
another shot through his thigh.” His description of Plymouth, which
was variously known as Patuxet or Accomack, immediately follows
the Cohasset episode quoted above: “Then come you to Accomack,
an excellent good harbor, good land, and no want of anything except
industrious people. After much kindnesse, upon a small occasion,
wee fought also with fortie or fiftie of those; though some were hurt,
and some were slaine; yet within an hour after they became friends.”
In another passage he adds, “we tooke six or seven of their
Canowes which towards the evening they ransomed for Bever
skinnes.” Apparently Smith supplied a motive for the resumption of
friendship, knowing that the Indians could be bought off. This was
the kind of Indian policy Myles Standish used at times; in fact there is
a certain resemblance between the two men. In any case Smith left
for England with a cargo of beaver, and the Indians of Plymouth got
back their canoes.
But the next visitor to Plymouth, still in 1614, did not leave as
good an impression. With Smith departed for England, Thomas Hunt
appeared in Plymouth Harbor in Smith’s larger vessel. Not content
with a hold full of Monhegan codfish, Hunt now kidnaped twenty or
more Plymouth natives, stowed them below decks, and sailed away
to Spain, where he sold them into slavery at Malaga, “for £20 to a
man.” This was a typical seaman’s private venture, or side bet to the
profits of the codfish cargo. John Smith wrote that “this wilde act kept
him [Hunt] ever after from any more emploiment in those parts.”
Samuel Purchas termed Hunt’s “Savage hunting of Savages a new
and Devillish Project.” One can imagine what bitterness grew toward
the English among Massachusetts Indians after this demonstration
of European barbarism.
The quirks of history are at times worthy of the most fantastic
fiction. Thomas Hunt’s universally condemned crime happened to
produce one result which proved of great advantage to the Pilgrims.
Among the twenty wretched Plymouth natives whom Hunt sold at the
“Straights of Gibralter” was an Indian named Squanto. Then began a
five-year European education which trained Squanto for his
irreplaceable services to the Pilgrims as their interpreter. Squanto
was rescued by good Spanish friars, “that so they might nurture [him]
in the Popish religion.” In some unknown manner he reached
England and continued his education for several years in the
household of one John Slany, an officer of the Newfoundland
Company. His subsequent travels will appear in our discussion of
Thomas Dermer’s voyage in 1619. It is sufficient at this point to note
that perhaps the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon the Pilgrim
Fathers was the gift of a treacherous English shipmaster, a Spanish
Catholic friar, and an English merchant adventurer.
Things were going badly in another area of Massachusetts
during that eventful year of 1614. As though the expeditions of Block,
Smith, and Hunt were not sufficient for one year, Nicholas Hobson
now made his appearance at Martha’s Vineyard. Sent out by Sir
Ferdinando Gorges in an attempt to establish a fur-trading post in
that region, Hobson was using the Indian, Epenow, captured by
Harlow’s expedition in 1611, as his pilot through the shoals of
Nantucket Sound. Epenow cleverly contrived his escape, and a full-
scale battle ensued. “Divers of the Indians were then slain by the
English, and the Master of the English vessel and several of the
Company wounded by the Indians.” Hobson’s party “returned to
England, bringing nothing back with them, but the News of their bad
Success, and that there was a War broke out between the English
and the Indians.” Increase Mather later remarked that “Hunt’s
forementioned Scandal, had caused the Indians to contract such a
mortal Hatred against all Men of the English Nation, that it was no
small Difficulty to settle anywhere within their Territoryes.”
It was at this point in history that another strange series of
events took place, of much more far-reaching significance. With
English expeditions defeated and sent back to England empty-
handed, with an Indian war “broke out,” fate, or Providence, or
whatever you call that destiny which seems at times to intercede for
civilization in its remorseless quest for progress, now took a hand.
Some European disease, to which the natives had no resistance and
the Europeans complete immunity, swept the coasts of
Massachusetts clear of Indians. Suddenly it appeared in all the river
villages along the Mystic, the Charles, the Neponset, the North River,
and at Plymouth. No one knows what it was—whether chicken pox
or measles or scarlet fever. The Indians believed it was the product
of a curse leveled at them by one of the last survivors of a French
crew wrecked on Boston Harbor’s Peddock’s Island in 1615. By
analogy with what later happened to other primitive races in the
Americas and the Pacific islands, it was probably one of the
children’s diseases. The Indians died in thousands. A population of a
hundred thousand shrank to five thousand in the area from
Gloucester to New Bedford. “They died on heapes,” Thomas Morton
wrote, “and the living that were able to shift for themselves would
runne away and let them dy and let there Carkases ly above the
ground without buriall.... And the bones and skulls upon the severall
places of their habitations made such a spectacle after my comming
into those parts that as I travailed in that Forrest, nere the
Massachusetts, it seemed to mee a new-found Golgotha.”
Overnight the Indian war had vanished. Overnight the coast from
Saco Bay in Maine to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island lay wide
open to European settlements. The cleared fields along the rivers
and salt marshes grew up to weeds, ready for the spade of the
English planter. For twenty miles inland the land was cleared of the
Indian menace in precisely the area where they had been most
agricultural, in what John Smith had called the “Paradise of all those
parts.” The choicest sites for plantations, at the river mouths and
along the tidal reaches of Boston Bay, Salem, Gloucester, and
Plymouth, were stripped of opposition. Beaver, deer, and codfish
multiplied unhindered. Smith’s description of Plymouth, “good harbor,
good land and no want of anything but industrious people,” was now
doubly true of the whole mainland shore of Massachusetts Bay.
These conditions were confirmed by Captain Thomas Dermer in
1619. Dermer had been associated with John Smith and Ferdinando
Gorges in an attempted New England voyage in 1615, and was
probably familiar with the coast. He was in Newfoundland in 1618
and there became acquainted with Squanto, who had been living in
the household of John Slany in England. Squanto’s European stay
was now completed, and someone had brought him out to
Newfoundland. Dermer appreciated how valuable he might prove to
be in a trading voyage to Massachusetts, and secured permission
from Governor John Mason of Newfoundland, and also from Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, to use him as a pilot for a Massachusetts
voyage.
Arrived in Massachusetts Bay, Dermer wrote: “I passed alongst
the coast where I found some ancient Plantations, not long since
populous now utterly void, in other places a remnant remaines but
not free of sickenesse. Their disease the Plague for wee might
perceive the sores of some that had escaped, who describe the
spots of such as usually die.” Reaching Plymouth, which, we
remember, was Squanto’s home, he goes on: “When I arrived at my
Savages native Country (finding all dead) I travelled alongst a daies
journey Westward, to a place called Nummastaquyt [Nemasket or
Middleboro], where finding Inhabitants I dispatched a messenger a
dayes journey further west to Poconokit, which bordereth on the sea;
whence came to see me two Kings; attended with a guard of fiftie
armed men, who being well satisfied with that my Savage and I
discoursed unto them—gave me content in whatsoever I
demanded.” At Poconokit he “redeemed a Frenchman, and
afterwards another at Mastachusit,” victims of shipwreck three years
before. What a chronicle these two castaways might have added to
Massachusetts history had their memoirs been preserved!
Squanto now found himself the only survivor of those two
hundred or more natives of Plymouth whom Martin Pring and
Champlain and John Smith had encountered. We note that he
brought the Englishmen of Dermer’s party into friendly association
with the sachems of Poconokit, which was Massasoit’s village at the
mouth of the Taunton River. This was the first friendly contact with
Massachusetts Indians in five years, the first since the criminal
barbarity of Thomas Hunt had aroused the enmity of the natives in
1614. We can read between the lines what a reconciliation the
homecoming of Squanto, himself a victim of that barbarous
kidnaping, must have produced among the Wampanoags. For
Dermer freed Squanto later, in 1619, and he found his way back to
Massasoit before the arrival of the Pilgrims. Whether Sir Ferdinando
Gorges or Dermer himself was responsible for this peacemaking
gesture, we have no way of knowing, but it seems to have cemented
again a long-standing peace between the English and the
Wampanoags, which was worth a whole battalion of soldiers to the
safety of New Plymouth. Captain Thomas Dermer, who probably
never heard of the Pilgrims, thus brought them peace. The Indian
war was ended.
It is therefore the more tragic that Dermer died of Indian arrow
wounds the next year after a battle with Epenow of Martha’s
Vineyard, an Indian captive who had not made peace with the
English. Had Epenow, instead of Squanto, lived at Plymouth, history
might have run quite differently. Captain Thomas Dermer may be
considered the first of the Plymouth martyrs, who lost his life after
saving a New Plymouth that did not yet exist, though the Mayflower
was on its way when he died.
It is a strange commentary on the justice of history that the men
who had spent their lives on New England colonization had almost
no share in the first successful plantation in Massachusetts. We
have seen what an outpouring of futile struggle men like Gorges and
Smith and Dermer had expended on the failures that set the stage
for the Pilgrims. It was now to fall to the lot of a group of English
exiles, who had lived twelve years in the Netherlands, to arrive by
accident in Massachusetts at the precise moment when the
merchant adventurers, whom they despised, had succeeded in
producing the conditions for success. The Pilgrim legend is well
founded, in the tribute it pays to the forthright courage and
persistence of the forefathers, but it ignores their utter dependence
on the maritime renaissance of England as the foundation on which
their success rested. The line of succession stemming from the
exploits of Drake and Hawkins and the ships that sank the Armada
carried directly on into the efforts of Gosnold, Pring, Gorges, Smith,
Hobson, and Dermer to set the stage for Plymouth. The fur trade and
the fisheries by which New Plymouth finally paid off its creditors had
been painstakingly developed by many hazardous years of
experiment by small shipowners of Bristol and Plymouth and other
smaller havens in the west of England. Faith in New England
ventures, so nearly destroyed by the Sagadahoc failure, had been
kept alive and sedulously cultivated by a little group of earnest men
around Gorges and John Smith, so that money could be available to
finance even the risky trading voyages necessary to keep a foothold
on the coast. We have seen how recently peace had been made
with the Indians.
The Pilgrims ascribed all these blessings to acts of Providence in
their behalf. But Providence has a way of fulfilling its aims through
the acts of determined men. Any visitor to Plymouth who reveres the
Pilgrims should also honor those representatives of the glorious
maritime energies of the Old World whose discoveries and
explorations prepared the way for permanent settlement. To them
also applies the phrase which Bradford used of the Plymouth
colonists:
“They were set as stepping-stones for others who came after.”
 Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found in the
original book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was
obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between
paragraphs and outside quotations.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY
EXPLORERS OF PLYMOUTH HARBOR, 1525-1619 ***

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