Organizational Justice and Workplace Bullying: Lessons Learned from Externally Referred Complaints and Investigations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The presented contribution is interesting and topical.

However, the paper contains some formal and content shortcomings that need to be addressed.

I recommend an explicitly state the main goal of the manuscript or of the study in the abstract, or introduction of the manuscript. There are some dubious statements in the manuscript, e.g. line. 1, bullying is a global?... psychosocial risk, lines 35 – 36, wellbeing of ... organizations?

I recommend supplementing the methodology with information on why such old cases were used in the study. The society-wide situation is different, they could have changed, e.g. legislative directives, management generation shifts ...

I consider it insufficient the sequence of headings without any insight into the subchapters, e.g. (lines 116 and 117, 347 to 349).

The paper is unnecessarily structured in detail, e.g.  subchapters 2.4, 3.2, 4.2, 4.3 are too short to be separate subchapters.

The conclusion should only contain a summary of the most important findings of the manuscript. Discussing other findings or support with the findings of other authors should be part of the discussion.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable insights and suggestions. We have made a number of amendments to the paper accordingly. Changes made in the manuscript are marked using track changes and we respond to your comments in italics below. 

Thanks for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The presented contribution is interesting and topical.

However, the paper contains some formal and content shortcomings that need to be addressed.

I recommend an explicitly stating the main goal of the manuscript or of the study in the abstract, or introduction of the manuscript.

Thank you for the suggestion, we agree the core premise of the study could be more clearly communicated in the introductory sections of the paper. Accordingly, the abstract and first paragraph of the introduction have been updated to reflect the study aim (i.e., understanding how organisational justice manifests in externally referred cases of workplace bullying).

There are some dubious statements in the manuscript, e.g., line. 1, bullying is a global?... psychosocial risk, lines 35 – 36, wellbeing of ... organizations?

Thank you for your comment. We have reviewed the manuscript to remove any superfluous or grandeur declarations. We have retained wording regarding the health and wellbeing of organisations however, as this is a common phrase in the field that depicts all aspects of working life, from the quality and safety of the physical environment, to how workers feel about their work, their working environment, the climate at work and work organization) (please see International Labour Organization (2021). Workplace well-being, https://www.ilo.org/safework/areasofwork/workplace-health-promotion-and-well-being/WCMS_118396/lang--en/index.htm, for further information) 

I recommend supplementing the methodology with information on why such old cases were used in the study. The society-wide situation is different, they could have changed, e.g., legislative directives, management generation shifts ...

Thank you for your comment. We have supplemented the discussion with a paragraph that overviews how the current legislative guidelines may have impacted the handling of workplace bullying cases since the harmonisation of legislation in Australia 2014. However, as the focus on this paper relies on perceptions of justice regarding internal processes, we do not believe the manuscript is hindered by the timing of the cases – individuals’ assessment of their mistreatment in light of violations in organisational justice still constitute valid (and needed) perceptions of the internal complaint and investigative process.

I consider it insufficient the sequence of headings without any insight into the subchapters, e.g. (lines 116 and 117, 347 to 349).

Our manuscript provides a general opening that overviews the problem, links it to a specific research question, and proposes our approach to addressing the question. This general overview signals the content to follow, which is unpacked in detail in each sub-section to position our work in respect to the field and build the rationale for the study. We welcome further specific guidance on how to refine this section.

The paper is unnecessarily structured in detail, e.g., subchapters 2.4, 3.2, 4.2, 4.3 are too short to be separate subchapters.

Thank you for your comment, we agree the overuse of subheadings disrupts the flow of manuscript. We have subsequently removed subheadings 2.4, 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.2, 4.3. We have, however, maintained subheading 3.2 Data Analysis, as we believe this is signifies an important distinction between the methodological design and approach, and the handling of this unique and complex dataset.

The conclusion should only contain a summary of the most important findings of the manuscript. Discussing other findings or support with the findings of other authors should be part of the discussion.

Thank you for your suggestion. We agree with your evaluation of the value of the conclusion and have substantially altered the paragraph to reflect the key findings and contributions of the study.

Reviewer 2 Report

Organizational justice and workplace bullying: Lessons learned from complaints and investigations

This paper identifies perceptions of organizational justice in a sample of requests for external investigation following bullying incident(s) in Australian workplaces where the internal process did not solve the problem in a satisfactory way for the complainants. The paper argues that understanding perceptions of organizational justice in handling incidents of workplace bullying will aid in the design of action plans to tackle workplace bullying. While I agree that the premise of the paper is very relevant and interesting I do not believe that the paper has the data to answer the hypotheses they formulate. Let me elaborate:

The premise that the way an internal complaint about workplace bullying is handled in a company is relevant for the overall level of bullying in the organization (do we take workplace bullying serious) and the consequences for the individual seems very realistic. One can easily imagine that a poorly handled case may exacerbate the consequences of bullying. Understanding how organizational justice is perceived in this process therefore seems highly relevant as this may aid us in designing effectful strategies for handling these processes. However, the data available for the authors is requests to SafeWork for external investigations. This includes cases where the internal process failed, where the processes did not result in a satisfactory solution and importantly cases where the complainant has the resources to follow the case through at another instance. The cases do not include all the cases that were handled successfully, neither do they include those cases where the grievance was so high that complainants didn’t have the resource to initiate another investigation or where they have left the workplace. This selection is highly relevant in both formulating the hypotheses and interpreting the results. In my opinion the authors are not able to investigate their research question how do issues of organizational justice manifest during the internal workplace bullying complaint and investigation process since they only have a subset of the internal workplace bullying complaint and investigation processes.

I therefore propose to change the angle of the paper. For example, could you instead utilize the data to say something about the characteristics of those cases not solved by the internal complaint and investigation process (still acknowledging that the individuals who are harmed the most probably won’t try the case again)? For example, it is very interesting to see that a lot of the organizational injustice points to faulty procedures.

Additional comments:

Could you code the cases according to the characteristics and then make a cross table of some sort to make it evident how many percent of all cases point at e.g. procedural justice.

There seems to be a large difference in the number of cases in the different tables – this such be discussed in the paper – both the reasons and the consequences of this attrition to the entire analyses

It would be interesting to see a cross-table of e.g. the perpetrator and the organizational justice perceptions. Could it be that a specific type of injustice is more apparent where the perpetrator is a leader, CEO, etc. This would also give indications of where to point ones attention in specific types of cases. It may be that e.g. procedural injustice happens more when the CEO is the perpetrator.

Could you also divide the perceptions across gender? E.g. does men and women perceive the same types of injustice? They appear to experience different types of bullying and have different coping strategies so this seems relevant.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable insights and suggestions. We have made a number of amendments to the paper accordingly. Changes made in the manuscript are marked using track changes and we respond to your comments in italics below.

Organizational justice and workplace bullying: Lessons learned from complaints and investigations

This paper identifies perceptions of organizational justice in a sample of requests for external investigation following bullying incident(s) in Australian workplaces where the internal process did not solve the problem in a satisfactory way for the complainants. The paper argues that understanding perceptions of organizational justice in handling incidents of workplace bullying will aid in the design of action plans to tackle workplace bullying. While I agree that the premise of the paper is very relevant and interesting, I do not believe that the paper has the data to answer the hypotheses they formulate.

Let me elaborate:

The premise that the way an internal complaint about workplace bullying is handled in a company is relevant for the overall level of bullying in the organization (do we take workplace bullying serious) and the consequences for the individual seems very realistic. One can easily imagine that a poorly handled case may exacerbate the consequences of bullying. Understanding how organizational justice is perceived in this process therefore seems highly relevant as this may aid us in designing effectful strategies for handling these processes. However, the data available for the authors is requests to SafeWork for external investigations. This includes cases where the internal process failed, where the processes did not result in a satisfactory solution and importantly cases where the complainant has the resources to follow the case through at another instance. The cases do not include all the cases that were handled successfully, neither do they include those cases where the grievance was so high that complainants didn’t have the resource to initiate another investigation or where they have left the workplace. This selection is highly relevant in both formulating the hypotheses and interpreting the results. In my opinion the authors are not able to investigate their research question how do issues of organizational justice manifest during the internal workplace bullying complaint and investigation process since they only have a subset of the internal workplace bullying complaint and investigation processes.

I therefore propose to change the angle of the paper. For example, could you instead utilize the data to say something about the characteristics of those cases not solved by the internal complaint and investigation process (still acknowledging that the individuals who are harmed the most probably won’t try the case again)? For example, it is very interesting to see that a lot of the organizational injustice points to faulty procedures.

Thank you for your insightful comment. We do agree that the scope of the paper is inaccurately portrayed by generic references to internal cases of workplace bullying, and hence have amended descriptions of the sample throughout the manuscript to refer to “externally-referred bullying cases”. 

While a more thorough investigation of this relationship may plausibly include a range of evaluations of the internal handling of bullying cases (i.e., successful, and unsuccessful internal investigations, referral to external bodies, etc.), we note a number of difficulties in conducting such research. First, generating sufficient complaint data from internal investigations where a favorable outcome was reported is unlikely to yield a sufficient number of cases to conduct a meaningful analysis (over a 3–4-year period, as the average organisation is unlikely to process more than handful of bullying complaints per year).

Additionally, in cases where violations to justice are minimized (or even considered), it is likely that an ethical infrastructure is present (e.g., Psychosocial Safety Climate; Bakker & Dollard, 2010). Thus, analysis of such cases must then consider how this overarching systematic factor influences the investigative process (and whether cases of bullying escalate at all).

Dollard, M. F., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to conducive work environments, psychological health problems, and employee engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(3), 579-599.

Finally, it is unlikely that organisations would volunteer information regarding the complaint and investigative process, for fear of reprimand (i.e., demonstrated failure to appropriately handle the risk of bullying within their organisation) and potential violations to employee confidentiality and privacy. The analysis of externally referred cases (as conducted here) thus allows a favorable ‘medium’ whereby pertinent information regarding organisational processes and procedures are voluntarily made available and verified by an appropriate body.

Additional comments:

Could you code the cases according to the characteristics and then make a cross table of some sort to make it evident how many percent of all cases point at e.g., procedural justice.

Thank you for your suggestion. Through our reanalysis of the 287 valid cases, we have now included an additional table in the results that displays the percentage of cases where each organisational justice type manifests, along with corresponding text (see Page 14).

There seems to be a large difference in the number of cases in the different tables – this such be discussed in the paper – both the reasons and the consequences of this attrition to the entire analyses

Thank you for your comment. This issue pertains to the breadth of information contained in the case files (as outlined in the method). We have attempted to address this limitation by re-coding all 345 cases to extract further datapoints and detailing the reasons for discrepancy in total evaluations/data points extracted at the bottom of each table.

It would be interesting to see a cross-table of e.g., the perpetrator and the organizational justice perceptions. Could it be that a specific type of injustice is more apparent where the perpetrator is a leader, CEO, etc. This would also give indications of where to point one’s attention in specific types of cases. It may be that e.g., procedural injustice happens more when the CEO is the perpetrator.

Thank you for your suggestion. This is an interesting premise, especially where the perpetrator was the investigating/actioning body of the complaint (i.e., would there be a higher proportion of distributive justice where the perpetrator was investigating the complaint). However, our re-analysis of all 289 cases to check for this association noted no associations between perpetrator nor investigator and type of organisational justice. We believe readers may hold similar question, and as such have added a footnote on Page 14 that provides this information.  

Could you also divide the perceptions across gender? e.g., does men and women perceive the same types of injustice? They appear to experience different types of bullying and have different coping strategies, so this seems relevant.

Thank you for your suggestion. We agree that the evaluation of justice by gender is an interesting and worthwhile line of research that could be served well by the current dataset. However, we feel that the question warrants a separate manuscript (where, as suggested, associated coping strategies are also captured).