Prevalence of Workplace Bullying among IT Professionals in India: A Comparison of Self- labelling and Behavioural Experience Method

Workplace bullying is persistent exposure to repeated negative behaviours at workplaces. Scholars have highlighted that it is a serious issue and is prevalent across the globe. This research aims to assess and compare the prevalence of bullying based on two measurement methods, to identify the prevalent bullying behaviours and to identify the perpetrators of workplace bullying. Data were collected from 190 employees working in Information Technology companies in India. Results indicate higher levels of prevalence of bullying using behavioural experience (40.5%) as compared to the self-labelling method (17.4%). The results highlight that the difference between the number of victims and non-victims based on two measurement methods were statistically significant. Hence, the study suggests that a combination of two methods has to be used while measuring the prevalence of bullying. Results suggest that work-related behaviours were more common as compared to person-related, intimidating and career-related behaviours. Results also show that supervisors were the main perpetrators of bullying, indicating that downward bullying is predominant than horizontal and upward bullying. (C) 2021 INT TRANS J ENG MANAG SCI TECH.