Public defense of the dissertation “Workplace bullying in Estonian organizations: The prevalence and causes” written by Merle Tambur

The public defense of the dissertation is on 29 June 2015 at 10.00 in room A312, Narva Rd 4, Oeconomicum, University of Tartu.T

Supervisor: Prof Maaja Vadi (PhD), University of Tartu, Estonia

Opponents: Prof Ruth Alas (PhD), Estonian Business School, Estonia

Prof Dana Mesner-Andolšek (PhD), University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Title: Workplace bullying in Estonian organization: The prevalence and causes

The workplace bullying represents a very serious problem in many countries because of the considerable harmful impact to employees, organizations and to whole society. However, workplace bullying is so far an unexplored topic in post-transitional countries (the countries, which have passed the transition from centrally planned economy to market economy), its prevalence and causes are unclear and there have no societal debates about bullying. The aim of the present dissertation is to identify the prevalence and causes of workplace bullying in Estonian organizations in example of a post-transitional country.

The results of the present dissertation reveal that bullying presents a serious problem in Estonia. Compared to Western and Northern European countries the risk groups of workplace bullying are not clearly identified and workplace bullying affects a wider range of employees. Therefore, the prevention in post-transition countries should be more general involving employees at all levels. According to the results of the study, the organizational culture that tolerates negative behavior represents the main antecedent of workplace bullying. Strong task and relationship orientation of organizational culture have a positive effect to employees´ behavior. The study confirms that the values of the new generation of managers (tenure up to 10 years) have changed, their awareness of negative behaviour is higher, compared to the managers with longer tenure. The study demonstrated managers´ general willingness to deal with the prevention and awareness of their role in tackling bullying via management style.

Individuals, organizations and society should be involved in the process of prevention in order to decrease the occurrence of workplace bullying in organizations. The surrounding environment has a significant impact on individuals´ pattern of behaviour, and therefore planning and performing national long-term preventive policy of workplace bullying should be the priority.