Breathers, Releases, Outlets and Pauses: Employee Resistance in the Context of Depersonalized Bullying

Authors

Premilla D'Cruz, Indian Institute of Management AhmedabadFollow

Abstract

Drawing on a study rooted in van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology, conducted with agents working in international - facing call centers in Mumbai and Bangalore, India, this paper describes employee resistance to depersonalized bullying. Data were gathered through conversational interviews and subjected to selective and sententious thematic analyses. The theme of ‘breathers, releases, outlets and pauses’ captures both the various behaviours that participants engaged in to gain respite from and to acquire control over their oppressive work environment and the factors that determine their behaviours, namely, their professional identity and their job - related material gains. The findings not only further our understanding of the nascent concept of depersonalized bullying but also retheorize power dynamics in the context of workplace bullying

Keywords

Workplace bullying, power, routine resistance, subjectivity, call centers, India

Publication Date

9-9-2013

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2013.1471

Recommended APA Citation

D'Cruz, P. (2013). Breathers, Releases, Outlets and Pauses: Employee Resistance in the Context of Depersonalized Bullying. The Qualitative Report, 18(36), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2013.1471