Workplace Violence

Definitional and Conceptual Issues

Workplace violence subsumes both fatal and nonfatal forms of aggression—behavior intended to harm others. The literature on workplace violence has always stressed that the phenomenon includes an array of behaviors both overt and covert in form. For example, at one extreme, this would include murder, rape, and assault with or without weapons, and destruction of property. Additional examples of overt behavior include pushing and shoving, verbal threats, intense arguments, belligerency, and other expressions of hostility. Regarding more covert behavior, many workplace violence researchers include the spreading of damaging rumors or gossip, failing to protect the target's welfare, and sabotage, which by its very nature is meant to inflict harm on individuals and organizations through covert means.

Although the literature on workplace violence has included physical, verbal, active, and passive forms of aggression, such as those mentioned earlier, some researchers draw a distinction between [Page 809]the terms workplace aggression and workplace violence. For example, Joel H. Neuman and Robert A. Baron view workplace aggression as any form of behavior directed by one or more persons in a workplace toward the goal of harming one or more others in that workplace (or the entire organization) in ways the intended targets are motivated to avoid. We reserve the term workplace violence for the most serious instances of direct physical assault within work settings. Consequently, all forms of violence involve aggression but not all forms of aggression are classified as violence. Regardless of this definitional distinction, workplace violence is not synonymous with, or confined to, workplace shootings.

Another point that requires clarification is the relationship of perpetrators and victims and the underlying motive(s) for the act. Consistent with work done by the California Division of Occupational Health and Safety (Cal/OSHA) and the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center, researchers have adopted a typology that classifies workplace violence into four categories. Type I violence includes violence perpetrated by criminal intruders or organizational outsiders who enter the workplace to commit a criminal act (e.g., armed robbery). In Type II violence, the perpetrators are customers, clients, students, or patients—that is, individuals that have a “business” relationship with the organization. Individuals in the service sector are at greatest risk for this type of violence—health care workers, social workers, and retail employees. School shootings also would fall into this category. Type III violence involves organizational insiders, including current and former employees. This category most frequently comes to mind when one thinks about workplace violence. Finally, Type IV violence involves perpetrators and victims who have a personal relationship—cases of domestic violence that spill into the workplace.

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