Restructuring and workplace bullying in the Australian public sector

This article examines links between organisational restructuring and workplace bullying. It draws on the international workplace bullying literature and data gathered from a study into workplace bullying in Australian public sector organisations. The study’s findings show that while the literature presents workplace bullying as a problem of individualised behaviour, policy actors were more likely to identify how different and intersecting organisational factors such as restructuring interact to produce the power relations necessary to facilitate and support bullying as a legitimate organisational strategy. In fact, in some instances subjects presented the organisation itself, through restructuring policies and practices, as perpetrator. Further, these findings challenge the efficacy public sector policies to respond adequately to workplace bullying.