THE PHENOMENON OF WORKPLACE BULLYING: A FOCUS ON TEMPORARY WORKERS FROM SELECTED INDUSTRIES IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA

ABSTRACT: Workplace bullying is a rising phenomenon in today’s organizational settings.As a wellresearched topic in academia, it has been adjudged as abuse, manipulation, exploitation, mistreatment, ill-use ormisuse of power in a workplace. The study observed that, Nigerian organizational/institutional structures andtraditionsencouraged bullying behaviorsgenerated at any level(upward movement’s trends, horizontal linebulling, or downward workplace bulling).This acts was believed to have persistently created feelings ofdefenselessness among various categories of workers in an organization,especially those on temporary basis orthe ad hoc staff therefore undermining their right to dignity, self-worth, self-respect, self-esteem and formality atwork. The study, through a quantitative research method,investigated why temporary staff in a workplace aremore vulnerable to workplace bulling. However, arising from the findings of the study, recommendations onhow to control workplace bulling on temporary staff were made.

Keywords: workplace bullying; temporary staff; organization; workplace.