Workplace Violence: Global Perspectives through a Sociological Lens

Rising physical and psychological violence and category-based harassment at work globally (ILO, 2022) has been met with a growing policy focus to address the phenomenon (D’Cruz et al., 2021), including ILO Convention 190. Whereas psychological theories (e.g., Five Factor Model, Job-Demands Resource Model, Affective Events Theory; Branch et al., 2021) and methods (e.g., psychometric scales, experiments) have been extensively engaged to examine workplace violence, there is an urgent need for a sociological focus to deepen the extant insights (Berlingieri, 2015; Fevre, 2021; Hoel and Beale, 2006). Sociological approaches will not only expand the theoretical lens (e.g., conflict theory, critical theory, postcolonialism/decolonialism; Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2022), but also draw attention to macro foci (e.g., context) and field-based research (e.g., lived experiences, ethnographies). We, therefore, welcome papers engaging sociological theories, foci and research methods, from both Global North and Global South, covering standard and non-standard work, situated in global production networks or locally, across economic sectors and jobs/occupations/professions, speaking to interpersonal or depersonalized violence, enacted by workplace members or outsiders (suppliers, contractors, customers/clients), in real/in-situ or cyber/virtual forms, reflecting D’Cruz and Noronha’s (2021) Varieties of Workplace Bullying framework and its interface with category-based harassment. Further, recognizing the multiplicity of actors in situations of workplace violence, we invite studies from across the globe, focusing on targets, perpetrators, bystanders/witnesses, employers, interventionists, unionists, etc. Finally, acknowledging the urgency of eliminating physical and psychological violence and category-based harassment at work, we welcome research from across the world, documenting prevention and intervention efforts tackling the phenomenon.