SPAEF: Public Administration & Management: An Interactive Journal -- Table of Contents

1999

Kuotsai Tom Liou, Editor

Understanding Violence In The Workplace: Social And Managerial Perspectives
Kuotsai Tom Liou

This symposium examines the issue of workplace violence from social and managerial perspectives. While the social perspective refers to an understanding of the general characteristics and impact of American history, culture, and societal attitudes, the managerial perspective focuses on the identification of sources and causes of violence in modern organizations as well as the development of appropriate prevention strategies and management plans. The current introduction paper first addresses the importance of recognizing workplace violence as one of the top managerial issues. It then provides an overview of literatures on major issues related to the study of workplace violence. The paper concludes with a summary of findings presented in each symposium paper.

A Theoretical Perspective On Violence Against Governmental Authority
Gregory G. Brunk, C. Kenneth Meyer, and Laura Ann Wilson-Gentry

The ultimate sources of some anti-authority violence lie at the societal level and these cannot be remedied easily by public policy. Therefore, to understand anti-authority violence it is first necessary to address the sources, the justifications, and ramifications of violence in American society. This paper identifies some factors that are particularly associated with attacks on governmental authority figures.

Breaking the Habit of Violence
Willa Bruce

Bruce argues that physical violence in the work place is a manifestation of the spiritual and psychological violence created by downsizing, cost-cutting, supervisory ineptitude, and criticism of workers. The hearts and souls of the American worker are damaged by a violation of personhood as insidious as the physical acts which get reported in the national news. Violence begets violence. Violence is a habit that must be broken.

Bruce suggests that the work place can be recreated by an individual acknowledgement of a Power greater than one's self. She offers a Twelve Step Program, Violence Perpetrators Anonymous, as a way that this can happen.

Dealing With Workplace Violence in Georgia’s Cities and Counties
William L. Waugh, Jr. and Lloyd G. Nigro

Using the fears of workplace violence expressed by public employees as a reference point, this analysis examines the responses of city and county governments in the State of Georgia to the threat of external and internal violence. As a preliminary assessment of the responsiveness of city and county governments to the problem of workplace violence, officials in Georgia local governments with populations of 50,000 or higher were asked about both their perceptions of the threat and the specific actions taken by their governments to address it. While personal concerns and preparations were described, few officials indicated that their governments have formulated policies and implemented programs to address the problem. High percentages of officials, however, indicated that they expect more violence on a scale similar to the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City and that public employees are at greater risk than private sector employees.

A Work Force Under Siege: A Gendered Perspective On Women In Military Service
Meredith A. Newman

The workplace is increasingly becoming a hostile environment for many employees. To date, the focus of much of the research on this issue has been on occupational violent crime (OVC). This essay looks beneath the veneer of OVC to an examination of the gendered nature of much of this violence. Using a conceptual framework of a continuum of violence (from incivility -- to sexual harassment and sexual abuse -- to fatal violence), Newman demonstrates the hazards for women at work. She develops and illustrates her arguments by reference to women in the military, with its quintessential male-dominated organizational culture and structure. She concludes that the dynamics of gender power are central to a better understanding of violence at work.

Preventing Violence in the Workplace: Threat Assessment and Prevention Strategies
D.S. Chauhan

Chauhan argues that since there is no quick fix to the resolution of complex problems associated with violence in the workplace, a multi-disciplinary approach is needed to analyze the causes of violence and to identify effective educational and training strategies to enhance the understanding of private and public sector managers in dealing with organizational violence. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) examine the sources or causes of organizational violence; (2) assess the threats and warning signs; (3) identify employer responsibilities; and (4) specify major violence prevention strategies and components of a violence management program.

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