Author
Listed:
- Rachel L. Morrison
- Terry Nolan
Abstract
Purpose - The purpose this paper is to expand upon existing knowledge of this important topic by providing an expanded inventory of the causes and consequences of having enemies at work. Design/methodology/approach - Qualitative data were collected from 412 respondents using an internet‐based questionnaire with respondents spanning a wide range of occupations, industries and nationalities. Using a structured methodology for handling a large data sample of qualitative responses, emergent thematic categories are identified and explained by means of verbatim text. Findings - It was found that several aspects of the work environment directly exacerbated or created negative relationships which, in turn, negatively impacted respondents' experiences of work. Findings illustrate some strongly held employee expectations of behaviour and felt‐obligations defining both formal and informal organisational roles. Research limitations/implications - The findings discussed here emanate only from data emphasising negative relationships at work. A study into other relational factors may provide interesting and important points of comparison as well as serving to overcome the inevitable bias towards the negative within this inquiry. Practical implications - The conclusions present a number of important challenges to employers and managers for anticipating and dealing with negative co‐worker relationships. Employees seek an equitable and reciprocal relationship with their organisations. An important lesson for management is that workers expect and depend upon their managers to provide support and assistance in overcoming negative workplace relationships. Originality/value - The data, discussions and conclusions are derived from specific questions which have not previously been expressed in the literatures.
Suggested Citation
Rachel L. Morrison & Terry Nolan, 2007.
"Negative relationships in the workplace: a qualitative study,"
Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 4(3), pages 203-221, October.
Handle:
RePEc:eme:qrampp:v:4:y:2007:i:3:p:203-221
DOI: 10.1108/11766090710826646
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:qrampp:v:4:y:2007:i:3:p:203-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.