”Bland människor uppstår det alltid saker, konflikter och spänningar” : En kvalitativstudie om enhetschefers arbete kring mobbning och kränkande särbehandling.

Bullying is a daily recurring event in Swedish workplaces. Previous research show that the leader of the workplace is often pointed out as one of the most common reasons for workplace bullying, and that leaders often lack knowledge on what expressions bullying might take, and also how to prevent it. Previous research is mainly based on statements from employees, which is why this study aims to investigate social work executives view on bullying in their workplace. Seven semi structured interviews with seven social work executives were held. The questions during the interview revolved around bullying in general and how the executives sought to prevent this. Furthermore the interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed. Results show that the executives seemed to know what bullying might look like, but that the definition of bullying does not cohere with their experiences of it. Furthermore the results also show that the executives have difficulty describing how they work to prevent bullying, due to a lack of guidelines on how to do this. Finally, executives difficulty of handling workplace bullying is discussed since results also show that some of the executives interviewed for the study is not altogether satisfied with the way bullying is handled in their work place. (Less)