Employee and Managerial Approaches to Cyber Mistreatment—Implications for Human Resource Management
(2025) In International Journal of Bullying Prevention- Abstract
The emergence of cyber mistreatment among frontline workers in their digital interactions with customers, clients and patients represents a significant but relatively new work environment risk within the service sector. Human resource management has a key role in digital transformation, which includes securing safe and healthy workplaces and fostering sustainable practices for handling cyber mistreatment. Departing from the context of the educational sector, the aim of this study is to analyse how cyber mistreatment is managed in workplaces and to explore the approaches employed to prevent and mitigate its negative impact. By identifying existing approaches, gaps in sustainable HRM practices can be identified. Qualitative methods were... (More)
The emergence of cyber mistreatment among frontline workers in their digital interactions with customers, clients and patients represents a significant but relatively new work environment risk within the service sector. Human resource management has a key role in digital transformation, which includes securing safe and healthy workplaces and fostering sustainable practices for handling cyber mistreatment. Departing from the context of the educational sector, the aim of this study is to analyse how cyber mistreatment is managed in workplaces and to explore the approaches employed to prevent and mitigate its negative impact. By identifying existing approaches, gaps in sustainable HRM practices can be identified. Qualitative methods were used to explore teachers’ and principals’ experiences of cyber mistreatment and their approaches to handling and preventing such exposure. The empirical data are based on in-depth interviews with 31 informants (16 teachers and 15 principals) using a cross-sectional design. The data were analysed using a qualitative content analysis framework. The study clearly shows that the approaches utilised to address cyber mistreatment are predominantly reactive and individual-centred, with few proactive and organisationally anchored approaches identified. These findings implicate the need for HRM to develop ethical organisational approaches that do not force service workers to resort to individual coping strategies. We suggest sustainable and ethical approaches that target the problems rather than the symptoms, and that work against a normalisation of cyber mistreatment within the service sector.
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- author
- Forssell, Rebecka Cowen ; Jönsson, Sandra LU and Berthelsen, Hanne
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- keywords
- Coping strategies, Cyber mistreatment, Educational workers, Human resource management, Organisational outsiders, Reactive and proactive approaches, Work life
- in
- International Journal of Bullying Prevention
- publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85218151994
- ISSN
- 2523-3653
- DOI
- 10.1007/s42380-025-00289-2
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a900ca36-c853-43e8-9d16-66cd0c1dd443
- date added to LUP
- 2025-07-04 09:08:00
- date last changed
- 2025-07-04 09:09:15
@article{a900ca36-c853-43e8-9d16-66cd0c1dd443,
abstract = {{<p>The emergence of cyber mistreatment among frontline workers in their digital interactions with customers, clients and patients represents a significant but relatively new work environment risk within the service sector. Human resource management has a key role in digital transformation, which includes securing safe and healthy workplaces and fostering sustainable practices for handling cyber mistreatment. Departing from the context of the educational sector, the aim of this study is to analyse how cyber mistreatment is managed in workplaces and to explore the approaches employed to prevent and mitigate its negative impact. By identifying existing approaches, gaps in sustainable HRM practices can be identified. Qualitative methods were used to explore teachers’ and principals’ experiences of cyber mistreatment and their approaches to handling and preventing such exposure. The empirical data are based on in-depth interviews with 31 informants (16 teachers and 15 principals) using a cross-sectional design. The data were analysed using a qualitative content analysis framework. The study clearly shows that the approaches utilised to address cyber mistreatment are predominantly reactive and individual-centred, with few proactive and organisationally anchored approaches identified. These findings implicate the need for HRM to develop ethical organisational approaches that do not force service workers to resort to individual coping strategies. We suggest sustainable and ethical approaches that target the problems rather than the symptoms, and that work against a normalisation of cyber mistreatment within the service sector.</p>}},
author = {{Forssell, Rebecka Cowen and Jönsson, Sandra and Berthelsen, Hanne}},
issn = {{2523-3653}},
keywords = {{Coping strategies; Cyber mistreatment; Educational workers; Human resource management; Organisational outsiders; Reactive and proactive approaches; Work life}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Springer International Publishing}},
series = {{International Journal of Bullying Prevention}},
title = {{Employee and Managerial Approaches to Cyber Mistreatment—Implications for Human Resource Management}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42380-025-00289-2}},
doi = {{10.1007/s42380-025-00289-2}},
year = {{2025}},
}