Joking behaviours and bullying from the perspective of Australian Human Resource Professionals

This paper examines the views of human resource professionals (HRPs) and employee representatives on joking behaviours and the potential link to workplace bullying in Australia. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 HRPs and five employee (union) representatives. Contextual factors stemming from Australian culture and historic characteristics of work in this country are discussed. The findings indicate that the legal framework – specifically, the definition of bullying and related legislation such as health and safety laws and equal employment opportunity legislation – is key for HRPs in establishing whether joking behaviours transgress into bullying. Implications for HRPs including ‘boundary’ management of joking behaviours are discussed and some ideas for future research are presented.