From Bureaucracy to Startups: How Workplace Bullying Is Talked About on Online Employee Communities

Abstract

Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as a serious social and organizational problem with detrimental effects on employees’ well-being and productivity. While previous research has primarily focused on individual-level experiences or legal/policy frameworks, relatively little attention has been paid to how organizational characteristics—such as size and sector—shape the nature and discourse of workplace bullying. This study addresses this gap by analyzing user-generated content on Blind, a widely used anonymous platform for Korean employees. Using topic modeling techniques, we examine bullying-related discourse across four organizational types: public institutions, large companies, midsize companies, and small firms/startups. Our findings indicate that workplace bullying manifests differently across organizational types. In public institutions, it is characterized by hierarchical pressure and institutional rigidity; in large companies, by a sense of systemic helplessness and trauma following reporting; in midsize companies, by structurally embedded abuse rooted in informal power networks; and in small firms, by interpersonal conflict, gendered divisions of labor, and dissatisfaction with broader Korean workplace culture. These findings highlight the structural and cultural dimensions of workplace bullying and demonstrate how anonymous digital platforms can amplify marginalized employee voices. The study offers a more differentiated understanding of organizational variations in bullying discourse and underscores the need for tailored interventions based on workplace context.