The legal definition and practical restriction of Workplace bullying through the internal investigation process: the legal consciousness analysis
This article investigates how the legal definition of workplace bullying is interpreted, constrained, and reconstructed through internal investigation processes in organizational settings. Using law and society scholarships, it applies the concept of legal consciousness to examine how internal investigators understand, apply, and reshape legal norms concerning workplace bullying. Based on interviews from internal investigation officers, the study reveals that internal investigations do not simply implement legal standards but actively participate in reinterpreting and redefining them, sometimes in ways that limit the protective scope of anti-bullying norms and align with the organizational interests.
Specifically, this author identifies legal ambiguity as a central factor that enables this discretionary space. Workplace bullying has a rather open legal definition, and this vagueness allows internal actors to maneuver within a gray zone where interpretation becomes a function of institutional priorities and subjective judgment. Rather than strictly adhering to word-by-word legal doctrine, investigators filter complaints through organizational filters, aligning their conclusions with internal risk management goals, power hierarchies, and normative assumptions.
A key finding of the study is that investigators and the deciding committee often exercise strategic discretion in determining whether reported conduct constitutes bullying. The complaint may be reframed as a misunderstanding, a communication breakdown, a management issue, or an interpersonal conflict, thereby avoiding the stigma and obligations associated with a bullying determination. Moreover, internal investigators themselves are not neutral arbiters, but are often embedded within the organizational hierarchy and are influenced by their interests and biases.
The article concludes that internal workplace investigations are not merely compliance mechanisms, but also performative legal spaces where the meaning of “bullying” is actively negotiated, contested, and at times suppressed. This process reflects broader tensions in the implementation of workplace law, where informal governance structures shape, and sometimes undermine, formal legal protections.