The generation and maintenance of workplace bullying among teachers in Chinese private universities: a constructivist grounded theory study

Workplace bullying has become an increasingly salient issue in higher education, particularly within private universities where governance arrangements and employment conditions differ substantially from those of public institutions. Existing research has largely focused on individual risk factors or outcomes, offering limited insight into how workplace bullying is generated and sustained within specific organizational contexts. This study examines the processes through which workplace bullying emerges and persists among teachers in Chinese private universities. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, this study draws on 6 months of fieldwork, including in-depth interviews with 34 participants (teachers, administrators, and students) and supplementary focus group discussions conducted in two private universities in China. Data were analyzed through iterative open, axial, and selective coding to develop a process-oriented model grounded in participants’ lived experiences and multiple informant perspectives. The findings reveal that workplace bullying is not an isolated interpersonal phenomenon but a structurally embedded organizational process. Power-dominated evaluation and promotion systems, relationship-based governance practices, and gendered forms of control interact to shape teachers’ everyday work experiences. Through mechanisms such as technological monitoring, social exclusion, and moralized performance evaluation, these organizational arrangements erode teachers’ professional identity and emotional resources, producing structural silence and enforced compliance. In addition, strong occupational identity attachment and constrained career mobility limit teachers’ capacity to exit unfavorable work environments, allowing workplace bullying to be reproduced and sustained over time.