LE3 .A278 2013

2013

Weatherbee, Terrance

Acadia University

Bachelor of Business Administration

Honours

Business Administration

Business

Aggression is something that affects people in all workplaces. It affects both productivity and employee satisfaction. Aggression can have negative effects on employees such as health problems (Baron, R.A. & Neuman, J.H., 1996) and job dissatisfaction (Lapieere, Leck & Spector, 2005). This is a problem that must be further researched to determine what situational or individual factors are at play. This will allow effective interventions to be designed so as to reduce incidents of these harmful workplace behaviors. This research examines aggression in email and how individuals perceive it. More particularly, it examines the difference, if any, between how males and females perceive aggression in email. Understanding how aggression is perceived is important because it can allow organizations to work to reduce the potential for aggression and conflict in their workplace. The goal of this research was to explore the differences between how males and females perceive aggression in email. There is evidence to suggest that females and males perceive aggression differently in face-to-face communication settings. An article published by Frodi, Macaulay and Thome (1977) shows evidence that suggests men and women react differently to external cues and Hall (1978) found that females are actually more efficient at interpreting nonverbal cues. This would suggest that males and females could perceive aggression differently in email conversations. Understanding these differences will allow organizations to help employees of different sexes understand what the opposite gender perceives as aggressive. It will also allow organizations to create effective policies that could help eliminate unwanted email aggression. This would help increase communication efficiency and job satisfaction in the workplace.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:944