The Violence Prone Workplace

Workplace violence is a growing phenomenon in modern corporate culture. According to authors Richard V. Denenberg and Mark Braverman in The Violence-Prone Workplace, it is corporate culture and management that often sew the seeds of workplace violence: "The influence of stress confirms our view that a tendency toward violence is often bred by the workplace itself" (ix). In this work the authors provide us with case studies of real-life workplace violence, many of which ended in fatalities. The authors argue that many companies waste effort trying to discover which employees are most or least likely to be violent, instead of reshaping and restructuring the organization and policies to respond to potential trouble.

From a Connecticut lottery employee who killed four co-workers to the "maintenance yard bloodbath", the authors provide us with real-life cases of employees who resorted to deadly violence when they felt they had no other alternative. While many companies try to deduce from profiles or other measures which employees may be potentially violent, the authors argue that these attempts are in vain because they do nothing to change the root of the problem. The root of the problem is often the organization and management environment which induces stress among employees and often ignores their needs, misguides their efforts at help, or adds to the stress being experienced by the individual. As Denenberg (et al. 16) writes

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s typically a white male loner with former military service and a love of weapons. They do, however, try to demonstrate that how management and corporations structure the workplace, respond to changes, and handle individual employee complaints are contributing factors to either increasing or lowering the risk of workplace violence. In the case of Matthew Beck, the authors try to show how his denial of a promotion, his lack of any appeal rights, and his recent salary dispute with his employer were contributing factors in his breakdown. Feeling stressed, abused, and backed against a wall, Beck used a 9-mm Glock semiautomatic handgun as a means of recourse. While the authors do not lay the blame for Beck's murderous actions on employers, they do try to use this case to show how a different reaction to Beck's issues might have reduced the risk of volatility, "The sense of being ignored can be a powerful emotion. When they insulate themselves from employee complaints, employers may be eliminating an important safety valve and an indicator of unduly stressful working conditions" (Denenberg 50). The authors do not remove the culpable individual employee from their analysis. With the case of Beck and others they admit depression, f

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