Mapping bystander intervention to workplace inclusion: A scoping review

Abstract

Bystander intervention has attracted recent attention as a promising avenue to improve workplace inclusion. However, despite substantial human resource management investment and increasing research interest in workplace bystander intervention, there has been no evidence synthesising the link between bystander action and consequences for the parties involved. This interdisciplinary scoping review (85 articles) addresses this gap by reviewing and categorising types of bystander actions in the workplace in response to different problematic incidents, highlighting the consequences of those actions for targets, perpetrators and bystanders, and illustrating the theoretical underpinning of extant literature. The findings indicate that consequences of bystander actions, particularly those related to inclusion, are not widely measured or understood. Positive consequences for targets are evident, however few positive consequences are described for bystanders and outcomes for perpetrators remain unknown. We offer suggestions for future research to advance understanding of the relationship between bystander intervention and workplace inclusion.