Academic Writing

Capstone Requirement

Name: BACCAY, MARCK ALDREI C. Program: ELAW-5-1 Date: May 23, 2019

Literature Review

In the context of communication in the workplace today, individuals may often times find

themselves in very peculiar, uncomfortable, and awkward situations, which may so result to

tensions in the workplace (cf. Roth, 2004; Mackenzie, 2010; Attan, et al., 2012; Wu, Chang,

Sha, 2016; Hiranburana, 2017; Tews, & Noe, 2017; Mukherji, & Arora, 2017; Rosenbaum, 2017;

Michel, Tews, & Allen 2018; Hsieh & Karatepe, 2019; Dodek, Norena, Ayas, & Wong, 2019;

Cheng, Lam, & Kong, 2019; Stadler, 2019; ). To summarize, these aforementioned literatures

have discussed topics ranging from the use of pragmatics (Roth, 2004; Stadler, 2019) and

learning English in the workplace (Lam, Cheng, & Kong, 2014; Hiranburana, 2017; Cheng, Lam,

& Kong, 2019), to how workplace environments are affected by the manner in which colleagues

would interact in the workplace (Zhang & Leidner, 2018).

From these articles, one may also infer that there has been a continuous call for better uses and

practices of modern communication tools and in the workplace. It is to be noted however, how

these previous researches failed to explicitly correlate how improper and borderline

unprofessional workplace behavior (Whittaker, Frohlich, & Daly-Jones, 1994; Mackenzie, 2010;

Wu, Chang, & Sha 2016), along with ostracism (Zhao, Xia, He, Sheard, & Wan, 2016; Huertas-

Valdivia, Braojos, & Lloréns-Montes, 2018; Hsieh & Karatepe, 2019; Liu, D., Liu, F., Zhang, &

Ma, 2019), negative behaviors (Kuroda, & Yamamoto, 2018; Babalola, Ren, Kobinah, Qu,

Garba, & Guo, 2019), and even bullying (Zhang & Leidner, 2018; Rajalakshimi & Naresh, 2018;

Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Ghezzi & Barbaranelli, 2019) would all have a direct and negative
influence or effect in the working environment of the common millennial (Myers & Sadaghiani,

2010; Thompson & Gregory, 2012; Chou, 2012).

As stated by Thompson and Gregory (2012, pp. 3-9), the demographic of the common Millennial

would more than often be seen as disloyal, needy, entitled, casual, and apparently

‘unmanageable,’ which Thompson and Gregory also attributed to the exposure of Millennials to

the broader sense of the world around them. However, in Myers and Sadaghiani’s (2010)

assessment of the millennial, their redeeming qualities are also mentioned to be that of: being

impactful when entering a new organization, being well-equipped and motivated, are at ease with

new communication technologies, as well as being open to frequent communication with their

superiors. This brings to light the questions: How would a millennial worker behave in the

presence of bullies and being ostracized in an otherwise modern work environment? How will a

millennial worker take advantage of modern techniques and pragmatics in this kind of

workplace? How will the millennial organize techniques in order to avoid unwarranted and

unprofessional practices? The fact remains: it is unusual that there have been no attempts to pin

down the millennial’s seemingly abhorrent behavior towards work colleagues and authorities to

the unjust and sometimes unfair treatment they repeatedly receive in the workplace in

comparison to their predecessor generations.

Since there have been a number of significant studies regarding the negative perceptions and

qualities of millennials according to Credo, Lanier, Matherne, and Cox (2016, p. 192), it is likely

that it has since been widely assumed by employers that these have been the standards for

millennial worker. That being said, it is unlikely for co-workers not to get along, especially with

the newly conceived techniques to have fun learning together in the workplace (Michel, Tews, &

Allen, 2018).
This paper therefore attempts to discuss the implications of how millennial employees would

want to defend themselves in the face of an unprofessional, informal and a “bullied” workplace

system thrust upon them by work colleagues and superiors (Kinnick, & Parton, 2005; Myers, &

Sadaghiani, 2010; Garon, 2011). It also aims to study the behavior and actions of the millennial

in the context of skewed work environment. This study, however, does not directly imply that all

millennials are included in this margin; neither does it outright claim that there are indeed

instances of bullying, negative behavior, ostracism, etc., being almost exclusively directed

towards millenials in the workplace. Lastly, there is still a need for empirical research and a

wider array of studies to be conducted in order to support this paper’s ideas in the matter.
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