LAUSR

Abstract Since 2005, in the European working conditions survey (EWCS), a question is asked about harassment at work. Many more workers complain in France than in Italy. Objective differences in violence are not sufficient to explain this large gap in harassment complaints. One has to consider the perception and social regulation of violence, difficulties and conflicts at work. This article is pursuing two goals at the same time. The first is a theoretical goal, in order to move beyond cultural comparisons, to highlight the role of social institutions and regulations in the perception of harassment and to show that harassment is socially constructed in different ways in these countries. The second is an empirical one: to more accurately describe and explain the harassment phenomenon in France and Italy. A cultural approach is frequently used in International comparisons, but it is enough to be able to understand why French workers complain much more about harassment than Italian ones. That's why we also take a societal approach to look at the interactions between educational systems, social interactions, and hierarchical relations at work and the reason why the label of “moral harassment” covers a wider range of situations for French EWCS's respondents than for Italian ones.