Purpose This paper aims to describe the role of human resource management (HRM) in targets' coping with workplace bullying. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a study rooted in van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology, conducted with agents working in international facing call centres in Mumbai and Bangalore, India. Exploring targets' lived experiences, conversational interviews and sententious and selective thematic analyzes were undertaken. Findings Targets' experiences were captured by the core theme of “protecting my interests” which subsumes four themes, experiencing confusion, engaging organizational options, moving inwards and exiting the organization. The findings highlight targets' attempts to deal with the experience of bullying, relying on their personal and social resources as well as on organizational options in order to ensure that their emotional well‐being, task‐related performance and long‐term career goals were not hampered by victimization. Participants' endeavours displayed two prominent features: the presence of turning points and the critical role of HRM in influencing multiple facets of the experience. Research limitations/implications The study achieves theoretical generalizability but further research is needed to establish statistical generalizability. Practical implications The engagement of HRM as a truly unitarist ideology, the development of effective employee redressal mechanisms and the relevance of pluralist approaches and collectivization endeavours emerge as crucial areas for application. Originality/value In addition to breaking new ground in empirically uncovering the organization's etiological role in workplace bullying, going beyond the existing work‐environment hypothesis and organization as bully conceptualization, the findings provide a new perspective on targets' exit coping response. To the authors' knowledge, workplace bullying has not been studied in India.
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