It's also an American thing even though they don't have a word for it. It was even referenced in the Silicon Valley Season 1, where Bighetti is "sent to the roof" to do nothing, because the CEO does not believe in firing people.
Very much an American thing. During the first dotcom bubble the company who bought mine turned out to have a habit of getting rid of CTOs who had golden parachutes by ordering other employees to not talk to them and giving them a supposedly nice office on an unfinished, empty floor of a skyscraper where all the lights outside their office were disconnected. One held out long enough to launch his new startup and I was pretty impressed that he put it together in semi-squat conditions while being shunned. When it comes to cheating people on contracts there are a lot of determined, creative people in management and on boards.
