Organisational, work group related and personal causes of mobbing/bullying at work

TLDR

Mobbing is a severe, long‑lasting form of workplace social stress characterized by escalated conflict and systematic harassing actions directed at a target. The study investigates the causes of mobbing, arguing that organizational factors, the social system, the perpetrator, and the victim must all be considered as potential contributors. Results from two victim samples and a control group confirm that mobbing is typically multi‑causal, making one‑sided explanations inadequate.

Abstract

This article investigates the causes of mobbing (bullying) at work. Mobbing is defined as a severe form of social stressors at work. Unlike “normal” social stressors, mobbing is a long lasting, escalated conflict with frequent harassing actions systematically aimed at a target person. It is argued that the organisation, the social system, a certain perpetrator and the victim have to be considered as potential causes of mobbing. Results of two samples of mobbing victims and a control group support this view. It is concluded that one‐sided explanations on the causes of mobbing are likely to be inappropriate and that many cases are characterised by multi‐causality – a common finding in conflict research.