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Mobbing from the Standpoint of Symbolic Interactionism
Mobbing from the Standpoint of Symbolic Interactionism

Author(s): Piotr Chomczyński
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Mobbing; Qualitative Research; Deviance

Summary/Abstract: Mobbing at the workplace assumes strong, intensive, and significant interactions between an offender and a target, or a group of targets, causing serious damage to work efficiency, atmosphere, motivation, and employee fluctuation. It also highly affects the victims’ mental health, which often results in excluding them from work for a long time. The objective of this paper is to examine the issue of mobbing from the perspective of symbolic interactionism (SI) that is useful in explaining social phenomena on a micro and mezzo level. Through inductive reasoning with the use of grounded theory (GT), I focus on the narratives of mobbing targets and their stories concerning maltreatment at the workplace. The study based on a qualitative approach included 72 narrative interviews carried out among harassment victims, as well as 12 in-depth interviews with professionals dealing with the matter of mobbing. Moreover, to directly follow work-related processes linked to organizational behavior, I utilized participant observation.

  • Issue Year: 16/2020
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 52-62
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: English