Mobbing: A Cultural Approach of Conflict in Work Organizations

The aims of this project are to analyze the relationships between organizational culture and mobbing in the workplace, and to identify the features of that culture, considered as specific risk factors which facilitate the mobbing processes development. As a first step, we develop an on-line inventory to assess the perception of the organizational culture. The answers of key individuals in the organization/department (union delegates, management, members of prevention services, etc.) will be used in focus groups created to analyze the mobbing processes in the organization/department. To emphasize organizational culture as a breeding ground for mobbing antecedents, our theoretical frame adapts the model developed by Salin (2003) paying special attention to the cultural dimension. Bullying at work would be often an interaction between structures and processes from three groups: 1) Enabling general culture; 2) Motivating culture factors; and 3) Precipitating processes. When the motivating and/or precipitating structures are present, the enabling conditions will affect whether mobbing is possible or not in a specific organization. In this context, appears what some authors have called (Lewis, French & Steane, 1997) a culture of conflict, an environment where the conflictive component becomes a culture's dominant feature.