Mobbing from the Standpoint of Symbolic Interactionism

Piotr A. Chomczyński

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.16.4.04

Authors

Piotr A. Chomczyński University of Lodz, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7767-2740

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.4.04

Keywords:

Mobbing, Qualitative Research, Deviance

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.

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Author Biography

Piotr A. Chomczyński, University of Lodz, Poland

Piotr A. Chomczyński, employed by the Department of Sociology of Organization and Management, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz whose areas of scientific interest include: qualitative sociology, symbolic interactionism, and the sociology of deviance.

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