A Research As Mobbing Examination in Maritime Sector

In the maritime industry, a person of lower class or rank is exposed to mobbing, which can easily be observed. In Turkey, instead of expressing mobbing in a specific word as "bullying in the workplace", replaced it as "emotional harassment", "psychological violence at work", "intimidation". The aim of the study is to determine the factors that affect the mobbing. Survey participants are 178 volunteers, almost all of the maritime university faculties and several private companies participated the survey. Data were collected in May 2018 in Turkey. Mobbing Scale (Leymann's LIPT-The Leymann Ivertory of Psychological For Social Sciences) was used. Mobbing scale has 5 factors: relationship, threat and harassment, business and career-related obstacles, private life, commitment to work. Statistical analysis were applied in SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences v24). According to demographics, relationships between factors were assessed by correlation analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the factors affected the mobbing. 5 regression models were set up for each 5 factors. Bivariate correlations with Spearman’s rho coefficients between all factors are utilized. According to regression results, it is seen that variables affected mobbing significantly. Demographics are effective in determining mobbing. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.


Introduction
From hospitals to universities, employees encounter various problems in work environment.Mobbing is one of the most serious of these problems.Mobbing is psychological harassment or violence that is continuously or systematically applied by employees or employers for psychological or social reasons (Leymann 1990;Zapf, 1999;Einersen et al., 2003;Lewis, 2003;Tınaz, 2006).Mobbing is a term used to describe psychological terror, emotional lynching, abuse, bullying and terrorization in the workplace.There are many studies related to mobbing in the literature.In 1960, the definition of mobbing was first used to analyze animal behavior by Konrad Lorenz.Brodsky (1976) defines mobbing as repressive, frightening, scary and uncomfortable behaviors that are repeatedly and intentionally displayed by one repeatedly and persistently to intimidate and annihilate another.Thylefors (1987) defines mobbing as repetitive negative behaviors against one or more people by one or more people.Matthiesen, Raknes ve Rrökkum (1989) defines mobbing as repetitive negative behaviors that one or more people carry out against one or more persons in the working environment.Leyman (1990) defines mobbing as hostile and unethical behaviors carried out by one or more people systematically.Kile (1990) defines mobbing as a derogatory action that a superior is performing openly or secretly.Wilson (1991) defines mobbing as continuous and intentional maltreatment towards an employer.Adams (1992) defines mobbing as behaviors aimed at giving spiritual suffering to those who are unable to defend themselves.Vartia (1993) defines mobbing as regularly humiliating behavior against one person by one or more people.Björkqvist, Österman ve Hjelt-Back (1994) defines mobbing as a superior authority to use subordinates in humiliating, arbitrary punishment (Einarsen, 2000).Zapf, Knorz ve Kulla (1996) describe mobbing as any negative behavior that affects both the psychology and the physical well-being of the victim.Davenport, Schwartz, and Elliott define mobbing as a collection of evil movements, ideals and actions that are intended to force a person or group of a worker to resign (2003).
Mobbing is an universal problem and can be observed in any industry.Regardless of their demographic characteristics, every employee can be exposed to mobbing.Mobbing has different negative effects on employees' work life and private life; such as insomnia, anxiety, depression, irritability (Einarsen, 1999;Leymann, 1990), lack of concentration (Namie, 2008), loneliness (Huse and Cummings, 1985), alienation from work/organization (Tolan, 1981), desensitization to organizational values, goals and ethical rules (Tutar, 2004).Mobbing is a process that can be end up with the resignation of the employee (Paparella et al., 2004).
There are several studies on mobbing-personal and organizational reasons, mobbing-organizational culture and organizational climate.These studies indicate that mobbing has negative effect on performance and productivity of the employee and the organization (Vartia, 2003).The maritime sector is one of the sectors where mobbing is often encountered.Yıldırım and Tavacıoğlu (2017), determined the relationship between the job performance and job stress of the seafarers and carried out that mobbing increases working stress and decreases personal performance.But, there is a big gap in this issue in the literature.The aim of this study is to examine the mobbing perceptions of seafarers in terms of general variables such as age, gender, education level, experience on board, and position at work.

Material and Method
Data were collected from 220 seafarers, but, in total, 178 seafarers participated in the survey (Response rate: 81%).Data were gathered online and anonymously through SurveyMonkey.Sample was recruited by sharing the SurveyMonkey link with our network and through e-mails.To understand and measure mobbing, the Leymann Inventory for Psychological Terrorisation (LIPT) scale was used.Questionnaire form was derived from LIPT.The questionnaire consists of two parts.First part includes demographic characteristics of the participants.The second part of the questionnaire includes mobbing questions.7-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" through to "strongly agree'' was used.Descriptive statistics were calculated for continous variables (mean, standard deviation (SD), minimum, maximum, median), categorical variables (N, %) and distribution of scales showed in Table 1.Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine two normally distributed variables and Spearman's rho correlation analysis was used to determine two nonnormally distributed variables.It is shown in Table 2 and Figure 1.Comparison of two independent and normally distributed variables Student's t test was used, to compare two independent and non-normally distributed variables Mann Whitney U test was used.Comparison of more than two independent and normally distributed variables One Way ANOVA test was used, to compare more than two independent and nonnormally distributed variables Kruskal Wallis test was used.It is shown in Table 3.Multiple linear regression modeling was used to examine the effect of independent variables on the continuous dependent variable, and the Backward variable selection method was used.It is shown in

Results
According to correlation analysis, there is no significant relationship between relationship with colleagues and other scales (Spearman's rho p>0.05).There are positive moderate statistically significant correlations between threat and harassment and barriers related to job and career; interference in private life and commitment to work.There is a positive weak correlation between barriers related to job and career and interference in private life.There is a positive moderate statistically significant correlations between barriers related to job and carrier and interference in private life (Table 2) (Zou et al., 2003;Rumsey, 2007).Figure 1 supports the correlation results.1.7+0.91.2 (1-4.71)3.0+1.7 2.3 (1.25-6.75)2.2+1.5 1.8 (1-6.25) There is a statistically significant difference in terms of threat and harassment distribution relative to the length of time they have been working on board (Kruskal Wallis p<0.05).Threats and harassment averages were found to be higher among those who worked 1-3 years (Mann-Whitney U p<0.008 Bonferroni correction).
There is a statistically significant difference in terms of barriers related to job and career relative to the length of time they have been working on board, age and position (Kruskal Wallis p<0.05).Participants with age group 45 and above had a lower average of barriers related to job and career than the other age groups.
Employees on board for 3 years and more were found to have lower average barriers to job and career (Mann-Whitney U p<0.008 Bonferroni correction).Deck / Engine Cadets' average of barriers related to job and career were statistically significantly higher than those of Chief Officers/ 2. Engineers (Mann-Whitney U p<0.005 Bonferroni correction).
After the comparison of the demographics, the regression model given in

Discussion and Conclusions
In this study, it is aimed to examine seafarers' mobbing perceptions depending on the general variables, such as age, gender, education level, experience on board, and position at work.It is found that gender and education level didn't make any difference on mobbing perceptions of the seafarers.Maritime sector is a men-oriented sector.According to the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey (2007), women are more exposed to mobbing than men.Ness et al. (2000) indicated that men are more exposed to mobbing than women.In the study conducted by Mikkelsen and Einarsen (2002), there was no significant difference according to gender.Regardless of educational level of seafarers, they can be exposed to mobbing on board.
Age, experience on board and position at work made difference on mobbing perceptions of the seafarers.With the increase of the age and the experience on board, seafarers are less exposed to mobbing.This result is parallel with the findings of Acar and Dündar (2008) and Özyer and Orhan (2012).The height of the deck/engine cadets' mobbing average can be explained in this way.
Working on board is a though and complex situation, there are lots of stressor factors such as being far away from home and loved ones, fatigue, long working hours, limited space, insufficient sleep and multinationality (Amy, 2015).Effects of mobbing on seafarers can be decrased by improving work environment on board.
The first limitation of the study was sample characteristics in terms of gender.Our participants consist mostly of men.Therefore, we cannot generalize our findings to women.The second limitation of the study was that all participants were from Turkey.The study can be expandable by choosing multinational seafarers coming from different countries.

Table 4 .
Statistical significance level was determined as 0.05.The analysis was conducted by utilising SPSS 24.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

Table 1 .
Demographic characteristics of the participants (N=178) and distributions of scales

Table 2 .
Correlation analysis between scales Figure 1.Scatter plots of correlations (1.Threat and Harassment 2. Barriers Related to Job and Career 3. Interference in Private Life 4. Commitment to Work)

Table 3 .
Comparison of Scales According to Demographics

Table 4 .
Table4was formed.Barriers to job and career is dependent variable; age, position and experience on board were modeled as independent variables and Backward variable selection method was used.There is no multicollinearity (VIF<10) and autocorrelation (Durbin-Watson<2).So, model can be interpreted and was found statistically significant (p<0.001).Age group of 25 to 30 were reduced the barriers related to job and career by 1.25 (1/0.794)times according to the age group of 18 to 25 and were reduced that scale by 1.15 (1/0.871)times according to the age group of 30 to 45. 2.Officer/3.Engineer were reduced the barriers related to job and career by 1.49 times according to the Deck/Engine Cadet and Chief Officer/2.Engineer were reduced that scale by 1.84 times according to the Deck/Engine Cadet.Master/Chief Engineer were reduced the barriers related to job and career by 1.50 times according to the Deck/Engine Cadet and Other position were reduced that scale by 1.11 times according to the Deck/Engine Cadet.Regression analysis