What Would Parsons Say About Mobbing?

Dr.Umut Omay

Year 2009, Volume: 11 Issue: 5, 67 - 78, 01.12.2009

Abstract

In the recent years Mobbing has been a popular subject among the Work Psychology studies. Mobbing can simply be defined as a malicious attempt to force a person by another person or a group systematically in order to erode the said person’s thrust, willingness and morale. The popularity of mobbing as a research subject has been parallel to the rise of the of the Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior fields. Thus, there have been many research in this field so far. But the popularity of the subject “Mobbing” must be criticised. Because, in the working life of today, any kind of conflict has begun to be labeled as mobbing while some of them actually cannot be defined as mobbing. After studying carefully and comperatively the given data and the results of the related surveys by a sociological view, it is possible to claim that there may have been simpler and more different explanations other than mobbing for the most of the mobbing claims. The purpose of this paper is to show that “Mobbing” is a questionable subject which needs to be redefined. The methodology of this paper is a fictional research, depending on comperative analysis on some of the results of the related surveys by using Parsons’ sociological approach. Parsons methology, may seem as an unappropriate tool to analyze the concept of mobbing because it is the most contrary approach for analyzing the subject and has the potential to justify mobbing. But that potential may help for the researchers to find out whether all of the mobbing claims are reflecting the true mobbing events or not.

Keywords

Mobbing, Social Action, Social System, A.G.I.L., Pattern Variables, Parsons

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