Diagnosis of Mobbing as Discrimination in Employee Relations

Abstract

The concepts of mobbing and discrimination arediscussed in the article; the notion of mobbing in employeerelations is being defined. After the scientific literatureanalysis there was created a tool to diagnose thediscrimination and mobbing in employee relations.Research shows the spreading of this phenomenon indifferent sectors and economy activities.The growth of heterogeneity and variety as well as thevariety itself, which we traditionally call a minorityrepresentative, increase the danger of conflicts betweengroups (cultural, racial, and national). The danger ishidden in negative attitude that can appear because of thesociety dominating traditions, stereotype thinking, and lackof tolerance to those who are different. Growing variety,the lack of tolerance, the aggressiveness of the societyform is the mixture that explodes discrimination in therelations among employees.Discrimination in the relations among employeesconsists of the processes that take place inside theorganization. The main signs of discrimination in therelations of the employees are: group isolation from thecommunity because of differences, negative acceptance ofthe isolated persons, social isolation, and oppression.The creation of a variety or minority group isconnected both with outer and psychological differences.The meaning of discrimination as a dysfunction of theemployees’ relations is marked by violence in order to getrid of the victim. At the same time taking to considerationthe results of a long-lasting violence to the person, itshould be understood as a physical violence the aim ofwhich is to evoke pain, damage the individual.It is important that dysfunctional relations areidentified taking to consideration objective and subjectivecriteria, because interpersonal relations among employeesis a variety of communication ways and forms, whichcreate an unfriendly, oppressive atmosphere. Negativeaspect of the relations can appear even as a purposefulrelation negation, in other words social isolation and theisolation of the oppressed one. That is why it is wise tolisten to the evaluation of the oppressed one about therelations he has.In the article the researches of mobbing in Westerncountries and Lithuania are discussed. Mobbing isanalyzed from the aspect of discriminative relations amongthe employees, the features, which show the transformationof chicanery to mobbing is singled out. An instrumentationto diagnose mobbing as discriminative employee relationswas created, the reliability of which was proved by theexpert evaluation and high weights of Cronbach alpha.With the help of questionnaire during the exploratoryresearch there were questioned 351 respondents frompublic and private sector organizations. It was diagnosedthat most frequently the actions of mobbing wereexperienced by the respondents who work in public sector– in the spheres of education and social work and in somebusiness organizations.