Effect of mobbing on organizational climate: An application for municipal employees

Mobbing, derived from the word "mob" that is a part of the phrase "mobile vurgus (unstable crowd)" in Latin, poses a great danger, as a form of psychological harassment and repression, for today's organizations and employees. The word mobbing was originally started to be used by British biologists at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century. It refers to a situation in which various psychological pressures exerted on another person or persons within the organization by certain individuals, effecting the mental health of those person or persons to deteriorate and even the target persons to quit their jobs. Mobbing attempts also affects the organizational climate, the psychological image of the organization, by undermining the organization's structure, functioning style, and relationships within the organization. In this study, the effect of mobbing on the organizational climate has been explored. While mobbing is taken as a single component, the organizational climate is dealt with over teamwork, human relations, interaction and communication dimensions rather than a single dimension in accordance with the general tendency in the literature. In the first and second parts of the study, the concept of mobbing and the concept of organizational climate was studied by means of the relevant literature. Then, in the third and last part, the effect of mobbing on the organizational climate was uncovered and it was inquired whether there is a relationship between demographic features and these concepts through the survey conducted in four municipalities from Middle Anatolia. As a result of the survey conducted in these municipalities, it has been observed that, as the level of mobbing increases, teamwork, human relations and communication perception levels decrease, and the level of negative interaction perception increases. Thus, it can be inferred that mobbing affects the organizational climate strongly. It has also been found that mobbing and organizational climate perception levels vary erceen based on individuals' gender, age, education level, marital status, business or institution positions, and work in the institution on their duration and total term of office, according to the "Independent Sample t-Test" and "One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test."