Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Mobbing and Discrimination in Employee Relations

8/11/2019 Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Mobbing and Discrimination in Employee Relations

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P. ukauskas, J. Vveinhardt ISSN 1648 - 4460Transformational Challenges for Stakeholders Role in CEEC Business

TRANSFORMATIONS IN BUSINESS & ECONOMICS , Vol. 8, No 3 (18), Supplement A, 2009

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SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF MOBBINGAND DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Pranas ukauskas Faculty of Economics and Management Vytautas Magnus University44246 Kaunas, LithuaniaTel: +370 37 327850

Fax: +370 37 327857 E-mail: [email protected]

Jolita Vveinhardt Faculty of Economics and ManagementVytautas Magnus University44246 Kaunas, LithuaniaTel: +370 37 327850

Fax: +370 37 327857 E-mail: [email protected]

1Pranas ukauskas, Professor, Habil. Dr., Dean of the Facultyof Economics and Management, Vytautas Magnus University,Lithuania. In 1986, he took PhD from Academy of NationalEconomy in Moscow (Russia), in 2000 defended DoctoralHabilitus Thesis in Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania). Hasworked at Kaunas Technological University, Academy ofManagement of Lithuania, since 1990 Professor at VytautasMagnus University, former Head of Department of Management,recently Dean of the Faculty. Has published two monographsand more than 100 scientific publications in books, journals, and proceedings of conferences. Number of them is published inforeign countries: USA, Czech Republic, Poland, India, Estonia,Russia, Ukraine and Latvia.2Jolita Vveinhardt, PhD Candidate of Social Sciences(Management and Administration, 03S) at the Department ofManagement, the Faculty of Economics and Management,Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. Currently is preparing

the dissertation The Diagnosis of Mobbing as the Discrimination in Personnel Relationships, while improving theClimate in Lithuanian Organizations . J. Vveinhardt hasobtained her BBA degree from#iauliai University (Lithuania),where further obtained her MBA degree. She lectures on thesubjects of Management, Organizational Behavior, Mobbing in

Personnel Relationships , and The Methodology of Social Research in Bachelor and Professional Bachelor studies. She isthe author and co-author of 60 articles; the author and co-authorof three educational books. J. Vveinhardts scientific researchtrends are: mobbing as the discrimination in personnel

relationships, organizational climate.

---------TRANSFORMATIONS IN --------

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Vilnius University, 2002-2009

Brno University of Technology, 2002-2009 University of Latvia, 2002-2009
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Received : December, 2008 1 st Revision : March, 20092nd Revision : September, 2009

Accepted : November, 2009

ABSTRACT . In the article the works of early mobbing researches H. Leymann, K. Niedl, D. Zapf, K. Warth, R. F. Thomas and the works of the past decade, pointing out sociodemographic aspects characteristics arediscussed. After the analysis of scientific literature and after the

performance of exploratory analysis there was created a questionnaire todiagnose mobbing and discrimination in employee relations. The reliabilityof the inventory was proved by high Cronbach alpha values; thequestionnaire was answered 1379 respondents which represent public and

private sector. The diagnosis of mobbing and discrimination in employeerelations was one of the components of the research, which was performedto state the influence of the discusses phenomenon on the organizationsclimate. In the article the phenomenon of mobbing is viewed from the sociodemographic aspect: according to the sector (private, public), according tothe professional activity, work experience in the current organization,according to the position (subordinates, chiefs of different rank), accordingto the age, education etc. Socio demographic point of view is chosen inorder to state which peculiarities point out the victim of mobbing.

KEYWORDS : employee, interpersonal relations, discrimination, mobbing,diagnosis of mobbing, jeer, victim, harassment, Lithuania.

JEL classification : M12, M14, M19, P2.

Introduction

Even if mobbing and discrimination are closely connected and determine a specificway of action mobbing, as discrimination in employee relations there is a task to highlightthe social and demographic peculiarities of discrimination and mobbing. This task isdetermined by a number of reasons. The described socio-demographic characteristics of the phenomenon will presuppose the conditions to forecast the dysfunctional relations inemployee relations and will allow creating as early as possible the mechanisms of preventionand apply the models which already exist in foreign countries by adapting them.

In early mobbing researches (Leymann, 1990) there were not or only partly were proved the links with different socio-demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, the latest,more detailed researches (Zapf, 2000; Salin, 2005; Pranji%, Male' -Bili%, 2006; Mole, 2007;Grunau, 2007; Wood III, 2008; Moreno-Jimenez, Munoz, Salin, Benadero, 2008; Miedzik,2008) prove the existence of such link. We are used to connect discrimination with the skincolour, gender, social status and role, health condition, handicap etc. Discrimination is

presupposed by such actions as culture and subculture, the prejudices that live in society,stereotypes and myths.Mobbing in employee relations is revealed as a special way of discrimination, which

goes out of the ordinary frames of discrimination understanding. Mobbing is described by pointing out the discriminative intention, but the victim can become the employee of the samerace, social status, and gender, physically and psychologically healthy and even promisingemployee, the loss of which would create human and economical wastages to theorganization. Without mentioning, the image of organization in different societies and therequirements to the socially responsible organization might differ. While analyzing mobbingas discrimination in employee relations, it is possible to notice certain transformations of thediscrimination mechanism in work environment. Transformations are presupposed by specific

ways of attacking and attacked groups actions, which can be described as refined, polite wayto get rid of the victim. This transformed mechanism is skillfully implies the stereotypes,


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myths and fears which exist in societys mind. It is possible to make supposition, that highereducation eliminates the mentioned reasons, but the research shows a different picture. Highereducation, not manual labor professions allow to forecast the greatest probability of suchattack. We should not forget and the specialists which have lower qualifications. For examplein the sales sphere we could expect weaker mobbing appearance, but the researches showquite big intensiveness, which could be influenced by a number of reasons: gender factor andthe mobbing identification possibilities connected to it, higher education, which was presupposed by reproduction of higher education graduates, age etc.

All this makes the phenomenon and its reasons to be analyzed in complex. The person which applies mobbing or the mechanism which evokes mobbers frustration includesdeep psychological, social, cultural aspects and economic context. That is why whileanalyzing mobbing and discrimination there appears a question if it is possible to applymechanically the experience of foreign scientists? Especially, when the studies were performed in different periods of time, in different social and cultural environment, which

formed a unique system of mentality. That is why in order princely identify a potential victimof mobbing and discrimination it is necessary to point out socio-demographic groupsaccording to mobbing and discrimination appearance intensity. And it is also possible tosuggest a hypothesis after evaluating the cultural and social circumstance which werehistorically created in Lithuania, that the phenomenon of mobbing in the organizations of ourcountry can be different. Some of the researches that were performed in Lithuania(Malinauskiene, 2004; Gruzevskis, Okuneviciute-Neverauskien), Pocius, 2004;Malinauskieneet al., 2005; Malinauskieneet al. , 2007; Zukauskas, Vveinhardt, 2009) showmobbing features among the specialists which have higher education and work educationaland health care spheres. In these spheres traditionally work female gender representatives. Nevertheless there is a lack of certain information which does not allow drawing a more

precise portrait of a mobbing victim, to point out more precise socio-demographiccharacteristics according to the age, gender, education etc.Research problem is defined by a question: how to identify a potential mobbing

victim by a reference to socio demographic characteristics?Research object: socio demographic characteristics of mobbing and discrimination

victims.Research goal: to analyze socio demographic characteristics of mobbing and

discrimination victims.Research tasks:

1. To discuss the scientific researches, which analyze socio demographic characteristicsof mobbing participants.

2. To compare socio demographic characteristics of foreign and Lithuanian victims ofmobbing in organizations.Research methods: the article is prepared by using the methods of the systemizing

the scientific literature, common and logical analysis, comparative and summing methods.Questionnaire, data processing by SPSS set of statistics programmes, data analysis. Thesources used articles by Lithuanian and foreign authors, books analyzing mobbing anddiscrimination phenomenon,

1. Mobbing as Discrimination on Employee Relations: Socio-DemographicCharacteristics

Organizations reputation. Mobbing appear in organizations, which do not pay enoughattention to the organizations culture, values, the conflicts that take place among the


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employees are not solved and are evaluated offhandedly. Mobbing is a very tricky phenomenon, which more often takes place between two people and that is why is hardlyidentified. But the phenomenon of mobbing is very dangerous because it damages the imageof organization and influences work results. According to Smaiziene and Jucevicius (2009),the reputation of the organization is not a novelty in everyday life, in business and educationworld. Even now, when the importance of organizations reputation is recognized as anessential for the business success, reputation is understood only intuitively and very often istreated as immeasurable and phenomenon which impossible to rule beyond the borders oforganizations (Smaiziene and Jucevicius, 2009).

A main task in order to achieve the effectiveness of private sector is to modernize theactivities of public institutions. In order to improve the public sector permanently and incomplex, a systematic modernization strategy is needed (modernization vision, mission,regulations, and concepts) (Skietryset al., 2008). The effectiveness of the private sectordepends on the leaders attitude and financial relation. According to Vasiljevien) (2004), in

Lithuania, same as in all post Soviet range there is a lack of clear activity, and first of all clear,unified rules and norms; sometimes even a surprising misunderstanding of meanings andnecessities. According to the authors statement the additional problems appear because in post Soviet countries, where the objective criteria of activity evaluation didnt come to power,ethic standards and the obedience law were not formed as well as morals and mentalacceptance, and decentralization politics and autonomy are still performed, and all this cannotinfluence the optimization of activity and the raise of effectiveness, by influences chaos,misuse, the priority of illegal interests, corruption, nepotism, mobbing, as well as the feelingof slavery, bad health condition of the employee, insecure work environment etc.

Lately more and more often appear talks about the social responsibility of theorganization. In this discourse the responsibility of organization for organizations climate and

employee relations violated by mobbing become obvious. That is why the responsibilityshould be organizational and professional and not only moral sensitivity of the individual;nowadays such responsibility became not only life important, but also relevant for the wholeglobe. The more important the work that is performed by individual or a group, the more power they have, the more high positions in society they have, the greater is the responsibility(Vasiljevien), 2006).

Discrimination and mobbing in employee relations. All the actions which prevail in possibilities to improve the quality of the societys life, development, progress and perspectives are directly connected to human resources and show the qualities and dynamicsof these resources. That is why all the problems , questions and solutions connected to humanresources must be understood as a priority goal in modern development of the society, its progress, in search of the possibilities and realization. (Melnikas, 2002; Melnikas, 2008). Butso far not a lot of attention is paid to interrelations between employees, to discrimination phenomenon in organization and for sure not to mobbing which is unknown to many of theorganizations leaders. Discrimination in employee relation is an escalation of conflicts,hostile behavior, physical and psychological violence, terror. The term of discrimination iswidely used in politics, economics, sociology etc.

The most known in society meaning is used to reflect negative social relations whichhumiliate persons dignity. Usually when we are talking about the discrimination we add amarker racial, national, gender (Zukauskas and Zakarevicius, 2007; Ciarniene,et al., 2007; Zukauskas and Zakarevicius, 2008; Rees and Althakhri, 2008; Zukauskas andVveinhardt, 2008a; Zukauskas and Vveinhardt, 2008b; Zukauskas and Vveinhardt, 2009).Mobbing is a form of discrimination at the work place, a special way to push the victim out ofthe social group, organization. This is a long lasting psychological terror, which ends in


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victims loss. In other words mobbing can also called a polite way to get rid of the victim(Zukauskas and Vveinhardt, 2009; Vveinhardt, 2009). Mobbing (Leymann, 1993, 1996;Einarsen and Skogstad, 1996; Niedl, 1995; Zapf, 2000) is described as an attack which lastsnot less than 6 months and repeats not less than once per week.

Mobbing division according to sectors and spheres of activity. Niedl (1995) states thatuntil now in researches a connection between professional sphere of activity and mobbingvictim is not stated. Leymann (1993) states that researches which were performed in Swedendidnt suggest any particular specification, but just paid attention to some of mobbingtendencies, connected to different probabilities in different spheres of activity. According toLeymann (1993) research data in manufacture, commerce, agriculture, forestry mobbingappears very rarely, but in the sphere of education he had noticed a lot of mobbing cases,twice more than in the other analyzed spheres. But in later researches Zapf (2002) stated quite big difference in mobbing frequency in different types of organizations.

Mobbing according to the position in organization. Mobbing can be vertical (leaders

against subordinates/subordinates against leaders) and horizontal (colleagues againstcolleagues), but most of this entire phenomenon takes place between the employees of thesame rank (Niedl, 1995). The researches, which were performed after Niedl in Germanspeaking countries by Zapf (1999) show that 70 percent of people who apply mobbing areleaders, in other European countries (Zapf, 2002) the percentage of mobbing actions isdecreasing until 50 percent. That is connected to the institutional power of the leader.

Mobbing division according to gender. The results of Zapf and Warth (1997) researchesshow, that women experience mobbing twice more than men. Thomas (1993) who analyzedthe researches of Zapf and Warth states that men still take higher positions than women andthat means that they dont become mobbing victims that often, because they occupy rulingwork positions. Leymann (1993) while presenting the results of the Switzerland research,

marked, that 76 percent of men experience mobbing from me and only 3 percent from women,21 percent from men and women at the same time. In 40 percent of cases women are mocked by the representatives of the same gender, 30 percent by men and 30 percent by both genders.So it is clear that there are more men-mobbers, than women-mobbers, and that can beinfluenced by patriarchal ideology (or may be competitiveness among men?) Salin (2005)states in her research, that men present the victim as uncompetitive and weak and women triedto underline the personality of the victim and group dynamics. Women were more oftenthinking that mobbing is a planned action, but men were eager to recognize that it could be theresult of the stress.

According to Salin (2005), women more often sought medical help, men got involvedinto the battle. The relation between harassment cases and gender can be hardly stated, because the high percentage of mobbing cases is noticed among same gender representatives.

Mobbing according to the work experience and age. Niedl (1995) in the research thatwas performed in Norway singled out the result which revealed the connection between oldage and mobbing cases, that means, that people who are older than 61 years of age are chosenas mobbing victims. Kolodej (2007) while analyzing Niedl works states, that this phenomenoncould be explained by the wish to exchange an employee of such an age, because of thereduce of economic effectiveness, where the younger one will be more useful. In this casemobbing is used as a provocative mean to retreat from the work place and leave it for theyoung employee. In Leymann (1993) researches there was not noticed any connection between the age of the employee and mobbing cases, but according to some data people between 21-30 and 31-40 years of age become mobbing victims more often than their oldercolleagues. The tendency that mobbing according to the age is more often appears betweenyoung people and people in retirement age becomes more obvious. We can make a


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precondition, that the risk to become a victim of mobbing is waiting at the beginning and theend of the career.

Mobbing according to education. Same as in western researches (Leymann, 1993;Zapf, 2002), mobbing relations are more often noticed in educational sphere (10.9 proc.),health care and social work spheres (10.3%), where high or higher education prevails.

After analyzing early mobbing researches, after sorting out the results from the sociodemographic point of view, there was performed a similar research in organizations of

Lithuania. Unequal perception and the harm done to the employees can be called harassment. In the research the word harassment is used as a behavior, which seeks to harm or createhostile and humiliate atmosphere to mark the actions. Harassment is described as an actionwhich characterizes not only discrimination, but also discriminative actions which aretransforming into mobbing. Discrimination in the article is analyzed as a negative

phenomenon, which provokes unhealthy employee relations, which can stay in discrimination stage, but it can become mobbing. It is necessary to underline, that mobbing should be

analyzed together with discrimination as a specific discriminative phenomenon. But mobbingis revealed through frequency and duration criteria.

2. The Socio-Demographic Links in Relation to Mobbing and Discrimination inEmployee Relations

After the performance of an exploratory research (ukauskas and Vveinhardt, 2009)some improvements to the questionnaire were added, which was placed athttp://www.mobingas.lt/anketa. The survey answers of the respondents were collected inhttp://193.219.168.19/phpsql data base and later transformed into Microsoft Excel 2000 file.All the collected answers were moved into SPSS, with the help of which there was made data

matrix. The questionnaires which were answered by using informational technologies hadmade one third of all the questionnaires. Two thirds of the questionnaires were printed andspread in different work organizations. The questionnaire was performed from December2008 till February 2009.

In the first table there are presented the meanings of Cronbach alpha, which are very high,that means that they balance between 0.82 till 0.91 (Table 1 ). That proves a high reliability ofthe instrument.

Table 1. Characteristics of the instruments subscales and their methodological qualities

Subscales Explaineddispersion %

Cronbachalpha

Spearman- Brown

Methodological characteristics of the discriminative actionssubscales in organization (N = 1340) 70.12 0.91 0.87

Characteristics of methodological quality of discriminationssubscales. (N = 1340) 58.64 0.85 0.8

Methodological characteristics of subscales of additionaldiscrimination factors(N = 1343)

57.28 0.82 0.91

Source: created by authors.

The respondents received 1000 printed questionnaire, 882 were sent back. 557questionnaires were filled in on internet. During the research time there were questioned 1379respondents from state and private sector (the private sector 998 and the state sector 381).In the research, 890 women (65%) and 480 men (35%) took part.
http://www.mobingas.lt/anketahttp://193.219.168.19/phpsqlhttp://193.219.168.19/phpsqlhttp://www.mobingas.lt/anketa


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Figure 1. The division of the respondents according to their professional spheres N=1379

In the research, the respondents represented 22 professional activity spheres inLithuania. The biggest part of the respondents were made by trade organizations, which is17.5 percent, second place is represented by educational institutions, third place is represented by transport (7.8 percent) ( Figure 1 ). Almost equally the respondents were divided betweenhealth care and social work spheres (5.9 ppercent), hotel and restaurants sphere (5.9 percent), buinding organizations (6.3 percent). The division of the respondents according to the sectorswith one tenth of error corresponds with the data of Lithuanian department of statistics. In public sector there were involved 27.5 percent of employees and in private 72.5 percent.The division of the respondents: state or public sector 27.6 percent and in private 72.4 percent. In the research took part 66.5 percent of subordinates and 33.5 percent of leaderswhere the high rank leaders are represented by 3.6 percent. 75.9 percent of all the respondentswere presented by people of 18-39 years of age. According to the statistics of Lithuaniandepartment in 2007 this is the most active work age of the employee.

The biggest part of the respondents are people who have higher education (37.6 percent)and secondary education (26.3 percent). That corresponds with the common Lithuaniantendencies. Compared to other countries we can state that a very big part of the society seeks

higher education. According to the data of Lithuanian department of statistics, in 2007 almostone fourth of all the employees were represented by individuals with high education. The


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second numerous group is represented by the employees with secondary education, theyrepresent one fifth of all the employees.

Figure 2. The division of the respondents according to the years of works experience in currentorganization

Almost two thirds of all the respondents in organization work almost for 3 years( Figure 2 ). The rating according to the length of work would look as follows: 1-3 years (34.9 percent); under 1 year (29.2. percent); 4-7 years (20.3 percent). Discrimination not alwaysturns into mobbing, that why while performing the research the nature of the actions,frequency and length criteria were strictly observed and according to which mobbing is pointed out.

Figure 3. The division of the respondents according to experienced chicanery

Dysfunctional actions of the employees are also described as harassment or chicanery.Chicanery was experienced by 30.1 percent of 1379 respondents, and that shows thatchicanery is experienced by every third employee. But the length of chicanery differs a lot.The biggest part of chicanery has discriminative nature and never grows into mobbing (18.1 percent.) ( Figure 3 ). 12 percent of the respondents who had gone through chicanery can beadded to the group which is being mobbed.

In Figure 4 , we can see the data for the length of the chicanery which was experienced by the respondents in public and private sectors. In public sector chicanery for one month wasexperienced by 28.4 percent of the respondents and in private sector 30.8 percent, whichmeans that new employees are met in a hostile way. During the first twelve months of work in public sector chicanery has a tendency to diminish and in private sector chicanery is veryintensive during the whole first year. Later chicanery becomes even more intensive and 36

months are the lowest border. That can be influenced by a number of reasons a part of thevictims is accepted into a group and others put up with their positions.


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Note : State sector (N=108), private sector (N=309).

Figure 4. The division of the respndents according to the length of chicanery experience

Note : State sector (N=108), private sector (N=309).

Figure 5. The division of the respondents according to the frequency of the experiences chicanery

So we can say that the employees are met in the same way ( Figure 5 ) both in privateand public sectors. The growth of chicanery in public sector can be connected with the factthat in society the work, which is paid by state or municipality budget, is considered morevaluable because of better social guarantees and higher position in the society. Until the 3-4quarter of 2008 because of the economical growth and the immigration of potential employeesthe Lithuanian work market was marked by high level specialists and the lack of working professions on the work market. That could be influenced by the mobility of the work power,greater rotation because of the unfavorable work environment. In public sector market hasalways been stable and had a high competitiveness level, which could be inspired by activeattack and the attempts of the victim to keep the work place. We also cant forget the fact thata private sector is described by the abundance of professions by the lower level of education.In the earlier mentioned researches performed in Western countries there were not noticed anyconnections between mobbing and a certain work activity, even if the attention is paid and


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there are certain tendencies, especially in educational sphere. But in the later researches therewas stated a big difference between mobbing frequency in different types of organizations.That is why it is necessary to state the tendencies of dysfunctional relations in Lithuanianorganizations.

Note : experienced discrimination (N=250), experienced mobbing (N=165).

Figure 6. The division of the respondents according to the spheres of activity

An employee can be discriminated for years, but that does not mean that heexperiences mobbing. Discrimination and discriminative relations which grow into mobbingcan be recognized by the length of chicanery. Mobbing is described by intensive, directedattack of the victim. There is an opinion, that people who had experienced chicanery for morethan six months had experienced mobbing (if chicanery was repeated not less than once per

week). The results of the research correspond with the tendencies of Western scientists inspheres of education, health care and social work. Similar mobbing appearance (10.3 percent)


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as in the spheres of social work and health care it is also noticed in printing and inscription. Inthis sphere the tendency of discriminative action growing into mobbing is very clear.Mobbing and discrimination cases correspond according to frequency only in lightmanufacture. According to the frequency of mobbing and the relation of discriminativerelations which did not transform into mobbing health care, social work and education standout (see Figure 6 ).

It is a fact that education, healthcare and social work are female professions catch theeye. Partly it could be influenced by cultural and social understanding of the phenomenon.But to prove or deny a gender dependence of mobbing it is necessary to perform a specialstudy, which could be the subject of a separate research. Summing up the experience of therespondents in discrimination and mobbing according the spheres of activity it is possible torank all the organizations according to the frequency of mobbing and discrimination cases.Comparing first five positions it would be possible to look for the links to employeeseducation.

According to appearance of mobbing, education sphere takes a leading position. In thissphere work people, who have higher education, whos attacking actions can be refined in acertain way. According to the appearance of discrimination the sphere of education takes thethird place. We also cannot forget about the fact that part of the educational systemsenvironment is represented by people of professional or lower level education and it had itsinfluence on the results. The first three places both in discrimination and mobbing arerepresented by traditionally female professions. It is also necessary to mark, that mobbing anddiscrimination zones correspond, and that gives us a precondition to study the phenomenon incomplex. The hottest zones according to the frequency of appearance of discrimination andmobbing in employee relations are presented in the decreasing order inTable 2 .

Table 2. The frequency of mobbing and discrimination appearance Discrimination % Mobbing %

1 Trade 14 1 Education 10.9

2 Health care and social work 12 2 Health care and social work 10.33 Education 8.8 2 Publishing, printing, inscription 10.34 Transport 7.6 3 Trade 9.15 Construction 7.6 4 Transport 8.56 Hotels and restaurants 6 5 Social management and defense 7.97 Agriculture 4.8 5 Hotels and restaurants 7.98 Chemical production 4 6 Agriculture 6.79 Light industry 3.6 7 Recreational, 5.5

9 Metal manufacture 3.6 8 Manufacturing industry of buildingmaterials 4.89 Forestry 3.6 9 Light industry 3.610 Publishing, printing and inscription 3.2 10 Information and connections 3.011 Wood manufacture 2.8 11 Wood manufacture 1.811 Administrational and service activity 2.8 11 The supply of electricity, water , gas 1.812 The supply of electricity, water, gas. 2.4 11 Other business activity 1.812 Recreational, cultural, sports activities 2.4 12 Metal manufacture 1.212 Manufacturing industry of building

materials2.4 12 Forestry 1.2

13 Other service activity 1.6 12 Administration and other service 1.213 Financial and insurance activity 1.6 13 Other service activity 0.614 Information and connections 1.215 Other business activity 0.8

Source: created by authors.


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Source : Experienced mobbing (N=250), experienced mobbing (N=165).

Figure 7. The division of the respondents who had experiences mobbing according to sectors

As we see in Figure 7 both mobbing and discrimination in public and private sectorsobviously differ. The data shows that the probability of dysfunctional relations is much biggerthan in private sector. But differently from the state sector 25.5 percent more frequent are therelations which never grow into mobbing. In state sector the tendency of transformation of

discriminative relations into mobbing is more obvious. So, even if the tendencies of mobbingand discrimination in these two different types of organizations differ, but the link betweenmobbing and discrimination is obvious.

Note : Experienced discrimination (N=249), experienced mobbing (N=164).

Figure 8. The division of the respondents who had experienced mobbing according to the position

From Figure 8 it becomes clear that the victims of both discriminative actions and theactions which grow into mobbing become ordinary subordinates (correspondingly 68.7 and71.3 percent). (Intermediate results of leader link illustrate the experienced discriminationnumber which is similar to both lower and middle level of leaders (correspondingly 14.5 percent for lower rank of the leaders and middle rank leaders 14.8 percent), but it should be

noticed that 5.5 percent of mobbing actions frequency depends on the higher position in therank scale, that means that the possibility of bossing grows. Organizations leaders also haveleaders the members of the board, shareholders, which possess the power of pressing.

The results of the survey show the tendency, that mobbing as discrimination inemployee relations is more frequently experienced by Lithuanian women. 59.8 percent ofwomen reported their mobbing experience and 56.5 percent reported the actions which did nottransform into mobbing. Professional characteristics could influence the higher appearance ofmobbing as discrimination in employee relations. Such spheres as education, health care,social care are known by greater concentration of female employees. Because of this reasonZapf (1999; 2002) very carefully evaluates the attempts to connect the dysfunctional relationswith female socialization. The authors also mark the fact that the researches of stress hadshown, that women are more opened and tend to reveal their health problems and properlytake part in mobbing researches.


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Note : Experience discrimination (N=250), experienced mobbing (N=163).

Figure 9. The dividion of the respondents who had experienced discrimination and mobbing according tothe age

After the received research data it is possible to make a supposition, thatdiscrimination and mobbing can be experienced by young or middle-aged employees. First ofall it is connected to the fact the majority of people in nowadays market belong to this group.This is the most productive period of human work activity, which is characterized by thehighest competitiveness on the work place. In this period of time the resources of theindividual are the greatest, which is all the potential of the energy in used for self-realization.The mention conditions, only partly explain the high mobbing index for this age group. Suchlucky people usually reveal the inactivity, passive attitude, distrust of the personal powers,

of other colleagues, which influence their negative emotions.According to the opinion of many authors, unfair competitiveness becomes angularreason of mobbing plots at work. It is even worse when the relation between the competitorsis vertical, when the competition is between the leader and the subordinate. Such situationsare usually caused not business conflict, but a personal one and create favorable environmentfor mobbing. It is very important to mention, that young grownups are responsible not onlyfor themselves, but also their family and children, and all this narrows their freedom of choiceand changes.

A high mobbing index exist and among older people. That would correspond with thetendency that the employees in the organization are less welcomed the closer to pension theyare. But the results of the research also show that the older a person is the higher is the

discrimination index, but the indexes of mobbing tend to diminish. The statistics of theLithuanian Employment office shows that the highest number of the unemployed isrepresented by people who are close to the pension age. And their possibility to be hired isalso the smallest. Comparatively well valued is a young employee, whose activity correspondswith the effectiveness. The retirement of the employee is connected to the expenses for socialcompensations, the search of new employees, training etc. Niedl (1995) had the sameopinion, but the results, which are presented on picture 9 a great deal correspond with H.Leymann (1993) research data, which state that the greatest risk to experience mobbing is between 20 and 40 years of age. Discrimination and mobbing are mostly experienced by therepresentatives of the following age groups: 24-39 years (correspondingly mobbing 29.4 percent, discrimination 23.6 percent) and 30-39 years (correspondingly mobbing 33.1 percent, discrimination 27.6 percent). A high discrimination index was also received in theemployee group of 18-23 years of age, but the index of mobbing is quite low (7.4 percent).


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bigger (employees which have less than one year of work experience : discrimination 26.6 percent, mobbing 12.7 percent).

Note : Experienced discrimination (N=143), experienced mobbing (N=79).

Figure 11. The division of the respondents who had experienced discrimination and mobbing accordingto the years of work experience in the current organization

This tendency is connected to the adaptation of a new, inexperienced person at a work place. It is traditionally thought that an inexperienced person, who does not master work andis not familiar with work environment, tends to make mistakes. In such circumstances anewcomer can become a specific indicator of a healthy work environment in the organization.At work places, where prevail respect to the employees and healthy competitiveness, the

adaptation period of a newcomer is not characterized by discriminative events and on thecontrary: in organizations with tense relations, where the competitiveness is unfair, a new person finds himself in the environment which is favorable for discrimination.

Therefore, we can make a conclusion, that the appearance of discrimination andmobbing against people with a short work experience, in influenced by the already formed ofwork environment. While evaluating the spread of the mentioned indexes we should notforget about the inborn psychological peculiarities, which influence the locus control oracquired helplessness. These qualities are very important for explanation of persons reactionto the situation. With the growth of work experience the cases of mobbing become morefrequent, the highest index was noticed among the employees, whose work experience is between 4 and 7 years (43 percent). Among the respondents of this group the cases ofdiscriminative attacks were noticed in 2.7 times more often, and that reveals the tendencies ofchicanery intensifying and appearance of mobbing. With the growth of work experience period, personal, work and social experience deepens as well. All this influences better possibilities of the career and a possibility to get bigger income, which can influence thefeelings of envy, hostility, mistrust in own powers. All this can influence a negative workenvironment, which can transform into aggression or mobbing. A more frequent appearanceof mobbing towards the people who have from 4 to 7 years of work experience, is without adoubt, influenced by a favorable period of time, because mobbing, as we know, is a long-lasting process. It is logical, that the discriminative indexes for people who worked for 11-15years are very low about 4.2 percent and cases of mobbing were not registered at all. That proves an earlier hypothesis about the adaptation period and about the importance of inbornqualities for work in organization. It is clear that during such a long work time period, the


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employees manage to find the solution for the mentioned problems or in case of theunsuccessful end, and they have already left the work place.

In conclusion we would like to mark, that chicanery in Lithuanian organizations isexperienced by almost every third employee. According to the received data and the criteriawhich are applied to mobbing it became clear that the biggest part of the chicanery has adiscriminative nature which never transforms into mobbing. Only to one tenth of chicaneryexperienced respondents could be described as mobbed group. Intensive, hostile relations arenoticed both in private and public sectors. A great increase of people who are being mobbedin public sector can be connected to the fact that in society the work which is paid by state ormunicipality is considered to be more valuable. The research results in the essencecorrespond with the tendencies noticed by Western scientists in spheres of education, healthand social work. But it should be mentioned, that a similar appearance of mobbing can beobserved in publishing, printing and inscription and in this sphere the tendency ofdiscriminative relations to grow into mobbing is very obvious. The tendencies of mobbing and

discrimination become obvious in professional spheres, which are characterized by high levelof education. The data shows, that the possibility of dysfunctional relations is higher in private sector. But on the contrary to state sector, discriminative relations that does not growinto mobbing are more frequent. But in state sector there is a tendency of transformation ofdiscriminative relations into mobbing. The majority of the discrimination and mobbingvictims are ordinary employees, the higher the rank is, the smaller is the possibility toexperience discriminative actions. Mobbing, as discrimination in employee relation is moreoften experienced by women. Discrimination and mobbing can be experienced by young

grownups or middle age people. The higher is the education, the more frequent actions ofmobbing are, for example almost a half of all mobbing cases experience people with highereducation.

Conclusions

Summing up the study of the scientific thought it is necessary to accentualize the mainsocio demographic criteria, such as gender, position in organization, age, work experience,education etc. The researches, which were performed in Western countries, were used as acomparative material in order to highlight the similarities and differences of discriminationand mobbing, identifying and sorting out the aspects of the phenomenon. It is necessary tounderline, that discrimination and mobbing appear in organizations, where culture, values areevaluated carelessly, where the conflicts between the employees are not solved and thefactors, which can provoke dysfunctional relations are not evaluated properly. Such tasks howto protect and analyze dysfunctional employee relations, to look for the optimal instrument forthe identification of negative relations, to create preventive and rehabilitation programmeswhich present the concept of responsible organization, which creates the special tasks for public and private sector. Mobbing is a very tricky discriminative phenomenon, which veryoften takes place on the level of two people relations, and can be hardly identified. The phenomenon of mobbing is very dangerous for the image of organization and the results ofthe employees.

In the discourse of socially responsible organization the responsibility fororganizations climate and the actions which discriminate and mob employee relations isunderlined. The task which is held presupposes organizational and professional responsibility, but not only appeal to the moral sensitivity of the individual and his commitment. Thisstatement collides with the strict, but short-sighted opinion of organization leaders to reducethe usage of activity and knowledge and the lack of the experience in managing organizational


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climate. Discrimination in employee relation is the escalation of conflicts, hostile behavior, physical and psychological violence, terror. The term of discrimination is widely used in politics, economics, sociology etc. The most popular meaning which is used in society is usedto reflect negative actions which humiliate the personality of an individual. In other wordswhen we are talking about discrimination we add an attribute racial, national, genderetc. Mobbing is a form of discrimination at the work place, a special way of behavior aimed to push the victim out of social group, division, organization. This is the long-lasting psychological terror, which ends in the victims loss. The phenomenon of mobbing isdescribed by the length and frequency criteria, according to which it is impossible to state,that a person who had experienced discrimination had experienced mobbing as well. In earlymobbing researches the dependence between professional sphere of activity and mobbingvictim was not noticed, but it was noticed that in manufacture, commerce, agriculture, forestryspheres mobbing is noticed very rarely, but in education sphere there were noticed many casesof mobbing, twice more than in other analyzed spheres. The newest researches show the

dispersion in certain professional groups, dependence on social and demographical peculiarities of the victim. Mobbing can be vertical (leaders against subordinates andsubordinates against leaders) and horizontal (colleagues against colleagues). The latestresearches in German speaking countries show that 70 percent of people who use mobbing areleaders, but in other European countries the percentage of mobbing users decreases till 50 percent. Gender studies show that women experience mobbing twice more often than men, butthis data could be influenced by a greater degree of frankness, which women tend to express.And men still take higher positions, than women, i.e., why the possibility to become thevictim of mobbing is not that big.

Nevertheless, a very big percentage of mobbing cases is noticed among therepresentatives of the same gender. The researches, which were performed in western

countries show that the risk to be a mobbing victim is at the beginning and the end of thecareer. Mobbing relations are more frequent in education and health care and social workspheres, where people possess high or higher education. But we also should not forget that inthese spheres the majority of the employees are women, who are more frank.

The questionnaire of the research was made with the help of H. Leymann and otherresearches performed by western scientists. While testing Lithuanian organization andcreating the instrument for the questionnaire it was necessary to take to consideration acultural and social specific of a segment, the mentality of the respondents. The aim of theresearch was to state possible socio demographic differences and similarities in western andLithuanian organizations. High indexes of Cronbach alfa and Spearman Brown prove thevalidity of the questions and reliability of the instrument. Summing up it is possible to state,that the results of western scientists were proved, that means that mobbing is more obvious ishealth care and social work spheres. That is why the result that was received in Lithuanias business organizations was very surprising mobbing is very frequent in publishing,commerce, transport and agriculture spheres.

Discrimination is experienced in the organizations of the same sphere as mobbing.And all that once again proves the hypothesis, that mobbing can be considered a form ofdiscrimination, and discriminative action signal about the problems in organizational culture,which can be later transformed into mobbing. The research results in Lithuanian organizationsshows that discrimination as well as mobbing is more frequent in the organizations of privatesector, but discrimination grows into mobbing in the organizations of state sector. It could beconnected to the growth of the economy and the period of work power immigration, the period, where the employee could a greater possibility to choose other organization. Statesector possesses a specific work structure and the workers of certain professional preparation,


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which narrows the choice of work places. Because of little offers the work market is limitedand the work place is valued. The division between the employees who had experienceddiscrimination and mobbing according to the work position shows that the subordinates become the victims of their colleagues more often. Even if the institutional power of theleader is big enough, but the hypothesis of the early studies are also proved mobbing is popular among the employees of the same rank. According to the gender point of view it isobvious that women suffer more from the harassment that tends to transform intodiscrimination or mobbing. That can be influenced by a number of reasons, such as patriarchalthinking of the society, according to which woman is considered not equal participant of thework markets and by the greater degree of women frankness to share the experience ofmobbing. In future it will be necessary to perform a more detailed and narrow research, whichwould allow stating the reason or reasons of the tendencies. The influence of the age to theharassment was stated as well the results show, that discrimination and mobbing areexperienced in the most active and most productive time of their career, that is why it is

possible to presuppose, that envy, concurrence are the most important reasons for mobbingappearance. Nevertheless, comparing with the researches which were performed in western

countries, it is possible to notice certain differences. Differently from the western researches,mobbing that appears is Lithuanian organization happens not in the beginning of the career, but in the most productive period of career. In the beginning of career the discriminativeactions are very frequent a very important factor, which should be taken to considerationwhile creating the prevention measure for mobbing. Work experience in organization is veryimportant factor in order to describe the picture of mobbing victim, because the employeeswith the experience, which have a possibility to climb the career stairs experience thediscriminative actions of the colleagues, which transform into mobbing. Mobbing can be

called the phenomenon of people with refined education which they use in order to get rid ofthe competitor, because mobbing is still more frequent among people with higher education.

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SOCIODEMOGRAFIN #S MOBINGO IR DISKRIMINACIJOS DARBUOTOJ & SANTYKIUOSECHARAKTERISTIKOS

Pranas ukauskas, Jolita Vveinhardt

SANTRAUKA

Straipsnyje ap3velgiami ankstyvieji mobingo tyrin)toj, H. Leymann, K. Niedl, D. Zapf, K. Warth, R. F.Thomas ir pastarojo de' imtme%io darbai i' skiriant sociodemografini, charakteristik , aspekt/ . I' analizavusmokslin5 literat6r / , atlikus 3valgom/ j1 tyrim/ ) parengtas klausimynas mobingui ir diskriminacijai darbuotoj, santykiuose diagnozuoti. Instrumento patikimum/ patvirtino auk ' tos Cronbach alpha reik ' m)s, apklausojedalyvavo 1379 respondentai atstovaujantys Lietuvos vie'/ j1 ir privat, j1 sektorius. Mobingo ir diskriminacijosdarbuotoj, santykiuose diagnozavimas buvo sud)tin) tyrimo, kuriuo siekta nustatyti minimo rei' kinio poveik 1 organizacijos klimatui, dalis. Straipsnyje analizuojamas mobingo rei' kinys sociodemografini, charakteristik , aspektu: pagal sektorius (privatus, vie' as), pagal profesin)s veiklos sritis, darbo sta3/ dabartin) je organizacijoje,

pagal pareigas (eiliniai pavaldiniai, 1 vairaus rango vadovai), pagal am3i, , i' simokslinim/ ir kt.Sociodemografinis po3i6ris pasirinktas norint nustatyti, kokiomis ypatyb)mis i' siskiria mobingo auka.

REI KMINIAI # OD # IAI : darbuotojai, tarpusavio santykiai, diskriminacija, mobingas, mobingo diagnozavimas, paty%ios, auka, priekabiavimas, Lietuva.

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Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Mobbing and Discrimination in Employee Relations

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