Mobbing merlone

A Systemic Approach to Understand and
Anticipate Misbehaviors in Organizations.
An Example of Bullying.

Ugo Merlone

Department of Psychology, University of Torino

CIPESS Seminar
Torino, Italy, June, 26, 2012

Ugo Merlone (2012) A Systemic Approach to Understand Bullying June, 26th 2012 1 / 77

Outline

1 Motivation

2 Common Paradigms
System Dynamics
Socio-psychological approach

3 A Case Study

4 A Preliminary Model

5 A Model of Authority

6 A Reﬁned Model

7 Conclusion


Motivation

Motivation


Motivation

Organizational Behavior

According to Robbins and Judge (2010, p. 26)
Organizational behavior (often abbreviated as OB) studies the
inﬂuence that individuals, groups, and organizational structure have on
behavior within organizations. The chief goal of OB is to apply that
knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness. And
because OB is concerned speciﬁcally with employment-related
situations, it emphasizes behavior related to jobs, work, absenteeism,
employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and
management.


Motivation

Some images for Organizational Behavior


Motivation

The other side of Organizational Behavior

Yet in real organizations sometimes something else also happens


Motivation


1 An Introduction to the Dark Side.
2 Workplace Aggression and Violence: Insights from Basic
Research.
3 Injustice, Stress, and Aggression in Organizations.
4 When the Dark Side of Families Enters the Workplace: The Case
of Intimate Partner Violence.
5 Subtle (and Not So Subtle) Discrimination in Organizations.
6 Sexual Harassment as Dysfunctional Behavior in Organizations.
7 Out of the Closet and Out of a Job? The Nature, Import, and
Causes of Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace.
8 The Dark Side of Politics in Organizations.


Motivation


9 Under-the-Table Deals: Preferential, Unauthorized, or
Idiosyncratic?
10 Extreme Careerism: The Dark Side of Impression Management.
11 Psychological Contract Breach and Violation in Organizations.
12 Alcohol and Drug Use in the Workplace.
13 Broadening Our Understanding of Organizational Retaliatory
Behavior.
14 On Incivility, Its Impact, and Directions for Future Research.
15 The Methodological Evolution of Employee Theft Research: The
DATA Cycle.
16 Dark Side Issues: Concluding Observations and Directions for
Future Research.


Motivation

Among all kinds of misbehaviors

Mobbing
Some data:
Norway (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996): 8.6% of 7986 respondents
had been bullied at work during the previous last months
Europe (Zapf et Al. 2003):
serious bullying (weekly or daily episodes): between 1 and 4% of
employees
occasional episodes: between 8 and 10% of employees
UK (Hoel & Cooper, 2000): 10.5% of 5288 respondents had some
experience with bullying
US (Keashly & Jagatic, 2): sample of 1836 adults in Michigan
27% reported mistreatment at work during the previous
twelve-month period
42% indicated that mistreatment had occurred at some point
during their working career

Motivation

A deﬁnition
Mobbing (Continental European Countries) or workplace bullying (US),
is deﬁned by Einarsen et Al., 2003) as follows
Bullying at work means harassing, offending,
socially excluding someone or negatively affecting
someone’s work tasks. In order for the label
bullying (or mobbing) to be applied to a particular
activity, interaction or process it has to occur
repeatedly and regularly (e.g. weekly) and over a
period of time (e.g. about six months). Bullying
is an escalating process in the course of which the
person confronted ends up in an inferior position
and becomes the target of systematic negative social
acts. A conflict cannot be called bullying if the
incident is an isolated event or if two parties of
approximately equal ’strenght’ are in conflict.

Motivation

Stereotypic course over time, Leymann, 1996

Stereotypic course over time
1 Critical incidents. The triggering situation is most often a conﬂict.
Mobbing can, therefore, be seen as an escalated conﬂict.
2 Mobbing and stigmatizing. All of the observed behaviours,
regardless of their normal meaning in normal daily comunications,
have the common denominator of being based on the intent to
“get at a person” or punish him or her.
3 Personnel management. Due to previous stigmatization, it is very
easy to misjudge the situation as being the fault of the subject
person.
4 Expulsion. As far as the mobbing scenario at the workplace is
concerned the social effects of expelling people from working are
well known.


Common Paradigms

Common Paradigms


Common Paradigms

System Theory: a brief history

Chen and Stroup (1993) provide some milestones
Aristotele “The whole is more than the sum of parts”
A. J. Lotka’s Elements of Mathematical Biology provided an
articulation the priciples of what would become modern system
theory.
Wiener’s Cybernetics: Control of Man and the Machine discussed
organized complexity.
Ludwig Bertalanffy established the ﬁeld of general system theory.
Jay Forrester, using availability and increased power of computers,
used the very same principle to explain the dynamic behavior of
governements, business systems and human behavior.


Common Paradigms

System Theory: basic notions

According to Chen and Stroup (1993, p.448-449) the notions at the
base of system theory are
1 A “system” is an ensemble of interacting parts, the sum of which
exhibits behavior not localized in its constituent parts. [. . . ].
2 A system can be physical, biological, social, or symbolic; or it can
be comprised of one or more of these.
3 Change is seen as a transformation the of system in time, which,
nevertheless, conserves its identity. [. . . ].
4 Goal-directed behavior characterizes the changes observed in the
state of the system. [. . . ].


Common Paradigms

System Theory

5 “Feedback ” is the mechanism that mediates between the goal
and system behavior.
6 Time is a central variable in system theory. It provides a referent
for the very idea of dynamics.
7 The “boundary ” serves to delineate the system from the
environment and any subsystems from the system as a whole.
8 System-environment interactions can be deﬁned as the input and
output of matter, and information, energy. The system can be
open, closed, or semipermeable to the environment.


Common Paradigms System Dynamics

System Dynamics

According to Forrester (2010),
System dynamics is a professional ﬁeld that deals with the
complexity of systems.
System dynamics is the necessary foundation underlying effective
thinking about systems.
System dynamics deals with how things change through time,
which covers most of what most people ﬁnd important.
System dynamics involves interpreting real life systems into
computer simulation models that allow one to see how the
structure and decision-making policies in a system create its
behavior.



System Dynamics

According to Sterman (2000), System Dynamics is interdisciplinary
mathematics, physics and engineering: as it is grounded on
nonlinear dynamics and feedback control;
cognitive psychology, social psychology and economics: as it is
applied to the behavior of human as well as physical and technical
systems;
policy making: as model are builded to solve important real world
problems.



Some System Dynamics models
At least two models are worth mentioning
Gilbert Low’s model of the Zimbardo prison experiment;

source: J. K. Doyle, K. Saeed, J. Skorinko (2008)


Some System Dynamics models
and
Barry Richmond’s model of the classic Milgram obedience study.

source:
http://www.systemswiki.org/index.php?title=Milgram_Experiment

Common Paradigms Socio-psychological approach

Socio-psychological approach

At the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and the Tavistock Clinic
several consultants have been working on unconscious aspects of
oraganizational life.
They developed the socio-psychological approach which draws from
psychoanalysis;
Wilfred Bion’s Theory of Groups;
open systems theory;
group relations training.


Common Paradigms Socio-psychological approach

The common paradigm informs the approach
Miller & Rice (1967, p.9)

J. Sterman (2000, p.193)

Basic stocks and ﬂows


A Case Study

A Case Study


A Case Study

Localization in G.A.S. Metaphor

Thorngate (1976) states that it is impossible to develop a social
behavior theory, which is at the same time:
general
accurate
simple


A Case Study

Localization in G.A.S. Metaphor

Weick (1979) illustrates this tradeoff


A Case Study

The case of Eve (Leymann, 1996)

A canteen supervisor at a large prison retired and a successor was
needed. The employer and the personnel department were of the
same opinion, that the opportunity should be used to bring about
certain changes. The canteen needed to economize and at the same
time offer healthier food. An individual with suitable training was found.
She was employed and assigned to the kitchen where six female
cooks –who all knew how to prepare a thick cream sauce but knew
nothing about the impending changes– were standing in front of their
ovens. An inevitable conﬂict soon broke out.


A Case Study

The case of Eve

How was the new manager in the kitchen going to pursue the desired
changes without the support of her employer? Nobody had informed
the cooks of any planned change. The new methods for preparing food
were totally alien to them. The idea of making provision for a relevant
training course had never dawned on the employer. The cooks
believed that all these new ideas came personally from Eve, their new
supervisor. This caused them to turn against her. They started to
gossip and counteract her instructions. Even the fact that she had a
mentally handicapped child was held against her, as if her own
character were responsible for this. There were continuous heated
discussions. The cooks did not listen to Eve and ignored her
delegation of tasks, regularly doing things that led to differences of
opinion. It was maintained that Eve went far beyond the scope of her
responsibility, which in fact was not true.


A Case Study

The case of Eve

On a number of occasions. Eve tried to obtain descriptions of her
responsibilities from the prison authorities. Top management refused
her requests. Her continual requests were interpreted as
insubordination. Here we should bear in mind that such job
descriptions are in fact a method through which top management can
express its leadership at all levels; by deﬁning institutional hierarchy at
a central level, and deﬁning various areas of competence, an employer
is provided with an indispensable control mechanism through which
the various areas of responsibility can be effected. In Eve’s case, the
only thing that happened was that top management felt attacked by her
requests and defended themselves. This legitimized the cooks’
harassment of Eve as they interpreted the situation as if the top
management were "on their side".


A Case Study

The case of Eve

The harassment continued and developed into a mobbing process,
through which Eve eventually lost her authority completely. Harsh
arguments took place on a daily basis. One of the top managers who
accidentally overheard such an argument summoned Eve for a report.
She noticed, as she entered the meeting room, that she was standing
in front of some kind of court, she was given no chance to explain the
situation but was heavily criticized. Top management ordered (!!) her
to take sick leave, which the prison’s own physician validated (!!). After
having been on sick leave for more than two years (!!), Eve eventually
lost her job. She never found another job again.


A Preliminary Model

A preliminary model


A Preliminary Model

Eve’s orders=
ARCTAN(Uncompleted orders-Acceptable Backlog)/3.1415+0.5
+Arrival rate


A Preliminary Model

A note about modeling details

Sterman (2000) suggests to

“Avoid IF. . . THEN . . . ELSE formulations”

as they introduces sharp discontinuities in the model (actually, border
collisions.)
Rather use min or max functions or even better

“Fuzzy min” or “Fuzzy max”

ARCTAN solves this problem as

arctan (]−∞, +∞[) = ]−π/2, +π/2[ .


A Preliminary Model

Arctan

y = arctan x


A Preliminary Model

Normalized Arctan

arctan x
y= π


A Preliminary Model

Normalized and Adjusted Arctan

arctan x 1
y= π + 2


A Preliminary Model

Graphic table function (Lookup)

Eve’s orders=f (Uncompleted orders)


A Preliminary Model

Example: Eve’s orders

IF Tasks to Below > Acceptable Backlog
THEN Eve’s orders= Tasks to Below - Acceptable Backlog
ELSE Eve’s orders=0

should be replaced by

Eve’s orders= MAX (Tasks to Below - Acceptable Backlog,0)

yet with MAX and MIN discontinuities remain.

ARCTAN solves this problem as

Eve’s orders=
ARCTAN(Tasks to Below-Acceptable Backlog)/3.1415+0.5


A Preliminary Model

Work completion rate=
Eve’s orders*Cooks’ rate of completion*
*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Uncompleted orders)


A Preliminary Model

Eve’s Frustration=
ARCTAN(Uncompleted orders-Acceptable Backlog)/3.1415+0.5


A Preliminary Model

Managerial support to Eve=
Initial support to Eve-Eve’s Frustration


A Preliminary Model

The preliminary model

Cooks’ obedience to Eve’s orders=
ARCTAN(Managerial support to Eve-Eve’s Frustration)/3.1415+0.5

A Preliminary Model

Cooks’ rate of completion=
Cooks’ obedience to Eve’s orders*Cooks training


A Preliminary Model

Results


A Preliminary Model

Results: full support and full training (Backlog=20.25)
t = 40:
backlog is reached

As the backlog limit is reached the system collapses:
man. sup., cook’s obedience and rate of compl. drop
Eve’s frustration raises
rate of uncompleted orders increases


A Preliminary Model


backlog limit is not
reached

The system remains under control


A Preliminary Model

Results: half support and full training (Backlog=40.5)
t ≈ 50:
backlog is reached

After a long delay the system collapses:


A Preliminary Model

Results: full support and half training (Backlog=40.5)
t ≈ 85:
backlog is reached

Well before the backlog is reached the system collapses:


A Preliminary Model

The preliminar model: analysis

First results
backlog limit
seems to be important when cook’s training is adeguate
when too low the system collapses
cook’s training seems to be more important than managerial
support
when cook’s training is low, the disfunctional dynamics between
management, cooks and Eve, is not evident from the uncompleted
orders


A Model of Authority




Obholzer contribution

According to Obholzer (1994):
Authority refers to the right to make an ultimate decision, and in an
organization it refers to the right to make decisions which are binding
to others.
He considers:
authority from “above”
authority from “below”
authority from “within”



Authority from “above”

Formal authority is a quality that is derived from one’s’ role in a system
and is exercised on its behalf. (Obholzer 1994, p.39).



Authority from “below”

“Members who voluntarily join an organization are, by deﬁnition,
santioning the system. By the act of joining, they are, at least implicitly,
delegating some of their personal authority to those in authority, and in
so doing conﬁrming the system.” (Obholzer 1994, p.40).



Authority from “within”

“[. . . ] there is the vital issue of authorization or confirmation of authority
from within individuals. This largely depends on the nature of their
relationship with the figure of their inner world.” (Obholzer 1994, p.41).

Two extremes
undermining self-in-role by inner world figures
inner world figures playing into a state of psychopatological
omnipotence

Important difference
authoritative: a depressive position state of mind
authoritarian: a paranoid-schizoid position state of mind



Levels of authority: modelization



A preliminary model


A Reﬁned Model

A model with levels of authority


A Reﬁned Model

Eve’s orders=
+Arrival rate

A Reﬁned Model

Below Authority Rate=
Eve’s orders*Cooks’ rate of completion*
*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks to Below)

A Reﬁned Model

Within Authority Rate=
(1-Eve’s Frustration)*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks from Above)

A Reﬁned Model

Above Authority Rate=
Managerial support to Eve*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks to be completed)

A Reﬁned Model

Eve’s Frustration=

A Reﬁned Model

Managerial support to Eve=
Initial support to Eve-Eve’s Frustration

A Reﬁned Model

Cooks’ obedience to Eve’s orders=
ARCTAN(Managerial support to Eve-Eve’s Frustration)/3.1415+0.5

A Reﬁned Model

Cooks’ rate of completion=
Cooks’ obedience to Eve’s orders*Cooks training

A Reﬁned Model

Default Rate1=Def Rate 1*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks to be completed)
Default Rate2=Def Rate 2*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks from Above/1)
Default Rate3=Def Rate 3*2/3.1415*ARCTAN(Tasks to Below)

A Reﬁned Model

Results


A Reﬁned Model

t ≈ 70:
backlog is reached

The system remains under control


A Reﬁned Model

Results: half support and full training (Backlog=10.0)
t ≈ 30:
backlog is reached

The system remains roughly under control


A Reﬁned Model

Results: full support and half training (Backlog=10.0)
t ≈ 30:
backlog is reached

As the backlog limit is reached the system collapses:


A Reﬁned Model

The model with levels of authority: analysis

First results
backlog limit seems to be important only when cook’s training is
not adeguate
cook’s training seems to be more important than managerial
support


A Reﬁned Model

Comparing the two models.

cook’s training seems to be the most important variable
the model with authority levels seems to be less dependent on the
backlog limit
when considering the authority levels the dynamics between
management, cooks and Eve seem to be less dysfunctional
in both models, Leymann’s stereotypic course over time is roughly
followed


Conclusion

Conclusion


Conclusion

Conclusion

Bullying and other dysfunctional dynamics at the workplace can be
quite complex
approaching such problems from a systemic point of view can
help to understand some of the interaction between parts
putting together different approaches which are based on system
theory may provide a wider perspective
the modeling process and the simulation results allow us to
understand how feedback may cause reinforcing loops
in some cases reaching the backlog limit causes the dysfunctional
dynamics but this is not a sufﬁcient condition


Conclusion

Conclusion

A systemic approach may obtain a deeper changement in the system


Conclusion

Conclusion

An ambitious analogy about computer modeling
Vygotsky described developmental changes in children’s thinking
in terms of the cultural tools they use to make sense of their world

similarly

the computational tools (models) we use–to make sense of the
world–allow changes in our thinking about complex systems.


Appendix For Further Reading

Main References I

J. W. Forrester
System Dynamics: the Foundation Under Systems Thinking
Sloan School of Management, MIT, 2010.
J. D. Sterman
Business Dynamics,
McGraw-Hill, Boston, 2000.



Main References I

E. J. Miller & A. K. Rice
Systems of Organization,
Tavistock Publications, London., 1967.
A. Obholzer
Authority, power and leadership: contributions from group relations
training, in The Unconscious at Work, Routledge, London,pp.39-47
UK, 1994.
D. Chen & W. Stroup
General System Theory: Toward a Conceptual Framework for
Science and Technology Education for All,
Journal of Science Education and Technology , 2(3) pp.447-459,
1993.



Main References I

S. P. Robbins, T.A. Judge
Essentials of Organizational Behavior (Tenth Edition),
Pearson, Upper Saddle River, 2010.
R. W. Grifﬁn, A. M. O’Leary-Kelly (eds.)
The Dark Side of Organizational Behavior,
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2004.
H. Leymann
The Content and Development of Mobbing at Work
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology ,
5(2):165–184, 1996.
U. Merlone
Il mobbing e la System Dynamics, Personale e Lavoro, 493, pp
19-26, 2006.


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