Organizational Circumstances for the Occurrence of Mobbing in Health Care Organizations

The health care sector, an important segment of society, is perhaps one of the most vulnerable sectors to the creation of conditions that lead to mobbing. Mobbing is an expression of negative energy that results from deliberate failure to deal with everyday conflicts and deliberate creation of a climate of misunderstanding and hostile communications. It should be viewed as a result of interaction of five elements: psychology of the mobber, psychology of the victim, organizational culture and structure, initial occurrences and conflicts, and extra-organizational factors. In addition, health care organizations with a bad organizational climate show some characteristics that may create a fertile soil for the development of mobbing. The paper provides an overview of recent research in health care organizations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. If a health care organization where mobbing is at issue decides to solve this problem without intervention of legal authorities, it should adopt a multidisciplinary approach. The present paper addresses several aspects of mobbing at workplace: circumstances leading to the development of mobbing, mobbing in health care organizations, overview of research conducted in the region, and ways of improving the organizational climate.