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This article investigates the causes of mobbing (bullying) at work. Mobbing is defined as a severe form of social stressors at work. Unlike “normal” social stressors, mobbing is a long lasting, escalated conflict with frequent harassing actions systematically aimed at a target person. It is argued that the organisation, the social system, a certain perpetrator and the victim have to be considered as potential causes of mobbing. Results of two samples of mobbing victims and a control group support this view. It is concluded that one‐sided explanations on the causes of mobbing are likely to be inappropriate and that many cases are characterised by multi‐causality – a common finding in conflict research.
Dieter Zapf (Mon,) studied this question.