A TOOL FOR ASSESSING THE RISK OF MOBBING IN ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS: THE VAL.MOB. SCALE

The evaluation of mobbing in organizational environments is an issue of growing complexity. Scientific disciplines concerned with the study of behaviour - particularly psychological disciplines such as industrial and organizational social psychology - focus considerable attention above all on the diagnostic problem of the measurement power for predicting/preventing of mobbing in the most varied occupational contexts. Indeed, the national and international literature reveals a number of serious limitations due particularly to the inconclusive nature of the evaluation methods chosen and applied in varying contexts and cultures; that is, it stresses as a priority the need for the development and accreditation by the ever-diligent scientific-professional community of new and reliable diagnostic and prognostic tools that focus on the complex and multifaceted nature of the mobbing phenomenon. The aim of this study - within the more general context of social ergonomics which provides the background context for our approach and in which the topic of psychosocial risk prevention is of primary interest - is to develop a specific psychometric instrument for assessing aspects and characteristics of mobbing as well as of factors contributing to mobbing from a multidisciplinary point of view. This instrument should prove reliable from a metric-evaluative viewpoint so that it can be applied to the planning of interventions within a context of correctional ergonomics as well as one of mobbing prediction/prevention. The study applied a quali-quantitative research methodology. For this research, 441 subjects were interviewed and, in accordance with the research design applied, they were divided into experimental group (A) and control group (B). The administration of a questionnaire consisting of various sections allowed seven key areas to be examined, which had emerged from a previous pilot study on mobbing and were shown to be particularly prominent: • elements of discomfort; • threats and violence; • isolation; • communication, • horizontal and vertical social relations; • attachment to work; • affective/emotional climate. The metric-psychological qualities of the instrument were assessed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), reliability tests (Cronbach’s Alpha) and analysis of the Discriminant Function (DF) among groups. The statistical analysis applied to the data demonstrated that the so-called Val.Mob scale is characterized by an optimal factorial structure (EFA), having validity and psychometric reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) and is also capable of significantly discriminate between individuals subject to mobbing or otherwise, demonstrating a correct predictive discrimination in 84% of cases (DF). In order to progressively perfect the instrument described above and to enhance its psychometric validity, this study has already been expanded and extended to occupational and socio-organisational contexts, which are highly diversified from many points of view, in order to strengthen the generalizability (external validity) and the verification of the relationships between mobbing and the other variables which impact on organizational wellbeing (construct validity).