Moral harassment: individual, organizational and social consequences

Abstract

It is widely known that the work organization has impact on the psychological life of workers. The objective of this paper is to analyze the behavior implications of moral harassment not only on the individual, but also on the organization and society. In order to do that, a single case was studied, on the individual level, based on a longitudinal perspective, using several sources of evidences. The case chosen for the analysis was of a male bank employee, participating in the process of privatization of the bank where he worked, who suffered vertical descendent moral harassment. This subject sought help from the labor union, and being diagnosed with depression, was removed from his duties. As a result, the theory on moral harassment was confirmed, which defines the implications of moral harassment at work as consequences at individual, organizational and social levels. Therefore, it can be concluded that forms of management and work organization have a close relationship with moral harassment. This suggests that workers, organization managers, labor unions, health professionals and society work together, adopting preventive measures so as to eradicate moral harassment from work. Key words: oral harassment; work organization; anagement forms; relations at work.