Frost, P. J., Nord W. R., & Krefting L. A.
(2003).
Managerial and organizational reality: stories of life and work.
"Defamation attempts to cut the reformer off from a potentially sympathetic following by attributing his attempts at reform to questionable motives, underlying psychopathology, or gross incompetence. This three-pronged attack is meant to blackmail the reformer into submission and to transform a sympathetic following into a mistrustful crowd of onlookers or an angry mob that feels resentful at having been deceived by the reformer." (p. 331, Rory O'Day)
Harper, J.
(2013).
Mobbed! A Survival Guide to Adult Bullying and Mobbing.
"Mobbing is group aggression, and it is distinct from bullying because the people who engage in it include not only 'bullies,' but once supportive, friendly, non-aggressive people who have suddenly been encouraged to see you as a threat." (Kindle loc. 208-210)
Davenport, N., Schwartz R. D., & Elliott G. P.
(1999).
Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace.
"But employees who are committed to their work are often very loyal. They believe in the goals of the organization. They care about the organization's reputation. They keep quiet, are ambivalent about taking action and may not readily seek assistance, inside or outside the organization. They suffer for a longer period. Rarely do such individuals reveal their personal agony. And often they do not understand the complex reality of their situation."
Lorenz, K.
(1966).
On Aggression.
"Aggression elicited by any deviation from a group's characteristic manners and mannerisms forces all its members into a strictly uniform observance of these norms of social behavior. The nonconformist is discriminated against as an 'outsider' and, in primitive groups, for which school classes or small military units serve as good examples, he is mobbed in the most cruel manner." (p. 79)
Duffy, M., & Sperry L.
(2013).
Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying.
"Mobbing is not about the occasional negative or even abusive experience at work . Most adult workers are sophisticated enough to understand that occasional intense and difficult interactions with coworkers and supervisors can and do happen, and they are mature enough to tolerate and cope fairly well with them. Mobbing is different. It is the experience of ongoing negative acts, both overt and covert, over time, which erodes workers' confidence in themselves and in their workplaces. No amount of sophistication or maturity can make sense of it." (p. 1)
Westhues, K., & Baldwin J. A.
(2006).
The remedy and prevention of mobbing in higher education : two case studies.
"Far from being a slang expression, mobbing is the scientific term Leymann drew from the ethological studies of Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz (1967), to describe fanatic ganging up of managers and/or co-workers against a targeted worker, subjection of the target to a barrage of hostile communications, humiliations, threats, and tricks, toward the end of driving the target out of his or her job." (p. 2)
Westhues, K.
(2004).
Workplace mobbing in academe : reports from twenty universities.
"Mobbing is like a tornado boiling up during stormy, unsettled, inclement times at work. Such times occur in all workplaces, academic ones not least, and everybody knows the signs: disputed decisions, angry words, bruised egos, and tension in the air. Usually such periods of conflict blow over like a summer storm and things settle down again, leaving minor damage to productivity and human relations, damage repaired in subsequent weeks and months.
People who have lived through a tornado, however, know what meteorologists have determined scientifically, that this is not just a 'bad storm', but a distinct kind of near-total devastation categorically apart. That is what workplace mobbing is: a destructive social process arising out of unsettled relations at work, similar to the storms of everyday conflict but of such force, fury, terror and ruination as to warrant its own name, separate study, and specific safeguards." (p. 2)