Crab Syndrome: Can It Be Explained By "Social Identity Theory" and Hofstede's "Cultural Dimensions Theory"? A University Case
Keywords:
Crab syndrome, Social identity, Social comparison, CultureAbstract
Organizations must use all their resources in the most efficiently. Human resources have indisputable importance among these resources. Therefore, the social and psychological conditions of individuals at workplaces have become the main subject of management studies and research after the classical periods. One of the social and psychological phenomena that has the potential to affect relationships and thus yield in the workplace is crab syndrome. Research on crab syndrome, a metaphoric phenomenon that refers to crabs in the bucket, is very recent. That’s why crab syndrome should be examined in terms of its indicators, causes, and consequences. In research, crab syndrome was tried to be explained by Social Identity and Comparison Theory. However, since social identity is not the only effective factor in human behavior, in our study, crab syndrome is tried to be understood and explained with Hofstede's Culture Dimensions Theory due to the impact of culture on human behavior. In this context, research was conducted on three academic and three administrative units at one university in Türkiye, using the semi-structured interview technique on 18 staff working at the different departments and levels. It was concluded that employees exhibit behaviors according to their social identity and cultural values in the society they belong to, it was seen among these behaviors that there are crab syndrome behaviors as negative organizational behaviors, and it was determined that businesses/institutions should consider these behaviors to provide better performance.
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Accepted 2023-05-09
Published 2023-06-30
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