Abstract
The term “bystander effect” has been a phenomenon in every part of life since the day on which it was first put forward. Having been initially a subject of study in the area of social psychology, the term has penetrated into the area of organizational behavior and its importance in terms of the business has begun to be understood; therefore, a detailed analysis of the related literature is presented in this section. Within this scope, history of bystander effect, its definition, and how it has been conceptualized are stated; its types and roles are explained by defining the term “bystander.” How bystander intervention progresses and what causes bystander effect are stated. Finally, how bystander effect is on businesses in terms of organizational behavior is discussed, and a number of solutions are presented for organizations to reduce this negative effect or to turn it into a positive one by stating in which processes it occurs especially in tourism businesses.
TopMain Focus Of The Chapter
Although social psychology has been studied for years, it is important how bystander effect, included in literature of organization behavior in recent times, effects businesses and how it should be interpreted, especially in terms of tourism businesses. From this viewpoint, this study offers a comprehensive literature review of bystander effect, and discusses how bystander effect occurs in businesses and especially tourism ones, and which precautions can be taken to lessen the effect.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Bystander Intervention: A process consisting of the phases: interpreting an event as emergency, accepting responsibility for intervening, knowing how to intervene or provide help and implementing intervention decisions.
Positive Bystander Effect: The situation suggesting that the presence of others doesn’t prevent helping the person in emergency situations in which helping behavior is regarded as a humanistic duty.
Bystander Effect: A socio-psychological term stating that the more witnesses around, the less intervenors there are in the event of help-requiring emergency.
Organizational Behavior: A discipline that tries to understand, explain, and improve attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups within the organization and whose field of interest is people and organizations.
Bystander: Although he/she is there in emergency and witnesses it, he/she is the one who doesn’t intervene in it.
Tourism Businesses: The businesses that meet transportation, food-beverage, entertainment, and other needs of tourists during the period from the moment they leave where they live until the moment they go back there.