The ‘Crab In A Barrel Syndrome’ is among unwanted behaviors in organizations. It can be said that there are people with a crab mentality in business life and that these people are increasing in number. Obviously one of the principal reasons of this is that competition between employees intensifies every passing day with the increasing number of businesses and increasing labour force participation rates. Desires like advancement to management positions, increased pay, success, appproval et cetera has created an intense and destructive competition among employees as well. Some employees displaying negative actions and stances that can harm their colleagues and the organization in order to achieve these desires forms the foundations of crab in a barrel syndrome.

Crab in a barrel syndrome, which contains many negative behaviors, has entered the organizational behavior literature starting from a fisherman’s story. A crab fisher putting the crabs he’s fished into a bucket with no lid and the crab that attempted to climb out being dragged back in by the other crabs has been adapted into business life. The desire of some employees to desire the failures of their colleagues as well in response to their own failures and their taking actions they consider required and appropriate to achieve this is defined as crab in a barrel syndrome.

In this study it has been tried to impart the definition, properties and causes of the ‘crab in a barrel syndrome’ term, associated concepts and proposals for solutions according to the related literature studies.