Deviant and Criminal Behavior in the Workplace

3. Born to Be Deviant? An Examination of the Relationship between Workplace Deviance and Employee Personality

50 > 51 we adopt an interactional approach by arguing that the organizational context may encourage or trigger deviant acts by employees with a propensity toward deviance (for instance, workplace injustice) while other situations may serve as a restraint or deterrent against these behaviors (for instance, security systems). Second, we suggest that the personality traits of other employees may increase the likelihood of interpersonal deviance. Some individuals have personality traits that are perceived as inappropriate, annoying, or hostile, which may provoke deviant acts directed toward them while others may be seen as having weaknesses in their personality, which may lead to them being viewed as an easy target for deviant behavior. Workplace Deviance: Its Definition, Prevalence, and Consequences Although many terms have been used to describe workplace deviance, such as counterproductive work behavior, antisocial behavior, organizational retaliatory behavior, organizational misbehavior, and workplace aggression, these seemingly diverse terms have some underlying commonalities. First, these acts are voluntary or intentional. Employees engage in them because they lack the motivation to adhere to organizational norms discouraging deviance or are prompted to violate those norms (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Second, these behaviors are intended to harm the organization and/ or its members. Even if they do not result in actual harm, they are undesirable for organizations because, at a minimum, they distract from productive work. Early research investigating workplace deviance focused on two types of deviant behavior: production and property deviance (Hollinger & Clark, 1982). Production deviance refers to behaviors that violate the norms of acceptable production levels, which include physical withdrawal (turnover, absenteeism, lateness), psychological withdrawal (on-the-job drug use, daydreaming ), and organizational sabotage (intentionally working slowly). In contrast, property deviance is the unauthorized taking or damaging of organizational property, products, or money, which includes behaviors like theft. Robinson and Bennett (1995) expanded Hollinger and Clark’s operationalization of workplace deviance by incorporating acts directed at individuals , in addition to those directed at organizations. Their typology included not only production and property deviance, but also political deviance and interpersonal aggression. Political deviance is characterized by social interactions that result in placing another at a personal or political disadvantage . Examples of political deviance include showing favoritism, gossiping about coworkers, and blaming coworkers. On the other hand, interpersonal 52 > 53 employees steal at least once from their employer (Coffin, 2003) and 95% of all organizations experience employee theft (Case, 2000). Likewise, a recent national survey found that 2.3 million employees reported drinking before going to work, 8.9 million reported drinking during work hours, and 2.1 million reported performing their job while under the influence of alcohol (Frone, 2006). Finally, in the construction industry alone, evidence suggests that fifty-three minutes per employee is lost daily due to time theft (“How Much Can You Save,” 2006). The prevalence of these behaviors is especially disturbing when the costs to both affected organizations and individuals are considered. For instance, the financial costs associated with theft by employees in the U.S. have been estimated at $50 billion annually (Coffin, 2003) while time theft costs American companies more than $177 billion annually (McGee & Fillon, 1995). Further, employees who are targets of workplace deviance are more likely to quit, have stress-related problems, decreased productivity, low morale, lost work time (O’Leary-Kelly, Griffin & Glew, 1996), damaged self-esteem, increased fear and insecurity at work, and psychological and physical pain (Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly & Collins, 1998). Because workplace deviance is common and costly to organizations and their employees, much research has sought to identify its antecedents. Below we describe one possible determinant of workplace deviance, personality. Personality in the Workplace Personality refers to individuals’ relatively stable and enduring predispositions to think, believe, and behave in certain ways (Ones, Viswesvaran & Dilchert, 2005). Personality consists of an overall profile or combination of traits or characteristics that can be used to differentiate between individuals. These traits result in predictable patterns of thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors over time and across contexts. Thus, personality offers a useful explanation for why individuals behave as they do both within and outside of the workplace. The study of personality in organizational settings has had a tumultuous history with many prominent scholars arguing over the years that personality does not meaningfully predict important work outcomes (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989; Guion & Gottier, 1965; Mischel, 1968). Further, the personality literature has been thwarted by the problem of how to describe and organize the immense number of personality traits into...