The chapter focuses on the various antecedents to workplace deviance that exist in general and specifically on how employee engagement can lead to reduced workplace deviance. It explores the typical characteristics workplace deviance and its various manifestations exhibited by employees of the organisation. Using intensive literature review the factors leading to employee deviant behavior are identified. The behavior is further justified by theory of distributive justice and theory of relative deprivation. The drivers of employee engagements like “Job Satisfaction,” “Family Friendliness,” “Equal Opportunities,” “Fair Treatment,” “Performance and Appraisal,” “Training Development and Career,” etc. are successfully mapped with the theories of deprived justice to address the deviance problem.
TopIntroduction
Workplace deviance affects employees, organizations, economies and countries in ways more than one. It is found to cause immense harm to employee productivity, organizational efficiency, and countries’ economic growth. It has found to result in aggression, violence workplace delinquency and overall lack of organizational performance (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). The growing incidence of workplace deviance and the resulting consequences for the organization has made the topic apt for avid researchers (Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Bennett et al. 2015).
Robinson and Bennett (1995) define employee deviance as `voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organization, and its members, or both'. As per this definition, organizational norms are accepted to be management’s expectations of employee behavior and violation of those norms are defined more generically than around specific managerial duties. Diverse studies have termed employee deviance by a variety of expressions like, counter-productive behavior, antisocial behavior, misbehavior, and organizational misbehavior (Aryati et al. 2018).
Behaviors classified as deviant in preceding research comprise subtle expressions of rebellion, such as gossiping, and taking unapproved breaks, as well as more aggressive actions, like theft, sabotaging equipment or premises and verbal abuse. This gamut of behaviors can be broken down into those directed toward other individuals called interpersonal deviance and those directed toward the organization called organizational deviance (Robinson and Bennett, 1995). Possible attributes resulting in deviant behavior are researched, examined, and explained by authors over a period of time now. Extant research conducted on the topic suggests a variety of antecedents to workplace deviance, which are organization specific, employee-specific, job-related, and environment–related.
While Workplace deviance remains chronic concern for organizations, employee engagement is said to lead to job satisfaction, employee commitment, and improved organizational performance. Engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organization and are enthusiastic about their job and success of the organization. (Tomar, 2017). Employee engagement practices used by organizations thus affect employees’ performance, productivity and affective and continuance commitment. Literature presents several divergent descriptions of Employee Engagement having their origin from mostly industry than academics (Robinson et al. 2004). This writing focuses on the various antecedents to workplace deviance that exists in general and focus specifically on how employee engagement can lead to reduced workplace deviance.