What motivates deviant behavior in the workplace? An examination of the mechanisms by which procedural injustice affects deviance

The moderating role of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between toxic leadership and emotional exhaustion

Dysfunctional and destructive leadership behaviors have begun to be seen frequently in today's business world. Likewise, toxic leadership, with incompetent supervision elements results with negative outputs for organizations and heavily for the employees. Employees may experience long-term stress in the work environment and develop emotional exhaustion, resulting in mental breakdown. Hence, this study aims to reveal the effects of toxic leadership on emotional exhaustion within the healthcare industry as a first step. Moreover, we also attempt to reveal the contingency of intrinsic motivation to lessen the reflections of toxic leadership on emotional exhaustion as a second step. Using PLS-SEM, we find that toxic leadership is positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, our findings provide empirical evidence supporting the moderator role of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between toxic leadership and emotional exhaustion.

Suffering doubly: How victims of coworker incivility risk poor performance ratings by responding with organizational deviance, unless they leverage ingratiation skills

Building on conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the relationship between employees' exposure to coworker incivility and their job performance ratings, while also considering the mediating role of their deviant work behaviors and the moderating role of their ingratiation skills. Results based on multisource, three-wave data from employees and their supervisors in Pakistani organizations show that disrespectful coworker treatment diminishes employees' performance evaluations, because they seek purposefully to cause harm to their employing organization, as a way to vent their frustrations. This mediating role of organizational deviance is mitigated to the extent that employees have a greater ability to ingratiate with others though. This study accordingly identifies a key mechanism - deviant work behaviors that undermine organizational well-being - through which coworker incivility leads to negative performance consequences, and it reveals how organizations can subdue this process by honing pertinent personal resources within their ranks.

Deterrence Effects: The Role of Authoritarian Leadership in Controlling Employee Workplace Deviance

Drawing upon two independent samples from mainland China, we propose and investigate the deterrence function of leadership behavior focused on control. We suggest that controlling leadership, specifically, authoritarian leadership, deters employees’ deviance under certain conditions. That is, authoritarian leadership thwarts employees’ interpersonal deviance behavior when leaders send clear signals of potential punishments of non-compliance by showing low leader benevolence, and when employees are highly dependent on the leaders for important work resources. Results from two independent studies largely support our key propositions. Overall, these results add to the range of possible impacts that a leader can play in decreasing employee deviance. Theoretical implications and directions for follow-up research are discussed.

That’s my stapler: vulnerable narcissists and organizational territoriality

Purpose

This paper aims to examine two underexplored topics in organizations, i.e. vulnerable narcissists in organizational settings and possible effects of territorial infringements among vulnerable narcissistic employees. The movie, Office Space, illustrates prototypical employee behavior mixed with comedically maladaptive personalities in a modern organizational context. However, the arson committed by character, Milton Waddams, suggests that some employees, especially those with disordered personalities, might violently respond to perceived territorial infringements.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper combines personality factors with territorial behavior to examine employee reactions to perceived injustices. Theoretical and practical implications are offered, as well as future research directions.

Findings

The argument presented suggests that the vulnerable narcissists may initiate destructive behavior in organizations with ego threats like territorial infringements. While anger is a natural defensive reaction, vulnerable narcissists are more likely to behave aggressively toward perceived territorial infringements due to their general negative affect.

Practical implications

Employees may react to infringement over seemingly subjective things; thus, managers must understand the nature of ownership by addressing territorial claims. Managers must remain cognizant that some disordered personalities are prone toward fulfilling threats, including organizational sabotage, deviance and white-collar crime. Environmental conditions can also compound the negative behavior of personalities like vulnerable narcissists in the workplace.

Originality/value

This conceptual paper adds to the organizational behavior literature and contributes to the fields of psychology and territoriality by exploring vulnerable narcissists in organizational settings and by considering the magnitude of defensive behavior toward perceived infringements.

The Effects of Organizational Justice on Positive Organizational Behavior: Evidence from a Large-Sample Survey and a Situational Experiment

Employees' positive organizational behavior (POB) is not only to promote organizational function but also improve individual and organizational performance. As an important concept in organizational research, organizational justice is thought to be a universal predictor of employee and organizational outcomes. The current set of two studies examined the effects of organizational justice (OJ) on POB of employees with two different studies, a large-sample survey and a situational experiment. In study 1, a total of 2,566 employees from 45 manufacturing enterprises completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires assessing organizational justice (OJ) and positive organizational behavior (POB) of employees. In study 2, 747 employees were randomly sampled to participate in the situational experiment with 2 × 2 between-subjects design. They were asked to read one of the four situational stories and to image that this situation happen to the person in the story or them, and then they were asked to imagine how the person in the story or they would have felt and what the person or they subsequently would have done. The results of study 1 suggested that OJ was correlated with POB of employees and OJ is a positive predictor of POB. The results of study 2 suggested that OJ had significant effects on POB and negative organizational behavior (NOB). Procedural justice accounted for significantly more variance than distributive justice in POB of employees. Distributive justice and procedural justice have different influences on POB and NOB in terms of effectiveness and direction. The effect of OJ on POB was greater than that of NOB. In addition, path analysis indicated that the direct effect of OJ on POB was smaller than its indirect effect. Thus, many intermediary effects could possibly be between them.