Employee misbehaviour at work: a home away from home
As Vardi and Wiener (1996) point out, Organisational scientists and practitioners are becoming ever more conscious of the increasing instances of organisational misconduct and the resulting significance of it’s consequences for organisations. With this in mind, I will examine the factors which are making the workplace a home away from home. These include internet misuse, telephone conversations, social conversations etc, and are potentially costly to employers. I will approach the topic moving from the general to the specific starting with a definition of organisational misbehaviour before moving on to look at research evidence which highlights the extent to which the abuse is taking place. We will then examine theories including spillover and compensation theories and clark's border crossing theory and assess their short comings for example that they fail to incorporate the leisure life realm. Finally I will examine research by d'abate (2005) which highlights more of the factors behind employee personal business on the job before offering my own conclusions as to how I see the research discussed in this essay contributing to theory and finally making my own suggestions in regard to future research.
Organisational misbehaviour has been defined as any intentional action by members of organisations that violates core organisational and/or societal norms (vardi and weiener, 1996). The phenomena tends to be universally practiced throughout an organisation’s hierarchy of workers with instances being recorded for both management and non-supervisory members alike (Vardi and Wiener, 1996), with The types of misbehaviour engaged in by employees being cat ...