The Effects of Employee Dissimilarity on Organizational and Interpersonal Deviance

Abstract

In this conceptual paper, we propose a model of how employee demographic dissimilarity affects workplace deviance. This model draws from the similarity-attraction, social categorization, and affective events theories, along with the literature on relational demography, to propose that employee demographic dissimilarity leads to deviance. It is proposed that employees’ experiences with ostracism and selective incivility mediate the relationship between employee dissimilarity and workplace deviance. It is further proposed that employee perceptions of human resources policies and practices, and perceived organizational support, will moderate the relationship between demographic dissimilarity and experienced ostracism and selective incivility, and between experienced ostracism and selective incivility, and enacted workplace deviance.