Abstract
Orientation: Compliance culture within the South African local government context is perceived to be critical to sustainable municipality service delivery. Improving compliance culture is therefore important.Research purpose: This article therefore developed a compliance framework based on deterrence theory (DT) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to identify human behavioural factors to be considered in the development and use of work procedures as a way to improve workers’ compliance with work procedures.Motivation for the study: Reports (e.g. Auditor General reports) on municipality service delivery fall short of providing a clear assessment and study of work and human behavioural dynamics in relation to compliance with work procedures.Research approach/design and method: This article tested a conceptual model focused on the effect of deterrence initiatives on workplace compliance as mediated by the theory-planned behaviour. Data were collected from 119 workers in two municipalities of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa through a structured questionnaire and analysed using structural equation model.Main findings: Findings show that a positive attitude towards compliance to work procedures cannot be achieved through intimidation; reinforcement has a positive effect on attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (PBC). However, only the PBC aspect of the TPB explains significant mediation between deterrence and compliance.Practical/managerial implications: The study demonstrates how compliance culture can be engendered by non-intimidating deterrent measures and PBC.Contributions/value-add: The negative effect of intimidation on compliance culture and the positive effect of PBC on compliance attitude of workers are critical contributions.
Highlights
Understanding organisational behaviour is critical for the effective management of human resources
In contrast to the deterrent effect that is largely regarded as an essential tenet of the deterrence theory (DT) that can be adopted to foster compliance to work procedures, the results of this study show that intimidation cannot always bear positive results on employee attitude
The study by Bates, Darvel and Watson (2017) on the use of deterrence to explain provisional drivers’ non-compliance found that drivers exposed to higher levels of enforcement for traffic and speeding offences were less compliant. This is in a similar vein to Havov and Putri’s (2016) assertion that employees’ compliance with ethical conduct is to a greater extent influenced by the employees’ personal norms and moral standards rather than intimidation. This finding is in contrast with the doctrine of DT which states that punishing an individual for a crime should discourage them from committing it again
Summary
Understanding organisational behaviour is critical for the effective management of human resources. Human resources management (HRM) has come under major scrutiny, especially in the South African local government context where sustainable service delivery still remains a challenge This is partly attributable to the lack of a compliance culture in relation to following work procedures on the part of both the managers and the employees (AGSA, 2016). Nzewi (2017) argues that informal application of work procedures seems to be widely evident in the local government context because of a plethora of administrative factors such as limited communication and lack of documentation among others Despite this state of affairs, most government reports such as the Auditor General (2016), the local government turnaround strategy (2009) and the back to basics policy (2014) are mute on providing in-depth analyses on, as well as solutions to, the internal challenges of compliance faced by municipalities. These reports fall short of providing a clear assessment and study of work and human dynamics in relation to compliance with work procedures and legislative provisions that govern them
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