Deviance Relationship Research Articles

Role stressors and employee deviance: the moderating effect of social support

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among role stressors, social support, and employee deviance. Specifically, this study explores the relationships of role stressors (i.e. role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) to interpersonal and organisational employee deviance. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating role of social support (from supervisors and coworkers) on the above relationships.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from 326 paired samples of sales and customer service employees as well as their immediate supervisors in Taiwan.Findings– Role conflict had a positive relationship with both organisational and interpersonal deviance. Role ambiguity was positively, while role overload was negatively related to organisational deviance, respectively. Role ambiguity was more strongly related to organisational than to interpersonal deviance. Coworker support had a significant moderating effect on the role overload – interpersonal deviance relationship.Practical implications– Organisations may implement policies and programs, such as clarification of job responsibility, provision of performance feedback and training in stress coping techniques, to lessen the negative effect of role conflict, and role ambiguity on employee deviance.Originality/value– This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study extends prior research on stressor-performance relationship by investigating the effect of role stressors on two forms of employee deviance (interpersonal deviance and organisational deviance) in a collectivist cultural context (i.e. Taiwan). Second, this study demonstrates that work-related characteristics (e.g. role stressors) have different degrees of effect on interpersonal and organisational deviance. Third, this research offers explanations on why there is little support for the moderating effect of social support on the stressor-deviance relationship.

How Abusive Supervision Affects Workplace Deviance: A Moderated-Mediation Examination of Aggressiveness and Work-Related Negative Affect

Purpose This research examines the linking mechanisms and conditional processes underlying the abusive supervision and workplace deviance relationship. Based primarily on Affective Events Theory, it was hypothesized that work-related negative affect would mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and workplace deviance, and that this indirect effect would be moderated by employee-based and organization-based aggressiveness.

Interpersonal Mistreatment to Interpersonal Deviance: Victim’s Reaction Against Instigator

Researchers have intensively examined the nature and consequences of mistreatment indicating that such acts have deleterious effects on the victims. However, relatively little has been focused on the reaction mechanism. Current study investigated the relationship between interpersonal mistreatment and interpersonal deviance by arguing that victims of interpersonal mistreatment are more likely to involve in deviance against the instigators. Participants included 200 employees from 19 different organizations of Pakistan. Results through structural equation modeling revealed that experience of interpersonal mistreatment potentially trigger victim’s deviant behavior against instigators. Additionally, partial mediation of job stress has also been proved in interpersonal mistreatment-interpersonal deviance relationship. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and workplace implications.

Coworker Influences on Employee Abusive Supervision and Workplace Deviance Relationships

Drawing on different theoretical perspectives, scholars interested in abusive supervision have found that employees’ experiences of abusive supervision lead to different (interpersonal and organiza...

Materialism and Workplace Behaviors: Does Wanting More Result in Less?

Research indicates that a heightened value of materialism has negative outcomes for subjective well-being. But organizations may see materialism in employees as an important antecedent of productivity and utilize this value to achieve organizational goals. At issue is whether materialism results in negative effects on employee behavior at work, which in turn implies negative effects on fellow employees and the organization. This study investigates the relationship between materialism and two indicators of behavior at work: organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance. Results show a significant negative materialism-organizational citizenship behavior relationship and a positive materialism-interpersonal deviance relationship. Materialism was not significantly related to organizational deviance. These results support the concern that materialistic values lead to negative behavioral consequences, which in turn affect fellow employees and the organization. In supplementary analyses we failed to find evidence that materialism is significantly related to task performance, further questioning organizational attempts to create or utilize this value.

Unpacking the Goal Congruence–Organizational Deviance Relationship: The Roles of Work Engagement and Emotional Intelligence

Drawing from research on person–organization fit, work engagement, and emotional intelligence, this study investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the link between goal congruence and organizational deviance, as well as how this mediating effect might be moderated by emotional intelligence. Data captured from 272 employees of four IT companies show that the goal congruence between employees and their supervisor negatively affects the former’s organizational deviance, though this effect disappears when controlling for the intermediate role of work engagement. Further, emotional intelligence moderates both the positive relationship between goal congruence and work engagement and the negative relationship between work engagement and organizational deviance, such that these relationships become invigorated at higher levels of emotional intelligence. The findings also reveal that the indirect effect of goal congruence on organizational deviance through work engagement is more pronounced at higher levels of emotional intelligence, which offers evidence of moderated mediation. These findings have significant implications for research and practice.

How Abusive Supervision Affects Workplace Deviance: The Impact of Negative Affect and Aggression

This research examines the linking mechanisms and conditional processes underlying the abusive supervision and workplace deviance relationship. It was hypothesized that work-related negative affect...

A two-study examination of work–family conflict, production deviance and gender

Building on the spillover and crossover literatures of work–family conflict and the theoretical framework of Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989) we examine the effects of conflict on production deviance. Using a two-study constructive replication and extension design, we examine how partner work-to-family conflict contributes to job incumbent family-to-work conflict and subsequent engagement in production deviance. In addition, we examine the moderating role of gender on the incumbent family-to-work conflict to production deviance relationship. Study 1 of 344 job incumbents supported the positive relationship between incumbent family-to-work conflict and deviance. In addition, this was moderated by gender such that men engaged in more deviant behaviors in response to family-to-work conflict. Study 2 consisted of 190 matched job incumbents and their partners. These findings supported the mediation of partner work-to-family conflict to production deviance through incumbent family-to-work conflict. Again gender was supported using moderated mediation analysis such that men engaged in more deviant behaviors in response to family-to-work conflict. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

"Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice": Correction to Thau and Mitchell (2010).

"Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice": Correction to Thau and Mitchell (2010).

Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice.

Two competing explanations for deviant employee responses to supervisor abuse are tested. A self-gain view is compared with a self-regulation impairment view. The self-gain view suggests that distributive justice (DJ) will weaken the abusive supervision-employee deviance relationship, as perceptions of fair rewards offset costs of abuse. Conversely, the self-regulation impairment view suggests that DJ will strengthen the relationship, as experiencing abuse drains self-resources needed to maintain appropriate behavior, and this effect intensifies when employees receive inconsistent information about their organizational membership (fair outcomes). Three field studies using different samples, measures, and designs support the self-regulation impairment view. Two studies found that the Abusive Supervision × DJ interaction was mediated by self-regulation impairment variables (ego depletion and intrusive thoughts). Implications for theory and research are discussed.

Examining the reciprocal relation between academic motivation and substance use: effects of family relationships, self-esteem, and general deviance.

The present study examined the reciprocal relation between academic motivation and cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use across four annual assessments during adolescence. Data were obtained from 435 adolescents, 13 to 17 years of age at the first assessment, and their mothers. The results of generalized estimating equations (GEE) analysis suggested inverse reciprocal relations across time between academic motivation and both cigarette and marijuana use. Reciprocal relations between academic motivation and alcohol use were not found, possibly due to the normative use of this substance. The examination of mediational mechanisms, including general deviance, self-esteem and family relationships, suggested that the relation between marijuana use and, for younger adolescents, cigarette use and academic motivation is not direct but is indirect, mediated through the general deviance of the adolescent. Deviance, self-esteem, and, for the youngest adolescents, family relationships mediated the relation between academic motivation and subsequent marijuana use.

Drug abuse and eating disorders: prevention implications.

This article explores the relationship between drug and alcohol abuse and eating disorders in a sample of adolescent females using a self-report methodology. An Eating Disorders Risk (EDR) Scale is adopted and correlated with drug and alcohol use, other forms of deviance, family and peer relationships, and depression. The findings support the concept of a generalized theory of addictions based on psychosocial, family, and peer factors. Family and peer prevention applications and a need for further research on the correlates of depression are discussed.

Personality, deviance and peer relationships in childhood and adolescence

Personality, deviance and peer relationships in childhood and adolescence

Explanations of the sex‐deviance relationship

This paper examines sex differences in school deviance and compares a cultural/socialization explanation (the machismo thesis) and structural explanations of this differential. In general, the findings show that the sex‐school deviance relationship is completely explained by differences in social controls and pressures which are structured by sex, and that machismo identity may be a mediator of this relationship for aggression but not for general school misconduct. In addition, the findings suggest that sex differences in deviance are enhanced because children tend to be influenced by same‐sexed peers.