A typology of employee explanations of misbehaviour: an analysis of unfair dismissal cases

This article investigates an aspect of employee misbehaviour research that has received limited attention: the explanations employees provide for their behaviour. In Australia, employees dismissed for inappropriate behaviour may be able to pursue an unfair dismissal claim. To progress our understanding of employee misbehaviour, this research examines the explanations that employees provide to defend their behaviour at unfair dismissal hearings before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. In this investigation, organizational behaviour theories of cognitive dissonance and organizational justice, and criminal sociology theory of neutralization, underpin the contention that employees’ explanations of their behaviour may reflect rationalizations of their behaviour that may differ from actual events. This article presents the ‘employee explanation model’, a conceptual framework categorizing the range of rationale employees provide to their employer. The model identifies three domains of rationalization: workplace related; personal-inside; and personal-outside. These domains may or may not operate independently, with mutual occurrence demanding the employer interpret and manage a ‘conflated’ rationale. This model further develops the description of organizational misbehaviour contained in Vardi and Weitz’s (2004) general framework

Wages and wage determination in 2004

In 2004 money wages continued to grow at a moderate rate within Reserve Bank limits. In May, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission raised the federal minimum wage by $19 as part of the safety net adjustment. The workplace reform agenda of the federal government continued to be largely frustrated by the Senate, but the Coalition victory in October and its Senate majority in mid-2005 led the pundits to predict more energetic workplace reform in the coming months. The Australian Council of Trade Unions pursued a number of test cases before the Commission, which challenged the desire of employers and the federal government for a flexible award system, rather than one constrained by externally imposed entitlements