Workplace destructive and constructive deviance behaviour in India and the USA: scale development, validation, theoretical model development and testing
Workplace deviance behaviour has resulted in 20% of business failure and annual
loss of 6−200 billion in US organizations and it was found that 33% to 75% of
employees engage in deviant activities like withdrawal, theft, production deviance,
abuse of co-workers etc., (Coffin, 2003; Diefendorff & Mehta, 2007). In addition,
several researchers have concentrated on constructive deviance that would benefit the
organizations. Thus, deviance has been a topic of interest for many researchers.
However, previous research on deviance behaviour has concentrated predominantly in
the USA despite proof that Indian organizations are indeed affected by workplace
deviance (Pradhan & Pradhan, 2014) and on destructive or constructive deviance. In
addition, from the deviance perspective, surprisingly no study so far has examined the
presence and effects of individualism and collectivism within the same culture at the
individual level.
To contribute towards the extant deviance literature and to fill in the
aforementioned gaps, this PhD thesis develops and tests a model using social cognitive
theory as a lens to determine the relationship between environment, personality and
behavioural outcomes of an individual. It incorporates workplace destructive and
constructive deviance in the same study with individualistic and collectivistic
orientation of individuals as moderators in India and the USA. What is the relationship
of organizational and individual determinants with workplace destructive and
constructive deviance when individual cultural orientation acts as a moderator? For
this purpose, this research first determines the various factors that will be considered
in the model by reviewing previous research done on workplace deviance. It was found
that organizational climate, though it contributes to deviance behaviour in the
workplace, has not yet been extensively researched so, climate was one of the factors
examined in the research. In addition and despite its importance, an individual witness
perspective towards deviance is still in its infancy. What are the behavioural responses
of an individual while being a witness to supervisor, organizational, co-worker
involvement in workplace destructive deviance? Therefore, the present study
extended, developed and validated a construct to define and measure the witness
behaviour towards workplace deviance behaviour using the theory of planned
behaviour as its theoretical lens. This construct formed the second factor to be included
in the model. This research makes use of the multi-strategy research paradigm that
consists of two main studies: Study 2, 3 and 4 involves the development and validation
of the witness behaviour towards workplace deviance scale; Study 5 involves the
development and testing of a theoretical framework.
Study 2 to 4 made use of a mixed methods strategy and inductive approach where
the results from analysing the qualitative one-to-one interviews conducted in India and
the USA formed the basis of scale construction. The scale, after undergoing rigorous
analysis by using the quantitative data collected from India and the USA, resulted in a
two-dimensional self-serving and intervening behaviour 9-item measure that proved
to be a universal construct. It was then validated for construct, discriminant and
predictive validity to classify it within the nomological network. It was found to sit
closer to the phenomenon of voluntary behaviours, thus contributing to deviance and
scale development literature.
Study 5 involved the development of a conceptual framework that was tested with
the quantitative data collected from India and the USA. The results provided support
that when an individual has high organizational climate experience as well as more
self-serving and less intervening behaviour, he/she would be involved in more
constructive and destructive deviance behaviour providing support that organizations
should focus on these factors and a clear distinction should be made between negative
and positive deviance accepted within the organization. The results also provided
support that individualistic and collectivistic orientation of an individual did moderate
the effect of organizational climate, self-serving and intervening behaviour with
destructive and constructive deviance. Therefore, an individual’s orientation to
individualism and collectivism would influence the relationship of organizational
climate and witness behaviour towards workplace deviance so that organizations may
benefit from implementing the study findings and suggestions. This would then
prevent individuals from becoming involved in destructive deviance and enhance their
involvement in constructive deviance
