The Darker Side of Workplace Behavior: A Phenomenological Exploratory Study

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore why individuals within a corporate setting of 5,000 people or fewer engage in deviant workplace behavior and how leadership, abusive supervision, organizational justice, intention to voluntarily separate, trust, psychological contracts, social bonding, and social identity encourage or discourage such behavior. The interviewed participants were all individual contributors (i.e., non-management level employees) and offered insight into the micro-level perspectives and lived experiences associated with the darker side of workplace behavior. Organizational leaders should not assume that a myopic view of one or all theories or strict hypotheses constructions will provide an absolute model for employee deviance prevention. The peculiarities and complexities associated with human behavior preclude a universal remedy. Given the self-reinforcing character of organizational factors, individuals should learn not only to recognize early warning signs of deviant workplace behavior, but also the changing and interrelated antecedents that plausibly lead to such behavior. This qualitative study captured 12 themes: deviant workplace behavior definitions, workplace triggers, abusive supervision, organizational injustice (distributive, procedural, and interactional), intention to voluntarily separate, trust, psychological contract contraventions, social bonds, social identity, pleasant and unpleasant feeling words, employed behaviors, and recommendations as discussed by 11 participants. This study adds value to the body of knowledge concerning deviant workplace behavior by addressing varied antecedents that lead to deviant workplace behavior and offers leadership implications, recommends pragmatic propositions for mitigation, neutralization, and forecasting, and advances complementary avenues for future research associated with the darker side of workplace behavior.

Grantor dc:publisher

Creighton University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Thomas, Charles Jr.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ehrlich, Donna M.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is retained by the Author. A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/49613

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/49613