Personal and Positional Antecedents of Organizational Misbehaviour

There seems to be a new realization among scholars that intentional acts of misbehaviour are a prevalent aspect of organizational behaviour and therefore merit scientific scrutiny (Bamberger and Sonnenstuhl, 1998; Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly and Collins, 1998; Sackett and DeVore, 2001). Not only are these acts common among members of organizations but their costs for employers and society at large are enormous (Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Murphy, 1993). Our chapter supports this view by presenting a general framework and empirical evidence that some personal and positional variables may be regarded as antecedents of various forms of organizational misbehaviour. We argue that one of the important factors conducive to misbehaviour in the workplace is the actual opportunity to engage in it. Such an opportunity may be related to specific characteristics of the job and of its surroundings. That is to say, the level of control, or alternatively the level of autonomy inherent in the job, creates a structure of opportunity that facilitates not only desirable and normative behaviours, but also various forms of misbehaviour. Most of the research on the effect of job autonomy on employees has, not surprisingly, focused on positive work outcomes such as performance and satisfaction (Breaugh, 1985; Hackman and Oldham, 1980). We have identified only a few studies whose focus was on negative outcomes (Allen and Greenberg, 1980; Dwyer and Fox, 2000; Wortman and Breham, 1975).