Managing Employee Misbehaviour for Promoting Business Ethics
Managing Employee Misbehaviour for Promoting Business Ethics
Workplace misbehaviour:
Any intentional action by members of organizations that defies and violates Shared organizational norms and expectations, and/or Core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct (Vardi and Wiener, 1996, p.153).
Misbehaviour in this sense is also said to be about breaching broader, yet far from clearly defined or fully shared societal norms or moral order. In industrial sociology key writers on misbehaviour – Ackroyd and Thompson (1999, p. 2) – borrow Sprouse's (1992, p. 3) definition of sabotage – “anything you do at work you are not supposed to do” – to define misbehaviour, although questions remain about how useful this definition is.
Perspectives on misbehaviour
Misbehaviour is also a phenomena discussed in several other academic disciplines. For instance, in gender studies, we see quite a distinct dimension of misbehaviour emerging. Misbehaviour in gender studies tends to concern males defending masculine identities in an organizational context and how masculinity is in reality a crucial, yet often hidden dimension of a broader organizational identity (Collinson and Collinson, 1989; DiTomaso, 1989; Levin, 2001). An account of men trying to preserve the dominance of a masculine identity, sponsored implicitly by senior management, is outlined in the following passage taken from ethnography of a trading floor of a large, American commodities exchange:
When the working environment becomes less active, the more overtly sexualized repertoire of joking and getting along emerges. Men and women use jokes to pass time, fit in and relieve tension, but a direct result of men’s sexual banter is to facilitate group solidarity among men to the exclusion of women. Strong heterosexual joking is predicated on men being the sexual agents of jokes and women being the objects (Levin, 2001, p. 126).
Further dimensions of gender-related misbehaviour include women subverting dominant
Workplace misbehaviour:
Any intentional action by members of organizations that defies and violates Shared organizational norms and expectations, and/or Core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct (Vardi and Wiener, 1996, p.153).
Misbehaviour in this sense is also said to be about breaching broader, yet far from clearly defined or fully shared societal norms or moral order. In industrial sociology key writers on misbehaviour – Ackroyd and Thompson (1999, p. 2) – borrow Sprouse's (1992, p. 3) definition of sabotage – “anything you do at work you are not supposed to do” – to define misbehaviour, although questions remain about how useful this definition is.
Perspectives on misbehaviour
Misbehaviour is also a phenomena discussed in several other academic disciplines. For instance, in gender studies, we see quite a distinct dimension of misbehaviour emerging. Misbehaviour in gender studies tends to concern males defending masculine identities in an organizational context and how masculinity is in reality a crucial, yet often hidden dimension of a broader organizational identity (Collinson and Collinson, 1989; DiTomaso, 1989; Levin, 2001). An account of men trying to preserve the dominance of a masculine identity, sponsored implicitly by senior management, is outlined in the following passage taken from ethnography of a trading floor of a large, American commodities exchange:
When the working environment becomes less active, the more overtly sexualized repertoire of joking and getting along emerges. Men and women use jokes to pass time, fit in and relieve tension, but a direct result of men’s sexual banter is to facilitate group solidarity among men to the exclusion of women. Strong heterosexual joking is predicated on men being the sexual agents of jokes and women being the objects (Levin, 2001, p. 126).
Further dimensions of gender-related misbehaviour include women subverting dominant