Work Deviance

Despite the restrictions within the workplace, every employee has manifested his personal attitude in a certain manner. A few of the employees are still complying towards the overall rules, others are finding different ways to evade and express their attitude. Thus, within this essay, it will be presented the deviance within the work place, and the layers of the organisation, which this deviance is most presented.

Deviance is usually defined as actions against the norm of behaviour (Martin, 2005). They express the unconformity towards the rules, however certain employees might see the opportunity to go beyond the rules of professional behaviour. According to Martin (2005) deviance is expressed in different form, such as theft, fool behaviour or saunter through the working time. Even they don’t present much threat to the individuals within the organisation, it is an enormous risk for the company. The reason of workplace deviance can be traced to different organisational, personal or economical causes. The manifestation as well is expressed in different ways such as lower performance, extended lunch breaks or other incidents. As an example could be the constant coffee breaks, that constantly increase in time spent doing and consuming that coffee. An explanation of such behaviour could be the actual boredom within the workplace or the frustration towards the management, or the actual lack of control over the personnel. Moreover, it can relate to the labour process theory, as the standardisation within the workplace might imply formidable stress over the employees. Nevertheless it represents a high risk for the company performance.

It breaks the company norms, thus implying nonconformity to the management.

Despite the rules, managers themselves sometime act defiantly, if they consider that organisational goals are being met.  However, the scale of managerial deviance differentiates in a much bigger scale rather the regular employee. Thus the classification of the desire correlates with the position within the organisation. There are four typologies: Hawks, which have minimal power and minimal wishes to act defiantly; donkeys, which have minimal power however high need for non conformity towards the rules; Wolves, which are usually the department managers, which have both power and possibility to act defiantly; and vulture, the actual owners, or top level management, which have the power to act defiantly, however its not in their interest.