Deviance in the Workplace as a Function of Organizational Climate and Personality

Interpersonal deviance poses a problem for organizations, as it inflates organizational costs and negatively impacts efficiency and employee well-being. In an attempt to understand this behavior, I explored the role of unfavorable discrimination climate as an antecedent of interpersonal deviance. To explore this relationship and its underlying psychological mechanisms, I proposed a model testing the direct and indirect relationships between discrimination climate and interpersonal deviance. First, employing a behavioral perspective and drawing on social exchange and social learning theories, I proposed a positive relationship between discrimination climate and interpersonal deviance. Next, using a stressor-demand framework, I proposed an indirect relationship between discrimination climate and interpersonal deviance through engagement. Drawing on the job demands-resources model, I argued that discrimination climate is a stressor that reduces engagement, which in turn predicts increases in deviance. Lastly, I proposed that agreeableness moderates these relationships. Results supported both a direct and indirect effect of discrimination climate on interpersonal deviance through engagement. This suggested that deviance reflects three psychological processes: (1) retaliation, (2) learning and modeling behavior, and (3) a stress response. The results also provided support for the interaction between discrimination climate and agreeableness in predicting engagement. Surprisingly, the remaining two interactions were nonsignificant suggesting that employees who are low or high in agreeableness report equal rates of deviance. These findings contribute to current climate literature, reveal the impact of discrimination at the climate level, and inform practitioners on ways to prevent and reduce deviant behavior.