Chapter 8: Understanding and Managing Organizational Deviance: A Causal Reasoning Perspective

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework for understanding and managing deviant behavior in organizations. In this chapter we present a causal reasoning framework that explains deviance in terms of the organizational members’ beliefs about the causes of their previous successes and failures. It is our contention that much, but clearly not all, deviant behavior can be understood as the reaction of organizational members’ to significant success and failure experiences. Following this line of reasoning we differentiate two types of deviance: self-destructive and retaliatory. As will be explained, self-directed destructive behaviors such as alcoholism and drug abuse are frequently related to member beliefs that their own inadequacies are the source of their failures. Other-directed retaliatory behaviors such as violence and stealing are often closely related to the tendency of some members to blame their failures on external sources such as the organization or their leadership.