The synopsis for this edited book is that workplace misbehaviour can be difficult for management to detect and correct, and as a consequence, the cost to organizations can be high. The purpose of the text is to present theories and empirical evidence that describe, explain, and predict such types of behaviour. The book also offers suggestions for remedies and managerial practices that can help to reduce misbehaviour and its effect.
This book itself represents a selection of papers taken from the 7th bi‐annual meeting of the International Society for the Study of Work and Organizational Values that took place in Jerusalem, Israel, in June 2000. The purpose of the conference was to look at “what kind of organizational behaviour can be expected when normative work values are not a deciding factor”. Hence the emphasis on misbehaviour and so‐called dysfunctional attitudes in organizations.
It should come as no surprise to find that the writers gathered by Sagie et al. – mainly organizational psychologists – view misbehaviour quite differently from the last major piece of work on employee misbehaviour: namely Ackroyd and Thompson's (1999) highly original Organizational Misbehaviour. Incidentally, an indefensible omission from all but two of the book's 13 bibliographies. For example, while Ackroyd and Thompson explore this social phenomenon as being a missing feature of labour process theory or radical organizational analysis (or, “anything you do at work you are not supposed to do”), the emphasis of this collection of writers differs somewhat. Misbehaviour in this book is nearly always referred to as “harmful”, for instance labels such as “workplace aggression”, “cover‐up behaviour”, “social loafing”, “dysfunctional work attitude”, and “counterproductive work behaviour” say a lot about those who undertake the research and to whom the findings are directed. This is opposed to Ackroyd and Thompson's version of events that also includes acts such as “time wasting” and “soldiering”, but also consist of less extreme forms of misbehaviour such as “time perks”, “effort bargaining” and “goal identification”. In brief, while the writers concur with Ackroyd and Thompson in that misbehaviour is a neglected side of organizational analysis, this is as far as the commonality goes. In effect, while Ackroyd and Thompson celebrate employee misbehaviour as being a sign that people can resist even the most oppressive or panopticon‐styled managerial regimes, Sagie et al. seem disappointed in concluding that management may never be able to eliminate its existence.
The book itself contains a brief opening chapter that acts as a rational and is followed by part one that looks at the “many faces of work misbehaviour” and a much shorter part two considers the “dynamics of organizational misbehaviour”. However, there is no concluding chapter to summarise the proceedings and outline where further research into misbehaviour may be directed.
The first part is made up of eight chapters. Of particular note for those who are not organizational psychologists is a chapter on social loafing by Amichai‐Hamburger (chapter five). This chapter differs in many ways from the predictable opening four chapters as the emphasis is not on extreme forms of misbehaviour or misbehaviour mainly committed by low‐level employees in exceptional circumstances. Instead, the emphasis is on how individual effort is affected by group settings (e.g. teams or quality circles). It is also challenging because it suggests that misbehaviour is as much a “social” phenomenon and is generated by group activity and not individual rational decision making. Golden in chapter seven continues in a similar vein. Here the writer comments on how managements have used flexitime to institutionalise persistent misbehaviour such as premeditated lateness and absenteeism. This is some acknowledgement that employee misbehaviour may be informal or unrecognised action to compel management to change overly rigid practices. Also of note in part one is the work of Galperin (chapter nine) who considers the question – “can workplace deviance be constructive?”. Again, a sign that some sort of reality is at work among contemporary organizational psychologists. However, there is still a sense of obsession with employees displaying absolute conformance to formal organizational norms and values. Moreover, little is mentioned if employees are considered to be misbehaving if they breach informal organization norms and values or if the powerful groups that dominate organizations breach wider social norms and values and in turn, coercively, encourage their employees to follow.
The second part is made up of four chapters and is certainly less noteworthy than the first. Like in the first part of the book the underlying theme of methodological individualism generally goes unchallenged. Indeed, it is left to Vardi and Weitz in chapter ten (Vardi, incidentally, and a previous collaborator Wiener, originally coined the phrase “organizational misbehaviour” and recently published their own book on organizational misbehaviour) to save the day. For example, Vardi and Weitz suggest misbehaviour is political and begin to challenge a rather conservative interpretation of what misbehaviour actually is or what its significance may actually be. They also suggest that misbehaviour is multi‐faceted, much more complex than many have previously suggested, and certainly worthy of further empirical investigation.
Overall, this book has some promising moments, but it also has too many disconcerting weaknesses. First of all, it seems to be aimed at a select grouping of social scientists that have a rather restricted and outmoded view of organizations, employee behaviour and research methodologies. For instance, Haslam's (2004) recently updated book – Psychology in Organizations – promotes a range of psychological theories (social identity theory and self‐categorization theory) developed in the past 20 years or so by psychologists such as Ashford and Mael (1989), Tajfel and Turner (1979), Brown (1978), and, Terry and Callen (1998) that attributes employee (mis)behaviour to their many social ties and group affiliations. That is to say, in this book employee behaviour is viewed as being primarily associated with that of the organization (a unitary structure) where members are expected to be part of one big happy family; managers are benevolent, give rational orders, and employees are expected to be faithful and obedient. Second, the writers seem to forget that employees are not totally at the behest of their employers although employees are all too often referred in mainstream organizational behaviour texts as if they are inanimate objects like capital, machinery and land. In other words, for example, employees are actually human, flawed, complex creatures, contradictory, get tired, have a life outside of work, have naturally varying attitudes to work, vary in skill levels within occupational groups, and have varying physical and emotional capabilities. Third, none of these writers have seen anyone misbehave. It seems ridiculous that anyone could claim to theorise and then profess about misbehaviour without actually observing it in action. What is more, a little self‐reflection would not go amiss either as academics are not superior creatures, are normally employees themselves, and surely misbehave themselves from time‐to‐time. Finally, there is barely any mention that employees can be badly managed and that employment in itself can be alienating even for the most highly skilled individuals, involves some degree of exploitation, requires an amount of unnecessary surveillance, requires a deference of authority even when it is not earned or appropriate, never mind the presence of peer pressure and with it the common requirement to conform to informal rules and practices. Quite simply, analysing misbehaviour without taking into account these variables can only be at best partial and therefore biased, and at worst of all deeply disingenuous.
To summarise, it would seem that this book could be worth buying for two quite different reasons. First, to see how misbehaviour is viewed by a certain group of social scientists and to seek first hand evidence that organizational psychologists are becoming less managerialist and beginning to come to terms with the idea that organizational misbehaviour and organizational behaviour may actually be the same side of the coin. Or second, you are still subscribing to a theoretical perspective that suggests the employment relationship is essentially harmonious and that employers and employees share the same ideas and values. A perspective, incidentally, long since rejected by radical sociologists and surprisingly becoming a feature of the work of progressive psychologists. Added to this is an institutionalised aversion to methodologies that use first hand accounts of how employees experience work and employment and in turn, help better understand and explain why we are all prone to misbehaving in the workplace.
