Luận văn thạc sĩ reducing employees’ deviant behavior at thach ban service and trading co

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 Rationale According to an analysis conducted by Azoth Analytics, the global catering market is expected to grow about 4% annually from 2016 to 2021 This rate reveals the pot[.]

a better quality of life, caterers are increasingly focused on health and well-being by attempting to provide more balanced diets and personalized menus to their customers.The growth of catering market requires a large amount of human resources, and

obviously, it creates job opportunity for many people Therefore, the question of how to manage employees has been raised once again because of its urgency If a company wants to build a good team of working professionals, it has to focus on strengthening its human resources management system which includes recruitment and training,

motivation and orientation, workplace communication and safety, etc

Recognizing the needs and potential of the industrial catering industry, in 1997, Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd was established with aims to provide healthy and safety foods and drinks for workers in industrial zones Through almost 20 years of operation and development, Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd had been faced many challenges of how to bring customers a nutritious meal at acceptable price, how to manage suppliers and the quality of their products, and especially how to ensure the working capacity of employees

Due to the characteristics of the industrial catering market, the company has to recruit people living near the partners’ location in order to reduce the cost and time of moving

for employees, and also be faster to handle if there is any complain from customers or adjustment from the head office The point is that Thach Ban are providing meals for almost 30 companies/factories in Ha Noi, Ha Nam, Hung Yen, Bac Ninh, etc., so finding the most effective way to manage employees there is quite challenging and needs time to test several management methods after coming to a complete management process.

Based on information and current situation of human resources management process of Thach Ban and the characteristics of the work, the author considered and decided to

conduct a research regarding the topic “Reducing employees’ deviant behavior at Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd.”.

1.2 Research objectives

- To review and provide better understanding of deviant workplace behavior

- To analyze and evaluate the current situation of employees’ deviant behavior at Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

- To propose recommendations to reduce workplace deviance in Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

Figure 1.1: Research Methodology Process

Literature Review Based knowledge of deviant workplace behavior

Data Collection

(Primary, Secondary Data)

The current situation and factors affecting employees’ deviant behavior at Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

Recommendations to improve the situation as well as human resources management at Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

of data is obviously much easier to collect and find the needed information compared

to primary data In this research, the company website is being used to find out the management system of the company, number of employees, number of refectories andtheir location Besides, Internet, previous researches and reports also play an

important role in providing deeper understanding about deviant workplace behavior and its related problems

1.5.2 Primary data

Primary data is collected using qualitative method (in-depth interview) and

questionnaire in order to have multi-dimension information from different point of views of different people about the current situation of managers’ behavior in Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

• In-depth interview:

─ Face-to-face discussion with the manager of Human Resources Department about the problem in managing employees Interviewee will be asked about policies and regulations of the company as well as the current managing method to understand how this department works and its existing problem

─ Direct interview the manager of Refectory Committee from Thach Ban’s partners

to know what they expect from the refectory’s managers and how the refectory’s managers actually behave, whether they are satisfied or not

• Survey method:

Questionnaire will be sent to 192 employees including refectory’s managers and staffsworking with those managers at researched time by meeting face to face and online survey on Google Doc After those questionnaires are answered, the researcher will collect them immediately or schedule to take them back later.

─ Respondent: employees in Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

─ Sample size: 192 employees

─ Sampling method: convenience sampling because it is the most suitable

method for a large organization that researcher can not include every

individuals on the research Additionally, the convenience sampling method is not costly, fast and easily to conduct compared to other methods

Step 1: Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire includes four parts:

─ General information (6 variables)

─ Frequency level of listed deviant workplace behaviors (17 variables)

─ Importance level of five factors (14 variables)

─ Other suggestion or comment

Step 2: Questionnaire completion

This step includes two activities: preliminary consultation and questionnaire complement Preliminary consultation

The outlined questionnaire is distributed to the Director and Human Resources Manager

in order for them to give comments There are few criteria for the questionnaire to follow,which are comprehensible, succinct and delicate Because among 192 employees taking part in the research, only 40 employees are working at the office, it means the educationalstandard between that 40 employees and the rest are different Therefore, the

questionnaire must be easy to understand and have no implication The Director and the Human Resources Manager check if any discomfort, incomprehension or problem exists

in the questionnaire, clarify doubt, and give advice of what could be adjusted After doingthe preliminary consultation, wording and language of the questionnaire were adapted to

be the most suitable and comprehensible for respondents

Questionnaire complement

In this activity, the author takes every aspects of the questionnaire into great

consideration, which include content, length, introduction and instructions

Step 3: Questionnaire distribution and collection

192 questionnaires were distributed to employees working at the head office of Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd and five refectories located in Ha Noi and nearby areas 190 questionnaires were collected, in which 155 questionnaires were valid in data processing The questionnaires were spread to refectory’ employees by food trucks in the morning and were collected by the end of the third day after that

Step 4: Questionnaire determination and elimination

Invalid questionnaire responses, which is omitted the general information part and/or uncompleted questionnaires, were separated

Step 5: Data analysis

Once having all the data needed from employees, the author uses SPSS software to clarify the influence level of the five factors affecting employees’ deviant workplace behavior accurately and thoroughly

Data are evaluated by SPSS 22.0 including:

Chapter 2 – Theoretical background on deviant workplace behavior

Chapter 3 – Current situation and factors affecting deviant behavior at Thach Ban Serviceand Trading Co., Ltd

Chapter 4 – Recommendation to reduce deviant behavior at Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

CHAPTER 2

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON DEVIANT WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR

2.1 The concept of deviant workplace behavior

Deviant workplace behavior is identified as a very serious and alarming problem in corporate life According to a study by Harper (1990), the percentage of all employees of all employees engaging in deviant behaviors of some sort or other was approximately 33%-75% (Harper, 1990), and as many as 75% of the employees have stolen from their respective organizations (McGurn, 1988) Nowadays, due to the development in

technology which precipitate the deviant acts (Lim, 2002), the predicted percentage may

be higher than these, for instance cyber crime which includes hacking, and phishing Workplace deviance consequences can be visible in terms of huge costs to the

organizations; including employee workplace theft has been determined to range between

$10 billion-$120 billion annually (Bourke, 1994; Murphy, 1993) Moreover, not only do deviant behaviors have terrible results on the performance of employees and their

organization (Dunlop & Lee, 2004), but they also decrease quality of working time, negatively impact medical & legal expenses, and damage public perception (Litzky, Eddleston, & Kidder, 2006; Van Fleet & Griffin, 2006)

Deviant workplace behavior has been defined as many different names over the years, including counterproductive work behavior (Spector, Fox, Penney, Brursema, Goh and Kessler, 2006), antisocial behavior (Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly, 1998), misbehavior in organizations (Sagie, Stashevsky, and Koslowsky, 2003), dark side of organizational behavior (Griffin and O’Learly-Kelly, 2004), organizational misbehavior (Vardi & Wiener, 1996), non compliant behavior (Puffer, 1987), cyber loafing (Lim, 2002), and workplace incivility (Robbins and Judge, 2007) As described by Robinson and Bennett (1995), workplace deviance is voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in doing so threatens the well being of an organization, its members, or both This definition emphasizes the violation of norms intentionally by employees at the workplace in order to harm the coworkers and organization or both The reason why employee deviance is considered voluntary may be because of employee’s lack of the motivation to conform to the normative expectations of the social context or their change

of motivation which urges them to violate those expectations (Robinson & Bennett,

1995) and their thoughts which make them blame their coworker because they believe that they have been wronged by someone (Aquino, Tripp & Bies, 2001).

Deviant workplace behavior is attempted to describe by many researchers in their own phrases with various names For example, while Vardi and Wiener (1996) define

organizational misbehavior as any intentional action by the members of organizations that defies and violates the shared organizational norms and expectations and/or core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct, Giacalone and Greenberg (1997) have outlined antisocial behavior as any behavior that brings harm, or is intended to bringharm, to an organization, its employees, or stakeholders On the other hand, Andersson and Pearson (1999) defined a different though overlapping construct of workplace

incivility as low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect Whereas, the definition that workplace incivility may be a form of organizational resistance is proposed by Lawrence and

Robinson (2007) Counterproductive work behavior is described as the behaviors by organizational members that are counter to the legitimate interests of the organization (Sackett, 2002) Gruys and Sackett (2003) refer to deviance as an intentional behavior on the part of an organizational member that the organization views as contrary to its

legitimate interests Hence, although deviance is illustrated in different ways, its content

is overlapped These days, researchers determined deviant behavior with a new term as insidious workplace behavior which is defined as “a form of intentionally harmful

workplace behavior that is legal, subtle, and low level (rather than severe), repeated over time, and directed at individuals or organizations” (Edwards & Greenberg, 2010)

As reported by the Robinson and Bennett (1995), the behavior not following the

organization’s norms regardless of the society’s norms is deviant workplace behavior The violation of organizational norms is the violation of formal and informal

organizational policies, rules, and procedures as prescribed by the organization which is not expected to be violated by its members, which means the violations must be

noticeably serious Robinson and Bennett (1995) are also aware that deviant behaviors may or may not be ethical As they mentioned in their study, behaviors such as blowing the whistle could be considered as exceptionally ethical by many people, but would also

be included in the definition of workplace deviance In summary, individuals must

involve in deviant acts intentionally, harming organization

2.2 Forms of deviant workplace behavior

Various researchers are interested in the topic of deviant workplace behavior and have tried a lot to categorize it In the process of forming a framework of deviant workplace

behavior, two groups have been introduced, including property deviance and production deviance (Hollinger & Clark, 1982; Mangione & Quinn, 1974) Property deviance means that employee has interaction with stealing, damaging the property or assets of their employers, taking money or supplies from the employer, misusing discount privileges, and getting paid for more hours than they actually worked (Hollinger & Clark, 1982) Besides, behaviors which violate norms about the production or work in the organization combining absenteeism, tardiness, sick leave abuse, doing sloppy work, and engaging in drug or alcohol use on the job (Hollinger & Clark, 1982), are called production deviance

In addition, Hollinger, Slora, and Terris (1992) have come up with a third category of deviant workplace behavior called altruistic property deviance, which could be

understood as a unique form of property deviance including behaviors which deal with the assets and property of the organization like property deviance

Subsequently, a study conducted in 1995 by Robinson and Bennett has proposed two additional classes of deviant workplace behavior, which are political deviance and

personal aggression While political deviance is described as engagement in social

interaction that puts other individuals at a personal or political disadvantage by behaviors such as showing favoritism, blaming co-workers, and starting negative rumors about the organization; behaving in an aggressive manner towards coworkers in a manner of sexualharassment, verbal abuse or stealing from other employees is considered as personal aggression Correspondingly, a comprehensive typology of deviant workplace behavior was empirically evolved in 1995 by Robinson and Bennett, which consists of all possible negative behaviors with the aid of multidimensional scaling procedure and thereby

verified potential methods for measuring workplace deviance The typology introduced a two dimensional configuration of deviant workplace behaviors in which deviant behaviorcan range: minor versus serious and interpersonal versus organizational deviance For more details, the two dimensional chart organizes deviant workplace behavior into four quadrants The first quadrant represents the production deviance including less severe behavior directly affects the organization, while behaviors which are serious and directed against the organization are included in the second quadrant – property deviance

Quadrants three and four include behaviors having bad effects on individuals in the organization, in which the minor one is contained in quadrant three (political deviance) and the serious one is included in the fourth quadrant (personal aggression) (Bazaraite & Coubaneichvili, 2008)

Figure 1: Typology of Deviant Workplace Behavior (Source: Robinson and Bennett, 1995)

ORGANIZATIONAL

As shown in the typology above, it is easily to see that production deviance is behaviors having less serious harm to the organization Such behaviors straightforwardly influence work being recognized in the organization like using the resources inefficiently, leaving early, taking excessive long breaks, and telling lies about their health problems and so on.Another group of acts which is also relatively less severe to the organization but targetingthe individuals in the organization is included in political deviance They are behaviors such as showing favoritism, blaming co workers and gossiping excessively On the other hand, property deviance is directed against the organization with a higher level of harm tothe organization in terms of resources, consisting of destroying or misusing an

organization’s property Employees might engage in stealing from organizations’

property, lying about the hours worked, sabotaging equipment, misusing expense

accounts and so on Also having serious effects on the organization but targeting its individuals is personal aggression which combines acts like sexual harassment, physical and verbal abuse, endangering co workers or stealing from co worker at the workplace (Robinson & Bennett, 1995)

2.3 Previous studies of factors affecting employee’s deviant behavior

A lot of researchers have attempted to examine what factors affecting deviant workplace behavior are, one of them are David and Adler (2008), who have proposed the personal, group, leadership, and organizational factors as the underlying factors of such behavior

On the other hand, research conducted by Bennett and Robinson (2003) have revealed that organizational justice is an important variable in deviant behavior prediction

According to Moorman (1991), organizational justice is the methods used to treat the staff in a way that they feel they are being treated fairly During the past half of century, the topic of organizational justice has taken much effort of researchers, bringing different understandings and theories, as a result However, most of them indicate that

organizational justice can be evaluated through distributive, procedural, and interactional justice (McCardle, 2007)

The first term to concern is distributive justice It means every distribution of the

outcomes of the organization’s achievement should be fair, so that individuals can

receive their favorable share fairly depending on their contribution, efforts, and

capabilities Besides, procedural justice should be considered, in order to ensure that the process of attaining equal outcomes should be fair itself It would be understand that, no one can have the right and should not be capable of gaining just results through going on

an unjustifiable way Interactional justice reveals the just needed in all interactions and interrelationships between individuals in the process of attaining the equal results For a better understanding, as Purezzat & Gholipur (2009) have determined, individuals don’t have the right to go through unjust interactions with others in their way toward attaining just goals

The occurrence of deviant behavior in the workplace is also affected by staff

development, which is another additional variable Staff development has good effects onlowering deviant and ineffective behaviors in the organization, and in contrast, lack of staff development may cause serious consequences to staff motivation and lead to

ineffective and deviant behaviors Previous study has shown that, employees’ behavior inthe workplace is affected considerably by the staff development programs in

organizations (Georji and Jozef, 2003) (Golparvar and Nadali, 2011) That is, if the organization develops a constantly program to encourage and guide the staffs to develop their knowledge, attitude and skills, improve their capacities and prepare them for future responsibilities, the existence of deviant behaviors is surely reduced

According to Noe (2008), in staff development, results are more important than methods, and the status of the staff in the organization is taken into account For more specific illustration, staff development factors are proposed as achieving the learning

opportunities, cooperating with colleagues to attain the vocational goals, creating

effective learning environment, trying to evaluate oneself, scrutinizing the changes and providing feedback, and taking part in seminars and workshops (Shahpasand et al, 2006)

Four ways to access staff development are formal training, evaluation, job experiences, and interpersonal relationships (Raymond Noe’s, 2008), in which formal training is programs specifically designed for the organizational staff and held by academic

consultants or instructors as short term courses Evaluations mean gather information andgive feedback for the staff about their behaviors, ways of building relationships, values,

or skills Job experiences include relationships, necessities, duties, and other dimensions

of the workplace that the staffs usually face up to Interpersonal relationships refer to mentoring and tutoring, they are used to improve the staffs’ knowledge and skills in terms of the organization and its customers

2.4 Model to analyze factors affecting employees’ deviant behavior

In 1998, Robinson and Greenberg carried out study on factors affecting workplace

deviance, in which including three main factors: individual factors, social and

interpersonal factors, and organizational factors On the other hand, a research conducted

by Melissa L Gruys (1999) outlined four different types of variables relating to deviant workplace behavior: personal characteristics, employee perceptions and attitudes,

situational and organizational factors, and integrity tests After deliberation, the author decided to combine these two researches in order to have the most suitable model of factors affecting employee’s deviant behavior to analyze in the intern company Thus,

chosen factors are individual factors (personal characteristics), employee perceptions and attitudes, and organizational factors

Individual factors

Included in individual factors are two independent variables which are important in predicting deviant workplace behavior They are employee age and length of tenure As Hollinger (1986) has researched, “employees who are younger and those with less tenure have been found to be more likely to engage in deviant behavior in the workplace”

Employee perceptions and attitudes

The research by Hollinger (1986) also revealed that “employees who perceive the

employer to be unfair will be more likely to engage in deviant behavior in the

workplace”, which means if an employee feels that he is treated unfair or underpaid related to what he contributes to the company, the person may be more likely to engage

in deviant workplace behavior This idea comes from the equity theory developed by Jaques (1961) The theory indicates that “employees want to achieve equity or a balance between their inputs (or what they are putting into the job) and their outputs (or what theyare receiving back from the job)” This awareness of balance, also can be understood as

“fairness”, is internal to the employee and can be judged based on past experiences Along the same theme of “fairness”, Skarlicki and Folger (1997) have indicated that employees’ perception of procedural justice, distributive justice, and organizational justice in the workplace may also affect their deviant behavior

The other factor playing an important role in deviant behavior in the workplace is

employee attitudes If employees are satisfied with their work, they are less likely to engage in deviant workplace behavior (Magione and Quinn, 1975; Hollinger and Clark, 1982)

Organizational Factors

One of variables relating to organizational factors is policies of the company If the company has strict policies of sanctions that individuals will receive if they engage in deviant behavior, then those deviant behaviors will be less likely to occur

Besides, how employees learn about organizational rules and norms is also related to deviant behavior in the workplace A social learning theory proposed by O’Leary-Kelly, Griffin and Glew (1996) suggests that “people can learn from experiencing certain

outcomes as a result of behaviors in which they have engaged” and also “can learn from the behavior and the outcomes of the behaviors of others” It means that if an individual engaging in the deviant behavior gains some rewards, other employees may consider about engaging in that behavior; however, for example, if an individual steals from the

cash register and is fired as a result, others who are viewing this situation will somehow less likely to intend to steal from the register thereafter Therefore, a lot of companies andorganizations are attempting to reduce or eliminate deviant workplace behavior by

propose regulations, rules, and punishment for deviance, and are trying to do these things effectively

Another two variables including in organizational factors and also affecting deviant behavior in the workplace are organizational structure and leadership style of managers Organizational structure might be a cause of deviance if the size of company increases too fast and the levels of supervision decrease In terms of leadership style of managers, deviant behavior will take place more often in organization which has bullying, quick blaming, conservative and unethical behaving managers

Figure: Model to analyze factors affecting employees’ deviant behavior in the workplace

structure, leadership style,

policies and punishment)

DEVIANT WORKPLACE

BEHAVIOR

Demographic variables and deviant behavior

A lot of previous studies concentrated on examine what demographic factors actually

influence workplace deviant behavior, and of course, several demographic variables do (Lau at al., 2005, Henle, 2005, Sackett et al., 2006, Hershcovis et al., 2007, and Berry et al., 2007) As researched by Hershcovis et al (2007), gender was a strong predictor of interpersonal aggression (a type of deviant workplace behavior shown in Figure 2), whichindicated that man being more aggressive than women Beside gender, age were also an effective variable in predicting workplace deviance, while tenure was not considerably correlated (Henle, 2005) A meta-analysis conducted by Lau et al (2003) revealed the result that age, sex and material status were all persuasive predictors of different deviant behaviors in which age was the most influential predictor Consequently, based on

previous study results and observation on the interned company, this research will be

looking at six demographic variables, which are age, gender, working place, occupationalrank, organizational tenure, and income

CHAPTER 3

CURRENT SITUATION OF EMPLOYEES’ DEVIANT BEHAVIOR IN THACH BAN SERVICE AND TRADING CO., LTD

3.1 Overview of Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

3.1.1 Formation and Development Process of Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd

General information of the company

Head office No 49, Thach Ban street, Long Bien district, Ha Noi

Business

registration

No 0101255558

(Granted the first time by the Department of Planning and

Investment of Hanoi on June 14th, 2002;

certificate renewal the seventh time on June 22nd, 2015)

Bank account number No 0011000392099 - Vietcombank

Company history and development process

Established in 1997 by Mr Hoang Manh Cuong, Thach Ban Service and Trading Co.,

Ltd is a unit specializing in providing industrial rations in Hanoi and neighboring

provinces, which has been developing and improving to meet the higher demand of customers through 20 years of operation At the time when the industrial catering service was not so popular, the company signed the first contract and started to supply only 20 meals with two employees cooking and delivering for Goshi - Thang Long Auto Parts (Viet Hung ward, Long Bien district, Ha Noi) After a long process of efforts to improve professional skills and management capacity, Thach Ban Service and Trading Co., Ltd has recorded a lot of achievements such as certificates of Brand Safety for Public Health, Enterprises Well Observing Tax Policies and Laws, etc for many years However, the most valuable thing that the company has gained is the trust and the satisfaction of

customers From one client in 1997, currently, the company has nearly 30 clients in Ha

Noi, Bac Ninh, Ha Nam and Hung Yen including Honda , Vinasoy, Pepsico and Kim Khi Thang Long and so on, serving daily about 20,000 meals/day The company is

proud to reach such number of clients without doing any marketing strategies but only thereputation built up throughout years

Vision and mission statement