Reconstructing Constructive Deviance: The Development of a Positive Employee Model for Human Resource Management
Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management
ISBN: 978-1-80455-046-5, eISBN: 978-1-80455-045-8
ISSN: 0742-7301
Publication date: 4 October 2022
Abstract
Constructive deviance has received increasing attention across the last 20 years. However, because the distinction between constructive and traditional forms of deviance (i.e., destructive) is based on the intent behind the behaviors, it can be difficult to determine which acts are constructive. As an umbrella construct consisting of several forms of deviant acts (e.g., whistle-blowing, employee voice, necessary evils), research into constructive deviance has largely remained focused on the individual behaviors to date. While advancements have been made, this focus has limited the consideration of an overarching understanding of constructive deviance in the workplace. Further, constructs like constructive deviance that straddle the bounds between beneficial and detrimental necessitate the exploration into their antecedents as determined by the employees (i.e., apples), their environments (e.g., barrels), or some combination of the two. The author seeks to advance the research in constructive deviance by proposing a testable model. In which, the author develops an interactionist perspective of the antecedents to reposition constructive deviance as the acts of good employees in restrictive or negative environments. In doing so, the author considers how various aspects of individuals, their organizational environments, and the influence of their leaders interact. The author then develops a multi-stakeholder approach to the outcomes of constructive deviance to consider how the various parties (i.e., organization, coworkers, customers) are expected to respond and how these responses impact the more distal outcomes as well as the likelihood of engaging in future constructive deviance.
Keywords
Citation
Baur, J.E. (2022), "Reconstructing Constructive Deviance: The Development of a Positive Employee Model for Human Resource Management", Buckley, M.R., Wheeler, A.R., Baur, J.E. and Halbesleben, J.R.B. (Ed.) Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Vol. 40), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-730120220000040003
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022 John E. Baur
In everyday experience, it comes down to a conflict between those folks who dutifully work to manage established routines in order to ensure the successful functioning of their organization, and those who courageously challenge routines in order to do the very same thing. (Hornstein, 1986, p. 8)
Workplace deviance has been studied for over half of a century (Sherif & Sherif, 1953) and is considered a primary component of the dysfunctional behaviors at work (Griffin & Lopez, 2005) – behaviors which have been estimated to cost organizations billions of dollars annually (Parks, Ma, & Gallagher, 2010; Robinson & Greenberg, 1998). Deviance has often been conceptualized as the acts of selfish and angry employees who are focused on their self-interests in retaliation against their organizations (Greenberg, 1990). While an important collection of behaviors that warrant additional interest from researchers and practitioners alike, a different conceptualization of deviance has more recently been put forth. Constructive deviance (Galperin, 2012; Warren, 2003) suggests a brighter side to the definition of workplace deviance. With roots in the positive organizational scholarship movement, the distinction is made that employees may violate organizational rules and norms with an other-focused intent such as to increase organizational efficiency or to assist a coworker or customer. Thus, while the actions of a constructive deviant may appear similar to those of a destructive deviant, the difference is largely determined by the intent of the actor.
As such, employees must make a decision and accept the tradeoffs between performing in accordance with the organizational rules to maintain the status quo or violating them in order to attempt to perform a role more efficiently or to benefit others. To add to the complexity of this tradeoff, researchers examining various forms of constructive deviance have found negative outcomes for the actor. For example, Dahling et al. (2012) found that prosocially violating organizational rules can result in negative performance evaluations as assessed by supervisors as well as coworkers. Yet at the same time, seeking to engage in behaviors that are just or appropriate, regardless of the norms that constrain employee behaviors, is often considered as beneficial or noble. Of course, such behaviors also greatly complicate the creation and maintenance of organizational rules as well as human resource management practices. Should such an employee, who willingly violates the rules of the organization to provide better service to a customer, to test an innovative idea that could streamline organizational processes, or who picks up the slack to help a coworker be punished or rewarded? This is a central and lingering question along with others such as how much constructive deviance should be tolerated and in what context as well as whether a tipping point may exist such that too much leads to organizational chaos.
While these questions remain unanswered and researchers are yet to explore many outcomes of such behaviors in impacting the positive change they are intended to provide, there is a belief that constructive deviance, at least to a certain extent, is beneficial. This optimism could be sparked from the early roots in the positive organizational scholarship movement, or from the flattering terminology used to name constructs such as constructive deviance, pro-social rule breaking, courageous principled action, necessary evils, and productive nonconformity. Likewise, a positive impression could result from the notion that creativity and innovation are inherently deviant in challenging and breaking rules (Zhou & George, 2001). This concept is widely recognized by entrepreneurship researchers (Zhang & Avery, 2009) and is evidence of the divide between the entrepreneurship and management literatures (Reid et al., 2018).
Within the literature, a primary concern is the divergent attention paid to specific forms of constructive deviance. As an umbrella-construct consisting of several forms of deviant acts, it can be challenging to consider a higher-order model that can help to explain and predict such actions and their outcomes. Instead, researchers often use a narrower lens to focus their attention of just employee voice or whistle-blowing, for example. As a result, research into different forms of constructive deviance has remained largely isolated from each other. In addition to this limitation, there have been several calls to expand understanding in specific ways. For example, Morrison (2006) as well as Vardaman and colleagues (2014) called for the examination of contextual or situational factors that are likely to serve as antecedents. This is due to the recognition that many forms of constructive deviance have been conceptualized as interactionist constructs in which the decision to engage in such behaviors is likely driven by contextual factors as well as the dispositional or individual difference factors that have been the focus of the research to date.
To address these concerns, I consider how dispositional, relational, and situational variables may interact in order to provide a more developed view of the drivers of constructive deviance. In doing so, I suggest a new perspective – one that is both more favorable as well as discouraging than previously posited. For while researchers typically consider constructive deviance as beneficial, their findings suggest that these behaviors are committed by employees high in risk-taking propensity (Morrison, 2006) and low in conscientiousness (Dahling et al., 2012) – a personality profile that may seem less than ideal to practicing managers. However, I suggest that the employees that engage in such behaviors may actually be among the best and ideal types of employees. In contrast, I suggest that these positive employees engage in constructive deviance as a critical attempt to help craft or change a context that they perceive as negative.
Recent conceptual advancements within the related constructs of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive workplace behaviors have offered a multi-stakeholder perspective such that there may be times when organizational citizenship behaviors are detrimental to the focal employee, coworkers, or organization and the reverse may be true for counterproductive workplace behaviors (Reynolds et al., 2015). Constructive deviance is ripe to be considered in a similar perspective. Violating the rules to provide a greater service to a customer by giving unearned discounts or free advice may accomplish the intended results and the customer will likely be satisfied. However, it may come at the direct expense of the organization. Therefore, while the deviance can be perceived as prosocial to one stakeholder – the customer – it may be perceived as destructive to another – the organization. I seek to provide the first exploration of constructive deviance through such a multi-stakeholder perspective by considering how different parties respond to the actions and how these responses impact subsequent attitudes and behaviors.
Also, Griffin and Lopez (2005), in their review of the deviance literature, noted several additional shortcomings that I seek to address. First, they note that researchers typically treat deviant behaviors as either present or absent without the concern for maintaining or repeating such behaviors. In the development of my model, I seek to explore and explain the repeated cycle of a specific category of deviance – constructive deviance – and how the future likelihood of such behaviors can be impacted. Further, the authors note that the outcomes or consequences of such behaviors have also frequently been neglected. I address this shortcoming by including the expected reactions to the behaviors as well as the attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.
To address these issues, I review the literature on workplace deviance and constructive deviance as well as organizational rules and norms. Then I draw from extant research to develop a conceptual model that considers an interactionist perspective of the antecedents of constructive deviance as well as a multi-stakeholder approach for the reactions to such deviant actions and their more distal outcomes. The implications of the model are then discussed in order to highlight additional directions for future research and to benefit practicing managers.
Literature Review
Workplace Deviance
Robinson and Bennett (1995) created the most frequently used definition of workplace deviance as “voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in so doing threatens the well-being of an organization, its members, or both” (p. 556). Therefore, in order for an act to be considered deviant it must be done with volition and in violation of the norms of what Robinson and Bennett (1997) described as the “dominant administrative coalition” (p. 6). Further, it can be either targeted at the organization, considered as organizational deviance, at individuals affiliated with the organization, categorized as interpersonal deviance, or some combination of the two (Bordia et al., 2008). In this way, deviance has been conceptualized as negative or bad behaviors and is frequently treated as such (e.g., Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Colbert et al., 2004; Robinson & Greenberg, 1998).
Researchers have implemented several theoretical lenses in which to view and explain deviance. One such approach is equity theory (Adams, 1963) in which employees engage in deviant behaviors as a reaction to perceived inequity in order to seek retaliation against a lack of fairness and justice or to regain a balance. Sackett and DeVore (2001) noted that “there is a certain poetry in behaving badly in response to some perceived injustice” (p. 160). Likewise, social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) has been used to determine how an unsupportive or negative environment may lead to a reciprocation of deviant behaviors (Colbert et al., 2004) and how organizational justice can create an indebtedness that can lead to increased work engagement (Haynie et al., 2019).
As an interactionist construct, researchers have found that the predictive ability of individual or dispositional factors are enhanced (e.g., Hepworth & Towler, 2004) or weakened (e.g., Brown et al., 2005) by situational or environmental factors and vice versa. For example, Skarlicki and colleagues (1999) found that negative affect moderates the impact of perceived justice on retaliatory behaviors. Likewise, conscientiousness and emotional stability were found to weaken the relationship between the perceptions of a developmental environment and organizational deviance while agreeableness was found to strengthen the relationship between perceived organizational support and interpersonal deviance (Colbert et al., 2004).
Importantly, Griffin and Lopez (2005) noted that some behaviors which may be perceived as bad may actually be motivated by employees seeking to be helpful. Indeed, the outcomes of deviance have been thought to span across a wide continuum. While deviance can be dysfunctional and threaten members of the organization or the organization itself (Best & Luckenbill, 1982), it may also be beneficial in creating warning signals and safety valves of underlying concerns (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Therefore, Griffin and Lopez (2005) were particularly cautious to exclude from their classification of dysfunctional deviant behaviors “those behaviors that might be seen as undesirable by the organization, such as whistle-blowing, but that may provide social benefits” (p. 989). This separation represents an important new conceptualization of deviance as potentially constructive.
Constructive Deviance
Greenberg (1997) suggested that the intentions behind deviant behaviors may be “much more complex than generally conceived” (p. 88). As such, scholars have sought alternative conceptualizations of deviance, noting that the reduction of deviance to negative behaviors has created “an unnecessarily narrow area of study” (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2004, p. 828). Galperin (2003) and Warren (2003) worked to develop the construct of constructive deviance rather independently from each other. Galperin (2003) offered as a definition of constructive deviance, “voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in doing so contributes to the well-being of an organization, its members, or both” (p. 158). This definition is an exact replication of the definition of workplace deviance by Robinson and Bennett (1995) with the exception being the intent to benefit others.
Further, through the designation of constructive deviance as being other-focused and beneficial, the more traditional forms of deviance that are self-focused and detrimental were relabeled as destructive deviance. She subsequently created and validated a measure of constructive deviance across a series of studies (Galperin, 2012) which, like traditional deviance, produced a two-factor solution for deviance aimed at the organization and at individuals. As hypothesized, a positive and moderately significant relationship between destructive and constructive deviance was found similar to the levels found by Dalal (2005) in his meta-analysis of the relationship between counterproductive workplace behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors.
Additionally, in seeking to provide discriminant validity between constructive and destructive deviance, she found that constructive deviance is positively predicted by Machiavellianism and role breadth self-efficacy, however role breadth self-efficacy is unrelated to destructive deviance. Galperin (2012) also recognized the importance of considering contextual variables in predicting constructive deviance such that access to information was negatively related to constructive deviance aimed at the organization. While she stopped short of testing a true interactionist model, she did suggest the need to explore additional contextual variables and specifically noted the likely impact of the organization’s climate on constructive deviance. Finally, she suggested that the constructiveness of deviance likely lies in the eye of the beholder such that the same behavior may be perceived as beneficial to one party while detrimental to another.
Warren (2003) offered a neutral perspective on deviance. While the traditional perspective of workplace deviance is one in which the violation of organizational rules and norms is done for self-serving purposes (Robinson & Bennett, 1995), thereby resulting in the perceptions of angry or dissatisfied workers, she noted that the central question is “Deviance compared to what?” (Warren, 2003, p. 623). A frequent assumption exists that organizational norms and rules are normal and correct (Ackroyd & Thompson, 1999), although they may be misinformed, outdated, or overly restrictive. Therefore, when seeking to determine the impact of deviance it is important to consider what the actions are deviating from. An employee’s behaviors may be deviant at one level or in one group but conform in another (Warren, 2003).
This conceptualization is in line with Merton’s (1957) recognition of two types of roles – local and cosmopolitan – with important implications regarding the behaviors of the role taker. Local role takers will seek role definitions and expectations from within the workplace while cosmopolitan role takers will seek definition in the social system outside of the organization. Therefore, holding local or cosmopolitan perspectives of roles will influence which reference groups are selected to define the role expectations and therefore indicate which norms and rules are more likely to be followed. For example, while whistle-blowing may violate the norms of the organization, it may concurrently adhere to the norms of society. In contrast, unethical pro-organizational behavior may adhere to the norms of the organization while violating societal norms.
Comparing the organizational norms with larger hypernorms, Warren (2003) developed a 2 × 2 matrix with four possible behavioral categories. As she noted, behaviors that are outside of both sets of norms are considered destructive deviance. Many of the traditional forms of deviance (e.g., sexual harassment, verbal or physical abuse, employee theft or sabotage) would fall within this category of destructive deviance. Acts that abide by the reference group norms but outside of the hypernorms are destructive conformity. Such acts could include accounting fraud, corporate espionage, insider trading, and unethical pro-organizational behavior if such actions are encouraged and promoted within the organization while being considered as inappropriate at a societal level. Alternatively, behaviors that are in agreement with both sets of norms were labeled as constructive conformity. Behaviors that fall within this category could include when employees go beyond their minimal required tasks through organizational citizenship behaviors and contextual performance.
Finally, behaviors in line with the hypernorms but that violate organizational norms are labeled constructive deviance. Within this last and positive form of deviance, employees will defy the organizational rules or norms in order to satisfy the larger societal hypernorms. In this way, it was suggested that employees may be organizational deviants yet do so in ways that benefit society and often through selfless motives. Such behaviors have been suggested to lead to improved work methods, decision making, and performance but they may come at the expense of alienating employees (Griffin & Lopez, 2005). Further, Cameron and Caza (2004) suggested that constructive deviance “realizes the highest potential of organizations and their members” (p. 732) by planting the seeds for organizational creativity and innovation while promoting organizational change (Galperin, 2012). I include a collection of behaviors that can be categorized as constructive deviance in Table 1.
Forms of Constructive Deviance.
| Construct | Definition |
|---|---|
| Counter-role behavior | “neither a formal job description nor management’s likely conception of the ideal employee … included under the rubric of counter-role behavior would be forms of deviance and dissent, ranging from vocal protests over the way a role is performed to the more quiet changes that people may introduce to revise or redirect their work roles” (Staw & Boettger, 1990, p. 535) |
| Courageous principled action | “when people must draw upon their intuitive, emotional, interpersonal, and cognitive resources in order to undertake actions in line with the highest goals of the organization but not of the accepted routine or status quo” (Worline & Quinn, 2003, p. 145) |
| Detrimental citizenship behavior | “discretionary employee behavior that goes beyond reason and necessity to promote specific organizational goals and, in so doing, harms legitimate stakeholder interests” (Pierce & Aguinis, 2015, p. 71) |
| Extra-role behavior | “behavior that is discretionary and which goes beyond existing role expectations” (Van Dyne et al., 1995, p. 218) |
| Issue selling | “voluntary behaviors which organizational members use to influence the organizational agenda by getting those above them to pay attention to an issue” (Dutton & Ashford, 1993, p. 398) |
| Necessary evils | “an individual must … perform an act that causes emotional or physical harm to another human being in the service of achieving perceived greater good or purpose” (Molinsky & Margolis, 2005, p. 247) |
| Noncompliant behavior | “nontask behaviors that have negative organizational implications (e.g., those that present a negative image of the organization)” (Puffer, 1987, p. 615) |
| Organizational expedience | “workers’ behaviors that (1) are intended to fulfill organizationally prescribed or sanctioned objectives but that (2) knowingly involve breaking, bending, or stretching rules, directives, or organizationally sanctioned norms” (Parks et al., 2010, p. 703) |
| Organizational misbehavior | “any intentional action by members of organizations that defies and violates (a) shared organizational norms and expectations and/or (b) core societal values, more and standards of proper conduct” (Vardi & Weiner, 1996, p. 153) |
| Organizational retaliation behavior | “adverse reactions to perceived unfairness by disgruntled employees toward their employer” (Skarlicki & Folger, 1997, p. 434) |
| Organization-gain issues | “the organization benefits while others outside the organization (e.g., customers, capital provides) are harmed” (Cullinan et al., 2008, p. 226) |
| Positive deviance | “intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2003, p. 209) |
| Principled organizational dissent | the effort by individuals in the workplace to protest and/or change the organizational status quo because of their conscientious objection to current policy or practice … which violates [a] standard of justice, honesty, or economy (Graham, 1986) |
| Productive nonconformity | “individual behavior that, when viewed over time, is in both an observed statistical and an inferred psychological sense independent of the prevailing social norms. Second, productive nonconformity also can be shown to make a positive and significant contribution to either the task accomplishment of a given group, organization, or society, or the task accomplishment of an individual in a particular social setting” (Pepinsky, 1960, p. 81) |
| Pro-social rule breaking | any instance when an employee intentionally violates a formal organizational policy, regulation, or prohibition with the primary intention of promoting the welfare of the organization or one of its stakeholders (Morrison, 2006) |
| Role extension | “utilizing acquired behaviors from one role in a different role situation” (West, 1987, p. 83) |
| Role innovation | “the introduction of significant new behaviors into a pre-existing role” (West, 1987, p. 83) |
| Tempered radicalism | “individuals who identify with and are committed to their organizations, and are also committed to a cause, community, or ideology that is fundamentally different from, and possibly at odds with the dominant culture of their organization” (Meyerson & Scully, 1995, p. 586) |
| Voice | “promotive behavior that emphasizes expression of constructive challenge intended to improve rather than merely criticize” (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998, p. 109) |
| Whistle-blowing | “the disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action” (Near & Miceli, 1985, p. 4) |
Critical to Warren’s (2003) typology of behaviors is the recognition that multiple norms exist and that they may frequently contrast when helping to determine the expected or correct actions for employees. Moreover, this categorization highlights that what is considered as correct or just may not be as consistent and obvious as often considered.
Organizational Rules and Norms
Organizations can use rules and norms in order to maintain employee obedience, and their power to do so is quite strong (Asch, 1951; Barnard, 1938). Rules are shared beliefs that have been formally defined regarding the behaviors that should and should not be enacted in specific situations (Argyle et al., 1981). In this way, the rules are inherently restrictive in order to create an environment in which dissimilar employees will behave similarly. Alternatively, norms consist of ranges of behaviors that a certain group are tolerated and/or expected to enact (Jackson, 1966). In comparison to rules, norms are less formal and more emergent (Feldman, 1984). Therefore, while an employee that breaks an organizational norm might not be aware of it due to his or her newness in the organization or the norm being new and emerging itself, rules offer less room for interpretation or misunderstanding.
Much of the research indicates that organization should seek to enforce adherence to the rules and norms. Tyler and Blader (2005) noted that organizations must rely on employees to follow the rules and sought to determine strategies to help them do so. Such adherence has been suggested as needed for organizational success (e.g., Laufer & Robertson, 1997) and organizations expend significant costs and time trying to control their employees (O’Reilly, 1989). Moreover, organizations often create punishment structures that seek to match the severity of the punishment with the severity of the violation (Wheeler, 1976). Congruent with rational choice (Akers, 1990) and rational crime (Becker, 1968) theories, employees consider both the likelihood and severity of the expected punishment before engaging in deviant acts (Vardi & Wiener, 1996). Deviance that goes unpunished can become normalized (Vaughan, 1996) and eventually accepted (Pinto, 2014) when employees redefine their definitions of acceptable behavior after witnessing such acts (Bandura, 1977; Robinson et al., 2014). This process may result in contagion in teams (Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998), retaliation from coworkers (Mayer et al., 2011), and a downward spiral of incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). As a result, those who ascribe to the strict adherence to rules and norms suggest following such a prescriptive policy of punishment. This is particularly true given the concealable nature of some deviant acts (Sackett et al., 2006) and the clandestine manner in which they may be performed (Mackey et al., 2015).
The act of rule or norm breaking harkens to Warren’s (2003) argument that the determination of the destructiveness or constructiveness of such behaviors can only be assessed when attention is given to what was deviated from. Morrison (2006) noted that many constructs in organizational research (e.g., organizational misbehavior, antisocial behavior, corporate crime) are also based on the concept of rule breaking yet these behaviors are not classified as prosocial or constructive. The concept of constructive deviance may be able to provide additional understanding regarding the implications of negative, incorrect, unjust, outdated, counterproductive, or excessively constraining rules and norms.
Rules and norms may make an employee feel trapped such that breaking them may be a reactionary attempt to perform one’s role better, to benefit the organization, or to help important stakeholders such as coworkers and customers. In this way, constructive behaviors such as principled dissent in which employees will violate their behavioral expectations if they perceive the rules guiding such behaviors are wrong (Graham, 1986) suggest that rules and norms are not always perceived as correct. Likewise, Staw and Boettger (1990) in their assessment of task revision – behaviors in which employees attempt to modify rules that they perceive as limiting in order to work more efficiently – suggest that in such cases, incorrect rules should be broken and the results will benefit the organization.
Model Development
In seeking to advance the current understanding of constructive deviance, I follow the lead of symbolic interactionists, and put forth a new conceptual model considering the impact of individuals within organizational settings to posit the types of individuals likely to engage in constructive deviance as well as the organizational constraints that may inhibit or promote such actions. Additionally, I extend to also consider new potential outcomes of these behaviors as well as the likelihood of engaging in future similar behaviors. Further, I explore how the impact of constructive deviance on the suggested outcomes and future behaviors is mediated by the core stakeholders for the actions – the organization, customers, and coworkers. The proposed model is shown in Fig. 1.
The Person
Ultimately, deviance is the actions of individuals. Thus, the decision to engage in constructive deviance is likely influenced by the individual differences that make people unique from each other. Such differences may manifest through dispositional traits and characteristics that are innate to individuals as well as their identities and motives.
Dispositions and traits: Personality traits that help an employee adapt to change can drive employee success and serve as a source of competitive advantage to organizations (Seibert et al., 1999). As a result, scholars have proffered that organizational success may be dependent on such proactive behaviors from their employees (Crant, 2000). A proactive personality is a personality trait that helps to promote such behaviors and has been described by Bateman and Crant (1993) as “one who is relatively unconstrained by situational forces, and who effects environmental change” (p. 105).
Employees with such a personality are more likely to search for opportunities as well as show initiative and persistence (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Therefore, employees with proactive personalities are likely to engage in job crafting (Wrzeskniewski & Dutton, 2001) such that they will actively attempt to shape their work environment through actions that may challenge the status quo and break organizational rules. Crant (2000) described such actions as “taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones” (p. 436). Therefore, through job crafting, employees with proactive personalities will seek to remove obstacles that they do not perceive to be beneficial (Erdogan & Bauer, 2005).
When an employee with a proactive personality perceives that the rules and norms in his or her organization are overly restrictive or incorrect, the employee is likely to engage in constructive deviance as a form of job crafting. Thus, these behaviors are not the actions of a selfish or angry employee but rather of one who is seeking to reshape his or her environment in a way that is believed to be more appropriate. Alternatively, employees without such proactive personalities will simply go along with the current behavioral norms even if they do not agree with them. The result will likely lead to continued withdrawal behaviors and destructive deviance.
An internal locus of control is also likely to motivate constructive deviance. Locus of control is an employee’s belief that his or her future is either determined by outside controls (e.g., destiny, fate) or that he or she can actively work to change it (Rotter, 1966). Those who believe that they can shape or change their future are suggested to have an internal locus of control and are more likely to work toward change. As one of the four components of core self-evaluations, locus of control is a key contributor to employees’ believes in their abilities (Judge et al., 1999) as well as their self-worth (Chang et al., 2012).
Self-efficacy has been defined as the “belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1986, p. 3). Employee self-efficacy is related to employee behaviors such that when an employee believes in his or her abilities to complete a task, he or she will be more likely to attempt it (Wood & Bandura, 1989), persist in it (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998), and cope with changes (Hartline & Ferrell, 1996). Therefore, self-efficacy is an important tool for employees in that it allows for the confidence needed to perform the role-required behaviors.
Self-efficacy has been suggested to predict positive deviance (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2003) such that it enables employees to perform such behaviors and overcome the potential risks associated with attempting to change their environment and the consequences thereof (Parker et al., 2010). Indeed, self-efficacy has been found to be related to several forms of constructive deviance including voice (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998), taking charge (Morrison & Phelps, 1999), creative performance (Tierney & Farmer, 2011), and whistle-blowing (Chiu, 2003). Likewise, as a component of core self-evaluations, self-efficacy has been suggested to impact an employee’s likelihood of engaging in pro-social rule breaking (Vardaman et al., 2014).
An internal locus of control and self-efficacy are expected to increase constructive deviance through their motivational components. Drawing from Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory of motivation, an employee engages in a three-stage assessment when determining the intensity and persistence for a task – expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. The expectancy component refers to an individual’s assessment of his or her abilities and helps to determine the likelihood that they can complete a task if they try. An internal locus of control indicates a belief that an individual can help to shape and change his or her life rather than waiting on external forces to make change. Likewise, while locus of control is focused on a general outlook, self-efficacy highlights the individual’s specific belief in his or her abilities to complete a task. Thus, both an internal locus of control and self-efficacy should increase an employee’s expectancy to enact change through constructive deviance.
Identities: Aquino and Reed (2002) conceptualized moral identity as the degree to which an individual’s self-concept includes a significant importance for being moral. The decision to engage in constructive deviance is expected to have strong moral considerations. For example, Vardaman et al. (2014) noted that forms of constructive deviance require trade-offs between a deontological and utilitarian approach. While the deontological approach suggests that moral value is ascribed to acts that consistently obey the rules, a utilitarian approach focuses on the outcomes of an action in creating the greatest benefit to the most parties (Hooker, 2000; Waller, 2005). Employees with salient or central moral identities are expected to act in consistent ways across specific roles (e.g., employee, parent) (Turner, 1978). As such, they should be less willing to change their behaviors to align with role-specific rules. Instead, they should remain consist with their desire to engage in acts that benefit more than just themselves. Therefore, researchers have found that moral identity is related to the decision to engage in ethical as well as pro-social behaviors (Moore et al., 2012), which may take the form of constructive deviance.
Empowerment is a motivational construct in which employees seek to craft their work roles and situations (Spreitzer, 1995). In doing so, it provides employees with more authority as well as responsibility for their work (Conger & Kanungo, 1988) and increases their motivation to be adaptive (Forrester, 2000). Spreitzer (1995) defined psychological empowerment as, “intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation to his or her work role: competence, impact, meaning, and self-determination” (p. 1443).
Employees differ in the extent to which they desire such empowerment (Ahearne et al., 2005). Researchers have considered empowerment role identity as an explanation for these differences in desiring empowerment such that employees’ empowerment role identities have been found to be a key factor in whether or not empowerment initiatives in organizations are successful (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). While employees with salient empowerment role identities feel capable of performing well in empowering roles, Forrester (2000) suggested that other employees may not want or feel capable of being empowered, such that empowerment is viewed negatively.
An employee’s empowerment role identity is an important individual difference factor that will likely influence the engagement in constructive deviance. Employees with salient empowerment role identities desire opportunities to meaningfully impact their organizations and work environments. In this way, they will seek to take matters into their own hands and to make more autonomous decisions. Employees with such salient role identities seek to reaffirm their role identities through their actions (Callero, 1985). Therefore, by engaging in the behaviors that are related to empowerment, behaviors that have been suggested to be both proactive as well as prosocial, these employees will seek out ways to engage in helpful discretionary behaviors.
Motives: Felt obligation has been suggested to predict constructive deviance (Vadera et al., 2013) and is based on the attachment of an employee to his or her organization (Morrison & Phelps, 1999). Derived from social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), felt obligation exists when an employee perceives favorable working conditions and support from members of the organization. When such an environment exists, the employee feels indebted to the organization and compelled to reciprocate by actively engaging in pro-social behaviors (Vadera et al., 2013).
I believe that the relationship between felt obligation and constructive deviance is more complicated than previously considered. An employee’s felt obligation is increased through positive experiences and relationships with a job, coworkers or team, supervisor, or organization. As a result, it may motivate behaviors through a perceived indebtedness in a similar manner as other reciprocal debts (e.g., perceived organizational support, perceived leader support, leader–member exchange). However, an employee who only feels such positive support and therefore seeks to reciprocate in kind would likely do so in ways other than breaking the rules and norms. This is particularly true for a perceived indebtedness to those that create the rules and norms – the organization and its representatives (i.e., supervisors). Yet receiving support from coworkers or a positive experience from a customer may lead the employee to respond by seeking to benefit these parties, even if doing so may break the rules. Thus, I expect that felt obligation toward an organization or supervisor will not lead to constructive deviance whereas felt obligation toward a coworker or customer will increase constructive deviance.
P1. Individual differences impact constructive deviance behaviors such that employees with dispositions and traits (e.g., proactive personality, internal locus of control, self-efficacy), identities (e.g., moral identity, empowerment role identity), and motives (e.g., felt obligation toward a coworker or customer) will engage in constructive deviance.
The Context
An employee’s environment is expected to both directly affect the amount of constructive deviance that he or she engages in as well as to moderate the effects of the individual dispositions, identities, and motives on constructive deviance. Below I highlight three categories of situational factors that likely impact constructive deviance – employee perceptions, organizational climates, and role characteristics.
Employee perceptions: Employee perceptions are important because they guide subsequent behaviors (Lewin, 1936), regardless of how distorted the perceptions may be (Porter, 1976). Thus, researchers recognize that many constructs should be studied through the perceptions of individual employees (Gandz & Murray, 1980). I focus on employee perceptions of the organization’s justice or fairness and their perceptions of their organization’s politics – two sets of perceptions that have often been considered in relation with each other (e.g., Andrews & Kacmar, 2001; Cropanzano & Kacmar, 1995; Dulebohn, 1997; Ferris et al., 1995; Nye & Witt, 1993; Shore & Shore, 1995).
Perceptions of organizational justice refers to employees’ perceptions of the fairness, equity, and impartiality within the organization (Greenberg, 1987). Three primary forms of justice are studied in the management literature: distributive – how resources are allocated, procedural – the fairness in the processes to determine the distribution of resources, and interactional – the individual treatment of employees (Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997; Folger & Greenberg, 1985; Greenberg, 1987; Jawahar, 2002; Parker et al., 1997; Skarlicki & Folger, 1997; Tekleab et al., 2005; Tyler & Lind, 1992). Such perceptions have been found to predict destructive deviance (Greenberg, 1990) as well as various forms of constructive deviance including taking charge (Moon et al., 2008) and whistle-blowing (Victor et al., 1993).
When employees do not perceive that they are treated fairly, they are likely to respond in ways that may not be consistent with organizational expectations. In the case of destructive deviance, such reactions may include stealing organizational equipment and supplies or other forms of retaliatory behavior. However, I expect that perceived inequities can also increase constructive deviance. For example, employees may seek to fix a broken system by engaging in courageous principled action, that entails working to achieve the ends desired by the organization but not within the expected means, or through issue selling by seeking to convince others that changes need to be made.
Politics is a pervasive force (Nye & Witt, 1993) and a common place in almost every organization (Ferris & Kacmar, 1992). Organizational politics have been defined as “actions by individuals which are directed toward the goal of furthering their own self-interests without regard for the well-being of others or their organization” (Kacmar & Baron, 1999, p. 4). Such behaviors are meant to influence others (Drory & Romm, 1988) and frequently result in feelings of uncertainty and unfairness (Ferris et al., 1989). Meta-analytic results suggest that perceptions of organizational politics are related to absenteeism, turnover, and negative attitudes about the organization (Chang et al., 2009; Miller et al., 2008).
When employees perceive their organization is highly political, there is often ambiguity surrounding the rules and who the rules apply to. Informal channels often exist for employees to create and leverage organizational power, which creates a belief that the playing field is not even and that the rules do not apply equally to everyone (Blake et al., 2021). I expect that employees who hold such perceptions will try to even the field by engaging in constructive deviance that may both offer assistance for coworkers who are also not part of the political elite as well as to change the system to make it more balanced.
Organizational Climate: Organizational and situational factors influence employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Trevino, 1986). While proactive behaviors, such as constructive deviance, are partly influenced by individual differences such as personalities (e.g., proactive personality), Parker and colleagues (2010) noted that the organizational environment will likely influence the amount of proactive behaviors as well. Indeed, the organization’s climate is known to impact employee behaviors (Turnipseed, 1988) such that a supportive environment in which employees are encouraged and feel safe to try new things should increase proactive behaviors. Researchers have found that the organizational climate predicts both destructive deviance (Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998) as well as forms of constructive deviance including whistle-blowing (Rothwell & Baldwin, 2007) and voice (Stamper & Van Dyne, 2001). Likewise, Vardaman et al. (2014) proposed that the organization’s climate will impact an employee’s likelihood of engaging in pro-social rule breaking.
In order for employees to feel empowered to be innovative, the organizational environment much be conducive for an active or proactive approach to work (Frese et al., 1996). A climate for initiative is defined as, “formal and informal organizational practices and procedures guiding and supporting a proactive self-starting, and persistent approach to work” (Baer & Frese, 2003, p. 48). An organizational climate for initiative has been found to be related to firm performance and goal achievement such that when the climate for initiative is low, employees feel helpless and no longer attempt innovative new ideas (Baer & Frese, 2003). In fact, researchers have found that companies with high process innovativeness but low climate for initiative actually perform worse than had they never innovated (Baer & Frese, 2003).
Because the climate is the personality of an organization (James & Jones, 1974) which helps employees to shape their attitudes and behaviors (Joyce & Slocum, 1984), the presence or absence of a climate that supports employee initiative is expected to impact constructive deviance. Importantly, while an organizational climate has sometimes been considered as an objective, organizational-level construct (e.g., Glick, 1985), others have recognized that it is driven by employee perceptions (e.g., Schneider, 1975). From this second perspective, the determination regarding whether an organization supports and encourages initiative from its employees, and employees’ reactions to this support, is thus largely driven by the employees’ own beliefs. As an organizational climate is established, it narrows the acceptable workplace behaviors (Schminke et al., 2007). Moreover, climates can impact employees’ attempts to take initiative and to be innovative (Harmon, 1992). As such, an organization that has a climate for initiative should encourage its employees to try new ways to accomplish tasks and its employees should feel safe in these endeavors.
However, an organization that does not support employee initiative will instead motivate employees to work within the status quo rather than seeking new ways to perform their tasks. While this may further constrain employee behaviors, it may also encourage constructive deviance as employees retaliate by continuing to take initiative but instead must violate the rules and norms to do so. Thus, I expect that organization’s that do not have a climate for initiative will have more constructive deviance.
Role characteristics: In addition to the perceptions that employees hold about their organization and the climate within the organization, an employee’s individual role within his or her organization may impact the enactment of constructive deviance. Ambiguity within a role such that an employee is unclear of the tasks and expectations for his or her work may increase constructive deviance. This may be a result of not knowing that these acts are outside of the expectations and also as a reaction to the frustration of being within a role without clear direction.
In contrast to too much ambiguity, overly formalized roles may also lead to increased constructive deviance. Role formalization considers the rules, polices, and procedures that set the expected behaviors for employees. Thus, role formalization considers a subset of the rules and norms that must be violated in order for acts to be considered deviant. If rules are overly restrictive such that employees feel constrained and unable to effectively complete their tasks, they may engage in constructive deviance by violating the rules to benefit others.
Finally, a lack of role autonomy may predict constructive deviance. Role autonomy refers to the freedom that an employee has to determine how to accomplish his or her tasks. Employees who perceive high levels of role autonomy are able to approach tasks in ways that they believe are best whereas those that perceive low levels of role autonomy or forced to complete their tasks in specific and predefined ways. As such, low role autonomy indicates that employees are not able to make decisions on their own. Because of this restrictive environment, employees that seek to benefit others or to increase their own efficiency to benefit their organization are less able to do so while still abiding by the expectations of them. Therefore, much like when roles are ambiguous or highly formalized, I expect that low role autonomy will lead to increased constructive deviance.
P2. Organizational characteristics predict constructive deviance such that (a) employees’ perceptions of their organization (e.g., injustice, politics) (b) climate (e.g., low climate for initiative), and (c) specifics of the role (e.g., role ambiguity, formalization, lack of autonomy) will increase constructive deviance.
P3. Organizational characteristics moderate the impact of employees’ individual differences on constructive deviance such that the organizational characteristics that increase constructive deviance will increase the impact of the individual differences that do the same. For example, an employee with a proactive personality will be more likely to engage in constructive deviance when he or she is within a highly political organization.
The Leader
In addition to the organizational effects on employees, leaders often play an important role in setting expectations, developing local climates, demonstrating behavioral examples through role-modeling, and forming relationships with subordinates. While leaders serve as representatives of their organizations, they can also provide unique effects on their subordinates. For example, leaders can create subcultures and distinct norms that are not aligned with those of their organizations. Moreover, the relationships they have with their subordinates may vary. For these reasons, I consider the impact of leaders as separate from those of the organizational context.
Subclimates: Within their subclimate, leaders may be supportive of the creative endeavors of their subordinates or can punish them. Creativity is, by definition, a form of deviance as it requires an employee to go against what was in the creation of something new (Zhou & George, 2001). Because leaders can create environments supportive of such acts (Wu & Parker, 2017), they help to determine whether employees are encouraged to try new things within having to be concerned about obstacles (Parker et al., 2010). Thus, in order for employees to thrive creatively within an organization, leaders must support and promote such new ideas (Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Zhou & Shalley, 2003). Zhang and Bartol (2010) defined leader encouragement of creativity as “the extent of a leader’s emphasis on being creative and on actively engaging in processes that may lead to creative outcomes” (p. 112). Leaders that promote and advocate their employees’ creative endeavors help to direct behaviors that seek to produce new and novel ideas (Carson & Carson, 1993). If leaders do not support the creativity of their subordinates, employees may feel overly constrained and unable to engage in creative solutions to do their jobs better or to help others. As a result, they will likely be unable to offer these benefits within the expected course of behaviors as directed by their organization and leader. Instead, seeking to engage in such proactive behaviors requires employees to engage in helpful acts that extend outside of the norms and rules – constructive deviance.
Leadership styles: Various styles of leadership are also expected to increase constructively deviant behaviors. For example, employees who are led by leaders that are participative (Mulki et al., 2006) and effective communicators (Yoo et al., 2014) engage in less deviance whereas teams led by abusive leaders (Tepper et al., 2008) or who do not share information (Singh, 2019) engage in more deviance. Following the approach that constructive deviance is the behaviors of employees seeking to make beneficial changes within a context that is restrictive and negative, then I expect that negative leadership styles or the absence of certain positive leadership styles should promote constructive deviance. Thus, I expect that leaders who engage in abusive supervision, do not empower their subordinates, or do not act ethically are likely to create an environment in which their subordinates will be more likely to engage in constructive deviance.
Relationships: Likewise, the relationships that supervisors hold with their subordinates may impact employee constructive deviance. Of the resources available to employees, their supervisors are one of the most important (Gerstner & Day, 1997). Researchers have considered the relationship that a subordinate may have with his or her supervisor and the resulting access to resources through leader–member exchange, which recognizes that leaders do not have identical relationship with all subordinates (Liden et al., 1997). The quality of the individual relationships between a supervisor and each of his or her subordinates will vary such that some will be high-quality, and reflect admittance into an ingroup, while others will be low-quality as part of the outgroup (Graen, 1976). In high-quality relationships, leaders are more supportive, trusting, willing to provide additional resources and share information with their subordinates (Graen & Scandura, 1987). Further, ingroup members perceive more fairness (Vecchio et al., 1986) and are part of the decision-making process (Wayne et al., 1994), thereby being able to influence the resource allocation process and to limit perceptions of organizational politics (Andrews & Kacmar, 2001). Leader–member exchange is related to some forms of constructive deviance such as voice (Van Dyne et al., 2008), creative performance (Tierney & Farmer, 2011), and whistle-blowing (Bhal & Dadhich, 2011).
While leader–member exchange has been suggested to directly relate to deviance and constructive deviance, I extend this recognition to include how LMX differentiation may not only lead to constructive deviance but also to help determine which employees will be more likely to engage in such acts. Because maintaining high-quality relationships with all subordinates can be difficult (Dansereau et al., 1975), leaders often have relationships with their subordinates of different quality. Those supervisors that have such different relationships create a situation in which there is high LMX differentiation (Haynie et al., 2019). When this exists, subordinates compare the relationship they hold with their supervisor to those relationships held by their coworkers, which is known as relative leader–member exchange (RLMX) (Anand et al., 2015; Haynie & Baur, 2019). Because I have positioned constructive deviance as the actions of employees who do not feel supported, LMX differentiation and RLMX offer important insight into how employees are likely to perceive the support they feel from their leader. Specifically, I expect that when LMX differentiation is high, such that the relationships between a leader and his or her subordinates vary greatly, then those employees with low RLMX (i.e., those with low-quality relationships) will be more likely to feel unsupported and thus engage in constructive deviance. Alternatively, when LMX differentiation is low, such that a leader strives to hold similar relationships with all of his or her subordinates, then I expect that a subset of employees who perceive themselves as more worthy of high-quality relationships will engage in more constructive deviance. In these two example, then, I demonstrate how the signals that leaders exhibit through their relationships with their subordinates that focus on equity or equality will guide different groups of subordinates to feel unsupported and therefore engage in constructive deviance.
Researchers have frequently considered an interactionist perspective in predicting variables when they observe individual or dispositional as well as contextual or organizational factors (e.g., Trevino, 1986). Constructive deviance merits consideration of an interactionist perspective and I seek to advance this perspective. To do so, I have proposed that individual differences and organizational factors predict constructive deviance. Further, I have hypothesized that the relational factors that employees have with their leaders moderates these relationships.
A true interactionist perspective does not simply suggest separate direct effects from personal and situational factors but rather that they should influence, either positively or negatively, the other’s effect. I consider how the interaction of the person, context, and leader may increase the amount of constructive deviance. Therefore, I propose a three-way interaction between the person, context, and leader such that employees with certain positive identities, dispositions, and personalities, and who are placed within a context with negative perceptions, and with certain organizational cultures and role specifics, while being overseen by leaders who they share low-quality relationships with and who do not support their creativity will be most likely to engage in constructive deviance. Together, the interaction of these variables is central to my view of constructive deviance as the reactionary behaviors of employees who actively seek and desire to impact meaningful and positive change in an environment that they perceive to be negative, as determined by a political organization and an unsupportive leader.
P4. Leader characteristics including (a) subclimate (e.g., low leader encouragement of creativity), (b) styles (e.g., low empowering leadership, low ethical leadership, high abusive supervision), and (c) relationships (e.g., low-quality leader–member exchange) moderate the moderated relationship of individual differences and organizational characteristics on constructive deviance such that employees with individual differences that predict constructive deviance, who are in organizations with characteristics the predict constructive deviance, and being overseen by leaders that do so as well, will be the most likely to engage in constructive deviance.
Reactions to Constructive Deviance
Proactive behaviors, such as constructive deviance, are not always welcomed because they can challenge that status quo (Morrison & Phelps, 1999). Social systems are designed in order to protect and maintain the status quo and, to do so, organizational rules and norms function to control employee attitudes and behaviors (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2003). Further, proactive behaviors are inherently risky including both resistance from others as well as reputational damage if unsuccessful (Wu & Parker, 2017).
Recently, Reynolds et al. (2015) developed a multi-stakeholder perspective for organizational citizenship behaviors (a form of prosocial behaviors) as well as deviant and counterproductive work behaviors – both of which are discretionary in nature like constructive deviance. Traditionally, symmetric perspectives of these two types of behaviors have been held such that prosocial behaviors are beneficial and deviant behaviors are detrimental (Spector et al., 2010). However, researchers have begun to consider their asymmetric outcomes as well. For example, Bergeron et al. (2013) found that time spent on organizational citizenship behaviors negatively impacted career outcomes while Bolino and Turnley (2005) found that individual initiative was related to role overload, stress, and work-family conflict. Likewise, conflict can be beneficial in teams (Bradley et al., 2015) while deviant behaviors can help employees feel in control (Bennett, 1998), restore justice (Tripp & Bies, 2010), and work more efficiently (Galperin, 2012).
However there has been a general lack of focus on for whom these behaviors may be positive or negative (Reynolds et al., 2015). Further, through the interconnected systems that exist within organizations, uninvolved individuals may be impacted by the behaviors of another (Van de Ven et al., 1976). Recent calls to consider outcomes for stakeholders other than management (e.g., Lefkowtiz, 2013) as well as the contextual impact in determining the implications of employee behaviors (Bamburger, 2008; Johns, 2006) suggest that there is a growing awareness and need for such insight.
The attributions of others impact behavioral outcomes (Grant & Ashford, 2008). For example, prosocial behaviors that are perceived as misguided and insincere (Eastman, 1994), conducted for personal gains (Bolino et al., 2006), or stemming from negative affect and nonprosocial motives (Grant et al., 2009) may be punished. Alternatively, mild forms of deviance may be tolerated and observers may make allowances for such behaviors if they are aware of extenuating circumstances that may be leading to the employee’s actions (Griffin & Lopez, 2005).
Constructive deviance has been defined as behaviors intended to benefit the organization or stakeholders. Each of these groups may respond differently. Therefore, a multi-stakeholder perspective is appropriate to consider the responses to the engagement in such behaviors as it should provide a deeper understanding of how different parties react. However, another important characteristic of constructive deviance is in the intentional violation of the organization’s rules or norms. Workplace rules and norms are used to restrict and normalize employee performance in order to create consistent performance across employees (Barnard, 1938). To engage in constructive deviance, then, suggests a violation of these expected behaviors to provide a benefit to another party.
In this way, each of the potential beneficiaries should be considered in light of their role in the rule creation process. Specifically, organizational leaders have a direct influence in the development and maintenance of the organization’s rules. As rules are a top-down phenomenon (Ouchi, 1980), organizational leaders create the rules based on what they perceive to be the most appropriate collection of behaviors for the organization’s functioning. Therefore, when employees violate these rules, even for prosocial reasons, the organization will likely respond negatively. However, other individuals (e.g., customers and coworkers) are likely not part of rule creation process. Employees are instead subjects to the rule creation from the organization and the customers are relatively free from the implications of the organization’s rules on employee behaviors. Therefore, when constructive deviance is performed by an employee, coworkers and customers will be likely to respond more positively.
P5. An employee’s performance of constructive deviance behaviors elicits responses from the key stakeholders that the behaviors are expected to impact. More specifically, when an employee engages in constructive deviance, (a) the organization’s representatives will react negatively, while (b) coworkers and (c) customers will react positively.
Future Constructive Deviance
Central to several theories (e.g., social learning, identity theory) is the role of external influences through the feedback from others that either confirm an action as appropriate or discourage it as inappropriate (Stryker & Burke, 2000). Before engaging in actions, an employee will assess what the response will likely be from relevant external parties (Drazin & Schoonhoven, 2000). If the behaviors are enacted and met with a negative response, it will reduce the likelihood of repeated similar behaviors in the future.
As such, responses received after enacting role-confirming behaviors will influence an employee’s willingness to engage in similar behaviors in the future. Burke (1991) detailed this process in his feedback loop in which an employee will alter his or her behaviors in order to receive feedback that more closely matches the prototypical standard for the role. Specifically, positive feedback will suggest that the behaviors are closely aligned with the prototype and therefore encourage similar behaviors in the future while negative feedback will have the opposite effect. Based on my prior proposition that employees’ constructive deviance will lead to a negative response from the organization and a positive response from coworkers and customers, then these responses, in the form of feedback, should carryover to impact the likelihood of engaging in similar behaviors in the future. As such, I suggest that the negative feedback from the organization will decrease the likelihood of engaging in similar behaviors while the positive responses from coworkers and customers will increase the enactment of future constructive deviance.
Additionally, as past behaviors are an established predictor of future behaviors (e.g., Aarts et al., 1998), it is important to consider a direct relationship for a temporal connection between similar behaviors. That is, while feedback from external sources helps validate or disconfirm the acts, such validation can also happen through internal reflections and self-verification (Burke, 1991). As such, while feedback should encourage or discourage an employee’s actions, an employee that has broken the rules of the organization in the past should be more likely to do so in the future as well.
P6. Future constructive deviance is positively predicted by prior constructive deviance.
P7. Reactions to constructive deviance mediate the relationship between prior and future constructive deviance such that the (a) negative reactions from the organization will decrease future constructive deviance whereas the positive reactions from (b) coworkers and (c) customers will increase future constructive deviance.
Outcomes of Constructive Deviance
I expect that the enactment of constructive deviance will impact future attitudes and behaviors. As highlighted prior, I offer a more positive consideration of constructive deviance by positioning these behaviors as the acts of selfless employees seeking to create a positive change within a constraining or unsupportive environment. In considering these acts within such a lens, it is important to consider how employees engaging in constructive deviance are expected to feel. Because engaging in constructive deviance requires a tradeoff between seeking to do the greatest good while recognizing that such behaviors are against the rules and norms of the organization, and thus may be punished, the decision to engage in such acts can be difficult. As a result, employees who voluntarily break organizational rules or stray from the implicit norms in order to help others may become upset or frustrated that they face the potential backlash while seeking to be helpful.
Following Warren’s (2003) typology of deviant behaviors, these employees are adhering to the larger hypernorms that unfortunately do not align with the organization’s norms. This realization suggests that the organization’s rules and norms may not be correct or consistent with other norms that individuals are expected to follow. Further, it suggests that the reason employees are motivated to become deviants is because of their environment. Put another way, should the organization’s rules and norms allow these employees to be creative and seek additional ways of being helpful by revising or loosening the expectations of their employees, then the actions would no longer be considered as constructive deviance but instead would be labeled as constructive conformity.
The result is likely to be negative attitudes directed at the organization. Such attitudes could include reduced perceived organizational support when employees do not feel supported and encouraged at work. Additionally, employees may perceive that implicit psychological contracts have been violated. The psychological contract is considered an important framework in which to consider the employment relationship (Guzzo et al., 1994; Shore et al., 2004) that is an unwritten agreement that an employee believes to set the guidelines of his or her social exchange with the organization and provides the obligations that the organization is expected to uphold (Coyle-Shapiro & Conway, 2005). Such contracts help to set the expectations in the workplace as well as enhance confidence and devotion (Morrison, 1994). In this way, an employee will devote effort toward tasks with the expectations that the organization will compensate these efforts (Valentine et al., 2002). Organizations often claim to empower their employees and espouse their desire for employees to find creative solutions to problems but constraining their ability to do so will likely lead to feelings of being lied to and that informal understandings and agreements have been breached.
Feelings of being unsupported and misled may be just the first step. For example, these feelings may spiral into negative attitudes toward work including reduced job satisfaction and commitment as well as increased intentions to quit (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994; Turnley & Feldman, 1999). Additionally, these employees may experience diminished trust (Robinson, 1996) and question whether they fit within their organizations.
Further, as attitudes often predict related behaviors, I expect that the engagement of constructive deviance, and holding negative attitudes when unsupported, should lead to changing behaviors as well. These changes may include reduced organizational citizenship behaviors (Robinson & Morrison, 1995), decreased performance (Turnley et al., 2003), as well as increased absenteeism (Deery et al., 2006) and anticitizenship behaviors (Kickul et al., 2001).
P8. Constructive deviance leads to (a) negative attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, reduced intentions to quit, reduced perceptions of psychological contract violation) and (b) negative behaviors (e.g., contextual performance).
P9. Reactions to constructive deviance mediate the relationship between constructive deviance and the outcomes of negative attitudes and behaviors such that the (a) negative reactions from the organization will increase the negative attitudes and behaviors, whereas the positive reactions from (b) coworkers and (c) customers will decrease the negative attitudes and behaviors.
Discussion
With my model, I seek to add to what is known about constructive deviance in several important ways. The simultaneous consideration of individual differences as well as contextual and relational variables is important in understanding the relationships that suggested antecedents may have both among each other and in regard to their impact on constructive deviance. I have sought to expand upon this approach by proposing the presence of a three-way interaction. If empirically supported, it would provide additional clarity about how the individual differences that exist between employees may predict constructive deviance as well as how their environments may increase or attenuate these effects.
The proposed directions of the relationships also provide insight and support my conceptualization of constructive deviance as the actions of good employees seeking to better what they perceive to be a negative environment. If the proposed relationships are found, they would suggest that the decision to engage in constructive deviance is influenced by the three categories of variables. Specifically, an employee will be more likely to engage in these behaviors when he or she has positive traits, identities, and motives, however, he or she feels constrained in an organization that is restrictive based upon the employee’s perceptions, the organization’s climate, and the specifics of the employee’s role, while also being overseen by a leader with an unsupportive subclimate, harmful leadership styles, and low-quality relationships.
Another important consideration is the impact of the more distal outcomes of constructive deviance. Despite the best intentions of organizational leaders, rules may be inaccurate, outdated, or too restrictive (Zhou, 1993) such that employees seeking to maximize their efficiency or assistance to others must make the decision whether to abide by the rules or attempt to create positive change through their violation. Additionally, if the organization is perceived as unjust or highly political, then the rules are likely shrouded in ambiguity such that they only apply to certain employees or in certain situations (Colquitt & Jackson, 2006). Employees may then find the rules to be restricting them from engaging in corrective action to steer the organization on the course that they believe to be correct. As such, it is important to again consider Warren’s (2003) argument that deviant behaviors should be viewed in light of what they are deviating from.
My model suggests that the tradeoff between helping others and hurting one’s self may be complicated. Indeed, I propose that employees who engage in constructive deviance may likely develop negative attitudes about their organization such that, regardless of how others respond, they will have perceptions of psychological contract violations and related negative attitudes and behaviors from having to engage in such behaviors and violate the rules to try to make a better environment for the organization, their customers, and their coworkers. Further, as proposed, the decision to engage in future constructive deviance is dependent on several factors. As prior behaviors predict future behaviors (e.g., Aarts et al., 1998), employees who have engaged in constructive deviance in the past will be more likely to do so again in the future. However, the decision is also impacted by the feedback received. As such, the organizational responses are expected to be negative and decrease the likelihood of future constructive deviance while the responses from coworkers and customers are expected to be positive and have the opposite result.
Implications for Human Resource Management
Constructive deviance in general and specifically the framing within our model create several questions for human resource scholars to consider. Perhaps the most important is to further clarify the extent to which constructive deviance is positive or detrimental. Should empirical findings support our model and indicate that employees who engage in constructive are seeking to benefit others in a constraining environment, the organizational leaders will need to make important decisions regarding their willingness to accept constructive deviance in their organization. If they decide that constructive deviance can either benefit important stakeholders or serve as a warning sign for potential issues with the current rules or environment, then job candidates could be assessed on the traits, identities, and motives highlighted that we expect to predict constructive deviance. Importantly, if employees do not have these or other related individual differences, then they may not engage in constructive deviance even in a negative environment and thus would not create the early warning signs of trouble.
Additionally, organizations often create prescribed policies in order to punish deviance that violates rules and norms. This approach has some utility when all deviance is perceived to be self-focused and harmful to other stakeholders. However, the advancement of constructive deviance suggests that organizations may need to reconsider their responses to workplace deviance and seek to clarify the intentions behind the actions. Doing so may help to avoid proactive employees from receiving demerits or negative performance appraisals. In this way, it is also important for organizations to reconsider how they measure employee performance. While traditionally assessed by task performance and more recently enhanced through prosocial behaviors and reduced by workplace deviance, performance appraisals may be biased through measures that consider all deviance as detrimental.
Organizations must also be careful in their response to some forms of constructive deviance. For example, while it may violate organizational rules and norms, whistle-blowers are incentivized to speak up about organizational wrongdoings in part because of the protection that they can receive against retaliation. While most forms of constructive deviance do not currently have such legal protections, severe punishments for actions that seek to benefit others may lead to organizational expenses (e.g., loss of reputation, wrongful termination lawsuits) if organizations respond with a swift and broad brush.
A pattern of constructive deviance may also highlight the need to review and redesign various aspects of the organization. Most directly, constructive deviance may be indicative of outdated, overly restrictive, or incorrect rules and norms. Thus, organizations may want to review their policies and practices to ensure they are appropriate. Also, through job crafting, employees and their managers can work together to ensure that they have enough autonomy and direction.
Finally, additional training may be needed for several parties. Training employees regarding the acceptable amount and types of constructive deviance may both reaffirm the acceptability of those types while reducing the need to engage in other types. Also, training leaders and supervisors to understand that constructive deviance may be a result of their own actions (e.g., not being perceived as fair, not supporting subordinates) can help to raise the awareness for a supportive environment. As a result, employees may no longer feel the need to engage in constructive deviance. Finally, raters should be trained to recognize the differences between the various forms of constructive and destructive deviance in order to provide fair and consistent reviews of employee behaviors.
Directions for Future Research
In advancing the deviance literature to include constructive deviance, scholars have recognized that not all deviant acts are the same. Within destructive deviance, the most common typology of deviant acts are from the work of Robinson and Bennett (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Robinson & Bennett, 1995) in which they recognized that various deviant acts vary based upon their severity and target – either directed at the organization or an individual. As the literature in constructive deviance advances, the most obvious differences are likewise based within the various types of acts.
While constructive deviance is an umbrella construct encompassing different behaviors, each may have its own, more specific antecedents and outcomes. For example, the decision to engage in whistle-blowing may be the result of improper or illegal organizational norms that contrast larger societal norms. Alternatively, unethical pro-organizational behaviors may result from an employee’s strong commitment to his or her organization such that they ignore larger societal norms. Engaging in employee voice and speaking up against abusive supervision may require an employee to adhere to organizational norms promoting their voice while ignoring the subnorms set by the abusive leader to remain quiet. Finally, employees who intentionally violate organizational rules in prosocial rule breaking ignore the organization’s rules to instead subscribe to their own beliefs and values.
Yet recently, Baur, Bradley, and Bonner (2022) provided additional insight into the differences between deviant acts. In doing so, they hypothesized and found that the severity, frequency, and target of deviant acts interact in a counterintuitive way. Specifically, the authors found that when considering deviance in teams, the traditional categories of individually- or organizationally-directed acts are likely not as applicable as categories based on the relevance of the acts to the team. Further, they found that frequent but less severe acts do more to harm the team by increasing negative affect and damaging team performance. Following these findings, I believe it is important to recognize that not all good things (e.g., prosocial behaviors) are equally good and not all bad things (e.g., deviance) are equally bad. Further, there likely exists a continuum such that negative acts are not equally detrimental (Baur et al., 2018). Moreover, we must be cautious to not fall for general assumptions that more egregious or severe acts are inherently more detrimental. This is particularly true for constructive deviance as it straddles the line between what is good and bad and categorizing it as either always good or bad may be evidence of what Buckley and colleagues (2015) labeled as “management lore.”
Within a multi-stakeholder perceptive, I propose that the prosocial nature of the focal behaviors are in the eye of the beholder. Moreover, I expect that organizations will typically respond negatively while other stakeholders (i.e., customer, coworkers) will respond positively. While important as perceptions drive behaviors, researchers should explore actual responses. Further, by designing a study that links responses from the organization, customers, and coworkers as well as the intentions behind specific incidents of constructive deviance, a more exacting model could be created such that behaviors that are intended to benefit different stakeholders are likely to produce different responses. For example, accepting an expired coupon may evoke a positive response from the customer, a negative response from the organization, and no response from a coworker who is unaware of the action. Likewise, implementing a new experimental process to expedite organizational processes may evoke no response from customers, a positive response from the organization, and a negative response from coworkers who oppose change.
While the focus of constructive deviance is on the intentionality of the behavior, as independent of the outcomes, intentions are determined and maintained primarily internally. Therefore, if the focal employee intends to help his or her organization or its stakeholders by violating the rules, then the behaviors are considered by researchers as prosocial but may not receive the same recognition from observers. Attribution theory suggests that the employee’s behavior will either be attributed to the employee or the situation. Further, the fundamental attribution error (Heider, 1958) suggests that the behavior will more likely be attributed to the employee by observers. Such attributions, then, can incorrectly portray a negative impression of the employee rather than the situation, with subsequent implications. Therefore, while constructive deviance is focused on the intentionality, the outcomes may be determined by the behaviors themselves.
To date the results are bleak for employees that engage in many types of constructive deviance and suggest that they receive lower performance evaluations. Further, my model suggests that they will perceive more violations of psychological contracts and negative attitudes within their organization. Therefore, a question that should be addressed is why an employee would engage in such behaviors. I have begun to consider this in my description of constructive deviance as an outcry or a last ditch effort to change the situation. By sacrificing their own performance evaluations and experiencing lower job attitudes, employees are desperately seeking to help others or to change the organizational environment. However, researchers should continue the exploration of the outcomes of such behaviors.
In doing so, it may be particularly important to learn of any positive individual outcomes of engaging in constructive deviance or if it is purely driven in a utilitarian fashion to provide the greatest good to others at one’s own expense. Other job attitudes should be explored such that a sense of self-determination could be an important intrinsic motivator to gain greater control. Additionally, as psychological contract violations as well as low satisfaction and perceptions of fit are established antecedents of turnover, and employee’s intentions to quit may be related such that employees who do not expect to remain in the organization may be more concerned with helping others in the short-term than they are with the assessments of their performance.
Further, researchers should consider the role that leaders can play in enhancing or reducing deviance from their employees. As I suggest, leaders may directly influence the enactment of deviance through the development of a destructive subclimate, unsupportive behaviors, and low-quality relationships. However, leaders can also serve as role models of appropriate behaviors or seek to increase performance when adversity is experienced (Baur et al., 2016). Additionally, leaders can consider the composition of workplace groups and teams. Because some deviance is inevitable (Davis & Rothstein, 2006), employees that have resources that allow them to cope may be able to overcome the impact of deviance from their coworkers. For example, Bradley and colleagues (2014) found that highly interdependent teams of emotionally stable employees were able to offer the social support needed to overcome such adversity.
Also, more specifically considering the motives behind both deviant and prosocial behaviors may provide greater insight into constructive deviance which can span the divide between the two. Empathic leaders are able to motivate followers to enact more prosocial acts only when they maintain similar relationships with their subordinates (low LMX differentiation) (Haynie et al., 2019). Because some employees may engage in deviance to benefit others (Morrison, 2006) or prosocial acts to accrue power for themselves (Baur, Bivens, Sharma, & Buckley, 2022), the motives behind these acts are not as apparent as often assumed. This issue is further enhanced from the understanding that leaders are often ill-equipped for the challenges they are likely to experience (Griffith et al., 2019), which is particularly true given the changing priorities and interests of today’s workforce (Anderson et al., 2017) and the impact of technological advancements and virtual work (Bradley et al., 2013; Dharmasiri et al., 2013). As a result, many traditional interventions may not be effective (Baur et al., 2014; Gibson et al., 2015) resulting in the need for new training initiatives to better prepare leaders.
Practical Implications
In addition to the implications for researchers, the proposed model holds important implications for practicing managers and employees. I offer a perspective of constructive deviance that is unique and somewhat in contrast to those offered by others. By extending the focus to include contextual and relational factors that predict constructive deviance, I provide a well-rounded perspective of the interactional effects that may be in play in organizations. Indeed, my model suggests that constructive deviance may be performed by employees as an outcry against an organizational context that they do not like. Employees who desire to be empowered and to take an active role in the decision making process as well as the design of their jobs are more likely to perform constructive deviance. Therefore, the engagement in such behaviors creates a more complex situation than initially perceived.
The primary differentiation between constructive and destructive deviance is the intentionality of the behaviors as either self- or other-focused (Galperin, 2012). Further, these constructs were designed to focus on the intent of the behaviors as independent of the outcomes (Bryant et al., 2010). In doing so, seeking to help may not actually provide the intended benefit and what is beneficial to one party may not be beneficial to another (Reynolds et al., 2015). I suggest that customers and coworkers tend to respond favorably to constructive deviance while the organization’s response is negative. These mixed responses suggest that the organization may be more focused on the rules it created while the customers and coworkers are more focused on the potential benefits of the behaviors.
In addition to feedback given after the enactment of behaviors, leaders can proactively regulate constructive deviance. Supportive leaders are proposed to be an important boundary condition in determining whether employees will engage in constructive deviance. Further, as the agent and frequently most available representative of the organization, a leader that encourages subordinates may signal that the organization does so as well. Therefore, by encouraging creativity and providing opportunities for employees to develop new and innovative ideas, the benefits of constructive deviance may be achieved without the need to break the rules. As such, encouraging leaders are likely to provide alternatives for employees to explore new ideas and processes within the parameters of the organization’s rules.
Conclusion
I sought to provide a balanced examination of the antecedents as well as the critical outcomes associated with employees’ constructive deviance. In doing so, I adopted an interactionist multi-stakeholder perspective which proposes that the employees that break the rules for the benefit of others do so as an effort to change their workplace environment which is characterized as overly restrictive, negative, and unsupportive. Further, I suggest that constructive deviance is truly in the eye of the beholder such that customers and coworkers likely respond more favorably than the organization and that these responses impact the decision to engage in similar behaviors in the future. Yet regardless of the responses, having to violate organizational rules in order to perform one’s job more efficiently or to provide a greater benefit to others will have negative implications on the focal employee including feelings that the organization has violated the unwritten psychological contracts and other negative attitudes and behaviors. In doing so, I believe that my proposed model greatly advances the understanding of constructive deviance as the actions of good apples seeking to cleanse a rotten barrel.
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- Prelims
- Chapter 1: Unlocking the Potential of Other-ratings for Human Resource Management Research
- Chapter 2: The Human Resource Ecosystem: Reconciling Alignment and Disruption
- Chapter 3: Reconstructing Constructive Deviance: The Development of a Positive Employee Model for Human Resource Management
- Chapter 4: Beyond Productivity: Incentive Effects on Alternative Outcomes
- Chapter 5: The Data Are Coming! Reconceptualizing Big Data for the Organizational Sciences
- Chapter 6: The “Why” and “How” of Human Resource (HR) Practices: A Critical Review of the Antecedents and Consequences of Employee HR Attributions Research
- Chapter 7: Building Thriving Workforces from the Top Down: A Call and Research Agenda for Organizations to Proactively Support Employee Well-Being
- Index