Defiance as Corrective Action: The Interplay between Workplace Stresses and Workplace Stakes

• In Event: Research on Suicidal Ideation, Teenage Pregnancy, Soccer Hooliganism, Workplace Stresses and General Strain Theory

Abstract

We merge perspectives from criminology, the sociology of work, and behavioral economics to develop a strain model of on-the-job manifestations of deviance in blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Our model identifies job-related strains likely to produce desires for corrective action, work-relevant bonds that serve variously as stakes in conformity or stakes in seeking corrective action, and workplace behaviors exemplifying retaliation and escape. We derive competing hypotheses from criminology and behavioral economics to conceptualize intrinsic (autonomy, creativity, and meaning) and extrinsic (pay and benefits) rewards disparately as stakes in workplace conformity or stakes in seeking corrective action through sabotage, effort defiance, and quitting/absenteeism. We test the competing hypotheses using OLS regressions on content-coded ethnographic data from 217 work groups (Hodson et al. 2011). Our findings are more supportive of behavioral economics than criminology and offer divergent findings across blue-collar and white-collar workers. We thusly offer correctives to the criminological literature on stresses and stakes and consider explanations for variation across white-collar and blue-collar workers. Our research generally suggests that organizations that expose employees to coercive and chaotic work environments risk diminishing work effort and increasing sabotage among employees with the most stakes in employment who are likely among their most valued employees.

Authors

• Stacy De Coster, North Carolina State University

• Martha Crowley, North Carolina State University