CAN CONTROL AND FLEXIBLE

LEADERSHIPS INFLUENCE DEVIANT

BEHAVIOR?

AIDA ABDULLAH

SABITHA MARICAN

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND ADMINISTRATION

UNIVERSITY MALAYA

4TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

27 – 28 DECEMBER 2014

INTRODUCTION

• Behavioral workplace problem

• Counterproductive behavior, misbehavior, antisocial

Two perspectives

•Organizational deviance

•Interpersonal deviance

Transcends in public organizations

Organizational failure

• Failure of employees to adhere to organizational ethics

• Weaken social relationship, due to psychological pressures of the behavior

Two contributing factor

Organizational factor

Personal factor

Organizational factor was commonly understood as the dominating factor

Leadership which emphasizes on control and

flexibility was found to affect employees behavior

Causes physical and psychological symptoms that can be described as

deviant behavior

OBJECTIVES

To examine employees perception on deviant behavior

To evaluate leadership behavior

To determine the association between leadership and deviant behavior

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Resistance behavior or pessimistic

behavior as a direct

consequence of perceive negative

work environment

This study describes deviant

behavior as organizational deviance and interpersonal

deviance

Organizational deviance

• Behaviors that bring harmful effect to the organization

• Productivity and performance defect

• Production deviance; work slow, taking excessive break

• Property deviance; stealing, financial abuse

Interpersonal deviance

• Behaviors that bring harmful effect to organizational members

• Physical and psychological pressures

• Political deviance; gossip, favoritism

• Personal aggression; yelling, screaming

LEADERSHIP AND DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Commonly studied and has an association with deviant behavior

Behavioral theories of leadership

Control leadership Flexibility leadership

Leaders play significant roles

Conceptualize, align, interact and creating success

Control leadership and deviant behavior

• Concern on systematic task governance

• Concern on effective resource deployment

• Causes hostility, sabotage and undesirable behavior among followers

Flexible leadership and deviant behavior

• Leaders support and sensitive to followers’ situation

• Leaders develop organizational adaptiveness

• Significant association with bullying and workplace participation

METHODOLOGY

Convenience sampling method

Malaysian federal ministries

Deviant behavior questionnaire

Developed by Robinson & Bennett (1995)

Organizational deviance 6 item

Interpersonal deviance 6 item

Leadership questionnaire

Developed by Quinn (1988)

20 item

DEMOGRAPHY PROFILE

PROFILE FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE

AGE• 20-30• 31-40• 41-50• > 51

353354

45.542.96.55.2

GENDER• MALE• FEMALE

2453

31.268.8

MARITAL STATUS• MARRIED• SINGLE• DIVORCE

47282

6136.42.6

RELIGION• MUSLIM• CHRISTIAN• BUDDHISM• HINDUISM

73211

94.82.61.31.3

EDUCATIONAL LEVEL• DIPLOMA• BACHELOR

DEGREE• MASTERS• PhD.

2537

132

32.548.1

16.92.6

LEADERSHIP PERCEPTION

LEADERSHIP MEAN STANDARDDEVIATION

CONTROL 3.17 .461

FLEXIBLE 3.08 .483

• Employees perceive both leadership behavior high• Both leadership behavior are a necessity• Control – demonstrate decisiveness in managing activities and

resources• Flexible – demonstrate openness in managing human resources and

the environment

• In public sector leaders behavior is influenced by contextual factors

• Leaders behavior is also influenced by their personal influence such as attitude, personality and self esteem that develop their personal quality

OCCURRENCE OF DEVIANT BEHAVIORDeviant Behavior Freq Perce

ntOrganizational Deviancea. Production Deviance Worked on personal matter instead of worked

for your employer Taken an additional @ longer break than is

acceptable at your place at work Intentionally worked slower that you could

have workedb. Property Deviance Padded an expense account to get reimbursed

for more money that you spent on businessexpenses

Accepted a gift / favor in exchange forprofessional treatment

Taken property from work without permission

41

64

39

16

13

15

53.3

83.1

50.7

20.8

16.9

19.5

OCCURRENCE OF DEVIANT BEHAVIORDeviant Behavior Freq Perc

ent

Interpersonal Deviancea. Political Deviance Showed favoritism for a fellow employee @

subordinate employee Blamed someone else @ let someone else take the

blame of your mistake Repeated gossip about a co-workerb. Personal Aggression Cursed someone at work Made an ethnic @ sexually harassing remark @

joke at work Made someone feel physically intimidated either

through threat @ carelessness at work

35

27

56

1616

7

45.5

35.1

72.7

20.820.8

9.1

• Organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance were observed

• Organizational deviance – longer break

• Interpersonal deviance – organizational gossip

Longer break

Tolerable behavior

Restorative features and its relationship with

productivity increased

Organizational gossip

Informal communication and social networking

Facilitate friendship ; searching information from

others, personal exchanges and social bonds

LEADERSHIP AND DEVIANT BEHAVIORMEAN SD Control

Leadership

Flexibility

Leadership

Control Leadership 3.170 .461 1 .844**

Flexibility Leadership 3.076 .483 .844** 1

OR

GA

NIZ

AT

ION

A

L D

EV

IAN

CE

Personal Matter 1.57 .572 -.246* -.267*

Additional break 1.96 .549 -.268* -.246*

Worked slower 1.58 .636 -.324** -.321**

Padded an account 1.26 .571 -.098 -.198

Accepting gift 1.17 .377 -.058 .014

Taking property 1.19 .399 -.016 -.034

INT

ER

PE

RS

ON

AL

DE

VIA

NC

E

Favoritism 1.49 .576 -.205 -.364**

Blaming others 1.39 .566 -.241* -.298**

Gossip 1.96 .733 .041 -.042

Cursed others 1.21 .408 -.027 .029

Harassing remark 1.22 .448 .085 .049

Physical Intimidation 1.09 .289 .036 -.067

THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

• The association between leadership behavior and theoccurrence of deviant behavior show that employeesacknowledge and admit that leaders are important andsignificantly influence their behavior

• The significant negative relationship that exist showsthat leaders as a source of reliable role model

• Strong emphasis on control and flexibility leadership canhave a positive effect on employees’ behavior

• While insignificant correlation indicates that influence ofother factors on employees behavior; other contextual,situational and personal factors

CONCLUSION

• Control and flexible leaderships are practiced

• The presence of all deviant behaviors createawareness and generate proactive measures toprevent the problem

• The association between leadership behavior anddeviant behavior support deviance studies, whichclaims that negative behavior as a response toperceive negative work environment

• To avoid deviant behavior, control and flexibilityleadership is a necessity