A Study of the Relationship between Employee Virtuality and Technology Deviance as Mediated by Leadership and Employee Perceptions

Abstract

Recent studies found that organizations have been investing significant capital in developing teams and employees in geographic areas where labor and resources are considerably cheaper. Furthermore, organizations are moving core operational activities such as research and development and back-office processes to globally distributed teams.However, several factors that are inherent to these virtual teams can have a negative impact on employee perceptions and engagement; specifically, the physical and temporal differences between employees and their supervisors, the lack of meaningful social interaction intrinsic to working relationships, and cultural biases that can be fostered when close, daily interactions is not there to help bridge the dissimilarity.When strategies are not in place to mitigate these deficiencies, it can cause virtual employees to disengage emotionally and intellectually from the organization, or lead them to feel justified in working against the best interest of the company. In addition, there is a related phenomenon that has aided the transformation of the workplace -namely, the ubiquity of technology. In the context of workplace deviance, established research has documented an increasing trend of employees utilizing company technology as a medium and amplifier when harming the organization. It is important to understand whether technology has facilitated or hindered workplace deviance by virtue of the technology itself (as a means), and as part of the new employee roles created by the evolving technology (i.e, virtual employees). Therefore, it is important to identify how individual attitudes and behaviors can be affected by an employee's degree of virtuality. This study will add to the understanding of how social interaction and physical proximity, leadership and other perception factors contribute to the changes organizations are experiencing as their structure evolves and adapts to compete in the new global environment.

Predictors of workplace deviant behaviour: HRD agenda for Malaysian support personnel

“…For example, Salas (2009) revealed that employees who feel that their organisation is not supportive were more likely to engage in destructive behaviour. Furthermore, perceived organisational support was found to be negatively associated with supervisor-rated production deviance (Stamper and Masterson, 2002) and interpersonal deviance at work (Colbert et al, 2004).…”

Organisational Predators of Workplace Deviant Behaviour in Hotel Industry

“…According to Eder and Eisenberger (2006) perceived organisational support would increase employees' obligation to assist the organisation in achieving its goals hence, making them shun acts of deviance. Salas (2009) revealed that employees who feel that their organisation is not supportive were more likely to engage in destructive behaviour. Accordingly, organisational researchers argue that within the employer-employee relationship, not only are impersonal resources such as money, services, and information exchanged, but also socio-emotional resources such as approval, respect and support (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).…”

To be or not to be: paradoxes and dilemmas faced by middle managers in Malaysian public service during organizational change

“…Consistent with past studies, the results of present study indicated that subjective norm and social influence have both significantly correlated with AOC despite the strengths of correlations being considered moderate and low respectively. Prior studies have proved that employees received positive social pressure environment are more likely to be able to adapt and accept changes in workplace (Salas, 2009;Jimmieson et al, 2008;Schepers and Wetzels, 2007). Likewise, past researches have demonstrated that social influence had positively correlated employees' positive attitudes to accept organizational changes (Ferguson, 2007;Judge et al, 2006).…”

“…In these studies, subjective norms were referred as peer, superior and family influence. When changes happened in workplace, the positive subjective norms were determined to be inclined with workers' receptive behavior (Salas, 2009). Similarly, evidence from many prior studies found that subjective norms have contributed and positively associated with various forms of workplace positive behavior (Eder and Eisenberger, 2008).…”