任务不合规矩导致员工不守规矩:不合规任务对职场越轨行为的影响

Illegitimate Tasks Lead to Deviant Employees: The Impact of Illegitimate Tasks on Workplace Deviant Behavior

在工作中,员工不仅需要完成本职任务,有时还需面对一些不应由自己承担或不必要执行的任务,即不合规任务.鉴于此,本研究旨在探究不合规任务给员工造成的后果,即不合规任务是否刺激员工做出更多违背组织规则的行径.基于情感事件理论,本研究认为,不合规任务会诱发员工的工作愤怒,进而激发员工的职场越轨行为(不守规矩);上述过程受到员工权力距离取向的调节作用.为了检验上述设想,本研究收集了227份两阶段追踪数据,采用层级回归分析进行分析.结果表明:不合规任务与职场越轨行为并未呈现显著直接关系,但两者能够经由工作愤怒产生间接联系,即工作愤怒在不合规任务与职场越轨行为之间起中介作用.权力距离取向负向调节不合规任务与工作愤怒之间的关系以及不合规任务与职场越轨行为之间经由工作愤怒的间接效应;当权力距离取向更高的时候,上述关系更弱;反之更强.以上结果对于认清并降低不合规任务的负面影响具有一定的启发意义.

In organizational settings, employees are required to perform not only the in-role tasks but also some tasks that are violate the norm about what can reasonably be expected from a given person (i.e., illegitimate tasks). This study aims to explore the consequence of illegitimate tasks for employees, particularly focusing on whether illegitimate tasks make employees act in a deviant way. Drawing on affective event theory, this study proposes that illegitimate tasks evoke employees' work anger, which in turn facilitates employees' deviant behaviors. The above indirect relationship depends on employees' power distance value. To test our prepositions, we collected 227 employee data and conducted hierarchical regression analysis. The results showed that: illegitimate tasks was no directly but indirectly related to employees' workplace deviant behavior. Employees' work anger mediated the relationship between illegitimate tasks and workplace deviant behavior. Moreover, employees' power distance value negatively moderated the relationship between illegitimate tasks and work anger as well as the indirect relationship between illegitimate tasks and workplace deviant behaviors via work anger;such relationship was weak (strong) when power distance was high (versus low). Our findings contribute to the knowledge about the negative consequences of illegitimate tasks and provide novel insights for practitioners regarding how to reduce such negative effects of illegitimate tasks.