The Effect of Negative Work Outcomes on Employee Deviant Behavior: Exploring the Relationship Between Perceived Injustice, Boredom, Moral Disengagement and Work Withdrawal in Training Units

Abstract

Deviant behaviour at workplace is very problematic for businesses. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the variables which cause deviant behaviour. One kind of deviant behaviour “work withdrawal” is analysed in this paper. Specifically, the role of two negative work outcomes like boredom and perceived injustice is determined to test the causes of work withdrawal. In this paper, the relationship between work withdrawal and perceived injustice, work withdrawal and boredom are determined. Moral disengagement has been used as a mediating variable. Survey Data were collected from employees of six different companies from Bahrain. The responses were collected through questionnaire. The data were analysed by using PLS. The significance of the theoretical relationship was assessed using structural equation model (SEM). The paper concludes that boredom causes work withdrawal while perceived injustice has no impact on work withdrawal. Perceived injustice causes moral disengagement. Boredom also causes moral disengagement. But moral disengagement has no impact on work withdrawal. Apart from this, we have found that boredom has a small effect on disengagement and strongly affects withdrawal. However, disengagement has a small determining effect on withdrawal, and perceived injustice has a small effect on both disengagement and withdrawal. This research paper would contribute to Human resources ethical literature by studying the causes of deviant behaviour at the workplace. Moreover, the effect of moral disengagement is observed.