Tension at the interface: Exploring employee deviation

Monica Kennedy and Michael Corliss

Journal of Management & Organization, 2008, vol. 14, issue 4, 424-437

Abstract: An exploratory study of workplace experience in the public sector investigated the tension that employees face in their attempts to meet both organisational and customer expectations. This paper provides an illustration of participant experience that describes: the sense of justice that drove their actions; the innovations that resulted from attempts to fulfil the psychological contract with the customer; and the protection of what employees perceived to be their own and their workmates' deviant behaviour. The ethic that emerged locally through employee–customer interaction and which framed employee decision-making in this study resulted from the role conflict that emerged when the organisation's focus on a consistent application of the rules confronted customers' diverse and pressing need for treatment as individual human beings at the organisational boundary.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jomorg:v:14:y:2008:i:04:p:424-437_00

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