Article Critique; Who Stole the Money, and When? Individual and Situational Determinants of employee theft
Summary
Introduction- Social scientists and practicing managers have been researching why employees engage in organization theft (Greenberg, 2002). They conducted an investigative study and wrote the article Who Stole the Money, and When? Individual and situational determinants of employee theft. The article critique is based on the general usability and applications, reliability, and validity of results, implications, and ways it can be improved. It evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various models and hypotheses developed by the author about individual and situational causes of theft (Greenberg, 2002). The critique follows the structure of purpose, methodology, findings, limitations, originality, positive critique, and negative critique.
Purpose- The primary purpose of the study is to evaluate how individual and situational variables influence theft (Greenberg, 2002). Independent variables causing employee dishonesty include moral development, which can be moral development, proximal and distal variables (Greenberg, 2002). The author analyzes the impacts of dissatisfied employees in terms of underpayment and harassment by management as it results in theft.
Methodology- A group of 270 customer service representatives was used. One hundred forty-two of the samples came from companies that embrace the ethical program, while 128 of representatives did not have ethical programs.
Findings- The independent variables were a victim of theft of either individual or organization, moral development, and ethics program. One hundred thirty of the population engaged in theft, while 140 did not participate in the theft.
Research limitations – Only one occupation of customer service representatives was chosen.
Practical and social implications- The study assists the management and investors in understanding the causes of dishonesty by employees and how they can curb it.
Originality- The research adds value to the existing literature. Many pieces of research have been done before about the causes of employee dishonesty in the organization. The author has researched different variables of the ethics program, moral development, and victim of theft.
Critique (positive): the research extrapolates the studies conducted about independent variables that cause employee dishonesty. Previous depicted that workers engaged in theft as there were opportunity and a proficient motive that approves the act (Greenberg, 2002). If the employees feel maltreated by the management, most of them will engage in theft. The research adds essential variables, for instance, levels of moral development, locus of control, and situational factors that assist in identifying dishonesty of employees.
Critique (Negative): The sample selected does not represent the actual population. The participants were only customer service representatives who are trained on the importance of creating a good customer experience for the clients. The research should have focused on selecting the participants from various fields at random without selecting a specific professional field. The population selected for the study has inadequate working experience as their average age is below 30 years. The working knowledge of the population was only 17months. The research should focus on choosing a population of an individual with over ten years of working experience.
Greenberg, J. (2002). Who stole the money, and when? Individual and situational determinants of employee theft. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 89(1), 985-1003. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0749-5978(02)00039-0