Discipline at work is the regulation of human activity to produce a controlled and effective performance. It ranges from the guard's control of a rabble to the accomplishment of lone individuals producing spectacular performance through self-discipline in the control of their own talents and resources; from the threat or implementation of dismissal to the subtle persuasions of mentoring. Maintaining discipline is one of the central activities that managers have to exercise. Here we consider the sources of managerial authority and what makes it effective. Each organization has a framework of organizational justice within which managers administer rules and procedures and carry out disciplinary interviewing. In extreme cases employees are dismissed, although there are a series of legal rights to protect them against dismissal that is unfair.

Of all management activities, discipline is one of the most culturally constrained, making any international perspective difficult to discern. The burgeoning literature on international human resource management is silent on this topic because of the varied ways in which authority - the basis of discipline - is construed in different countries. The leading study on management and cultural variation is by Hofstede, who takes the concept of power distance as one of the central ways in which culture causes management practices like discipline to vary.

Derek Torrington