Deviance, as a term, comes from criminology, but in practice covers a wider range of behaviours than crime, which only refers to actions that break the law. When used in management, it normally covers illicit workplace behaviours, not all of which are illegal. Employee deviance focuses on pilferage and cheating by employees at all levels, with benefits taken from employers, customers and clients, or both. It is frequently extended to thefts of time, tax evasion/avoidance, payroll and expenses padding, restrictive 'customs and practice' and sabotage; in short, all behaviours formally disapproved of by managements that involve illicit movement of resources to employees and to managers. Called 'fiddling' in the UK, 'skimming' and 'scamming' in the USA, self-report studies have consistently shown its widespread extent, while recorded examples of employee deviance have a long history from Pharaonic Egypt through Classical Greece to the present.

Psychological explanations for deviance attempt to identify propensities associated with particular personality types. This 'rotten apple in the barrel' approach, whereby one deviant personality allegedly contaminates others, has led to extensive commercial screening programmes, especially in the USA. Situational explanations that examine how the social context of the workplace contributes to deviance and often creates it have, however, been more fruitful both for understanding and control.

Many attempts to check deviance have been, and will continue to be, problematic since deviance satisfies undeclared and covert interests, often including those of management, and because new variants and opportunities are continually offered by changing markets, forms of organization and technology. Endeavours to change work systems that ignore deviance or aim to eradicate it without understanding its social context and functions are likely to involve serious and often unanticipated effects.

Gerald Mars