Country Cultural Effects on Deviant Workplace Behavior

: Poland and France Perspective

Abstract

Deviant workplace behavior has become an important problem of today’s

businesses as it has both financial impacts and social and psychological effects on

the organization. Therefore, it is a very important, but not very common research

area. There is no research done on the nature of workplace deviance in terms of

country culture; thus, it is interesting to explore country culture effects on deviant

workplace behavior.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how country culture influences

deviant workplace behavior. Firstly, we developed the link between the cultural

diversity and deviant workplace behavior theories referring to the literature review

and then we established the hypotheses which were tested in the survey of

business students from different countries. This investigation led to the

conclusions and solutions of the research problem.

The research revealed that cultural similarities can explain deviant workplace

behavior. Our study was limited to two countries, Poland and France, which

represent two different blocks of Europe, Eastern and Western. These countries

were chosen because they are economically and historically different, thus, they

are linked with different prejudices about deviant behavior tendencies. However,

culturally they are very similar. This research has identified the patterns of

deviance in these countries and has contradicted the prejudice about the deviance

inclinations in Western (France) and Eastern (Poland) Europe. As this study

focused on two countries, future research findings should be verified with studies

on other countries.

This research will have both a theoretical and practical value. The theoretical

value was created by connecting two research areas: deviant workplace behavior

and cultural diversity theories. The practical value can be explained by a growing

number of multinational enterprises and increasing internationalization of

business environment. Thus, knowledge about possible trickery and its patterns in

different cultures has increasing demand and value for companies in the global

community.