Definition (1):
Workplace misbehavior is any intentional employee behavior that is potentially harmful to the organization or individuals within the organization. It shows up in organizations in four ways: deviance, aggression, antisocial behavior, and violence. Such behaviors can range from playing loud music just to irritate coworkers to verbal aggression to sabotaging work, all of which can create havoc in any organization.
Definition (2):
Hollinger (1986) considered workplace misbehavior as deviance’s form and found that sociological research conducted on employee misbehavior mainly focuses on two factors: a) production deviance, and b) property deviance. Production deviance includes different types of counterproductive behavior such as insubordination, slowdowns, substandard work, and the like. Property deviance is related to acts against assets and property of the organization such as embezzlement, pilferage, theft, vandalism, and the like.
Deviance is regarded as an umbrella term used for workplace misbehavior. It indicates that deviance is a form of this misbehavior that may come in many types. Deviance means any purposeful or conscious action moving the work environment away from organizational norms and harms the organization and its culture in the aspirations of attaining the desired goal. Deviance can include aggression, political behavior, property deviance, and productivity deviance.