How has cyber technology created opportunities for workplace deviance?

The term deviance refers to actions or behaviors that depart from usual or accepted societal standards. Workplace deviance is the deliberate desire to cause harm to an organization by causing problems within the workplace. Cybertechnology has made workplace deviance even easier to occur within the technology work field since it normally happens through the internet rather than in person. This not only increases workplace deviance but makes it harder to detect the culprit. A common example of workplace deviance would be an employee who attacks their own company due to feelings of resentment or anger. Causes of this type of behavior include being laid off, not receiving a deserved promotion, or being mistreated in the workplace. For example, an employee who may have been fired and left the company on bad terms may download critical information they were once permitted to access and sell it to other rival companies. Another example would be a disgruntled employee sabotaging their company’s security systems leaving them vulnerable to a cyber attack. If a cyber attack were to occur, the company’s valuable information and data would be stolen. If an employee who no longer works under or with a company still has authorized access to that company’s data and information, they may exploit it for their own personal gain and to even inflict harm onto the company. These behaviors are considered workplace deviance because it opposes standard expectations employers have of their employees. Cyber technology has made workplace deviance much easier to occur because the person committing it is able to mask themselves behind their computer screen. There is no security camera or video footage exposing their criminal behavior because everything is done through technology rather than in person. Although all fieldworks have workplace deviance, workplace deviance is much more common in cyber technology.