How has cyber technology created opportunities for workplace deviance?

Workplace deviance refers to behavior of an individual that violates the organization that they work for, often resulting in the harm of the organization. Workplace deviance can be classified into many different types of behavior and actions such as aggressive behavior, unproductive behavior, intentional abuse of property, or political motivated deviance. More often, individuals will behave this way because they feel that their company or organization has mistreated them someway. Since the development of the Internet, workplace deviance opportunities have increased and can occur much easier. A common example of workplace deviance using the power of a position to hurt other’s in a business or the organization as a whole. For example, let us assume that Jeff is the senior manager at a medical facility and he has access to a lot of patients medical records. Jeff recently was fired for poor performance at work, but somehow found the time to download a lot of information from the medical facility’s computer. After Jeff was fired and stole the information, he decided to start selling the personal information all over the Dark Web, jeopardizing not only his organization, but the customers of the organization as well. Due to being fired, Jeff engaged in a type of deviance where he took the company’s asset, personal medical information, and decided to sell it for financial gain along with hurting the company’s reputation. This is just one example of how workplace deviance can exist through the cyber-world and how much easier it can be to harm an organization or many individuals. This example was rather extreme, but not all instances of workplace deviance are like this. Another example of workplace deviance that has expanded since the creation of cyber technology would be intentionally working slow and being counter-productive. An employee that spends most of their time on a company’s computer just browsing social media and playing online games would be another example of workplace deviance using cyber technology. The employee is intentionally not doing what they are supposed to so that they can cause harm to the production of the organization. Whether it is something as small as surfing the web, or something as big as selling personal information online, cyber technology as increased instances of workplace deviance.

References:

https://edubirdie.com/examples/causes-and-types-of-workplace-deviance/