WHEN STEALING TIME AT WORK SEEMS JUSTIFIED: THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE ON TIME BANDITRY
Defense Date
Winter 12-2-2019
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Management
Department
Business Administration
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Amy Henley
Committee Member or Co-Chair
Dr. Stacy Campbell
Reader
Dr. Vickie Gallagher
Abstract
Interest in the study of time banditry at work is relatively new to researchers. Existing research on this phenomenon has focused primarily on antecedents to the time banditry relationship, such as personality and organizational justice (Brock, Martin, & Buckley, 2013). This study further explored one of those antecedent relationships, the organizational justice to time banditry relationship. Currently absent from the literature is the potential influence each individual factor of organization justice (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational) may have on engagement in time banditry. The focus of the current study was to investigate the following research question: How will engagement in classical, technology, or social time banditry be affected by changes in perceived organizational justice? In addition, justice literature suggests that all employees will not respond equally to changes in perceived organizational justice. To examine this discrepancy in responses, the current study proposed that an individual’s work ethic may account for some of this variation. Therefore, an additional research question investigated was: Does work ethic moderate the relationship between the sub factors of time banditry and sub factors of organizational justice? Drawing on equity theory and social exchange theory, a model was proposed that investigated these research questions. This model with hypothesized relationships was based on a thorough review of the time banditry, organizational justice and work ethic literature.
The proposed model was empirically tested using self-report data collected via an online panel through Qualtrics. Overall, results of this study were mixed. Support was found for the proposed negative relationships between interpersonal justice and the classical and technology time banditry factors. Results also support the moderating effect of hard work on the interpersonal justice to classical, technology, and social time banditry relationships. Additionally, a non-predicted and unexpected positive relationship was found between procedural justice and classical time banditry.