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.