Does Self-Regulatory Efficacy Matter? Effects of Punishment Certainty and Punishment Severity on Organizational Deviance:

摘要

Extant empirical research has reported conflicting findings with respect to the effects of punishment certainty and punishment severity on organizational deviance, suggesting the need to introduce a moderator. The present study tested whether self-regulatory efficacy matters on the relationships among punishment certainty, punishment severity, and organizational deviance. Drawing on deterrence and self-efficacy theories, this study examined the effects of punishment certainty, punishment severity, and self-regulatory efficacy on organizational deviance among 197 employed postgraduate students who enrolled in the Master of Business Administration program at two large universities located in the north-west geopolitical zone of Nigeria. We used self-administered questionnaires to collect data. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), we found a significant negative relationship between punishment certainty and organizational deviance. Similarly, the results indicated that punishment severity had a significant negative relationship with organizational deviance. The study also found a significant negative relationship between self-regulatory efficacy and organizational deviance. As expected, self-regulatory efficacy was found to moderate the relationship between punishment certainty and organizational deviance. On the contrary, no significant interaction effect was found between self-regulatory efficacy and punishment severity. Implications of the study in the Nigerian context have been discussed.