Contact: Thomas Tripp, Professor of Management & Decision Science, WSU College of Business, WSU Vancouver, 360-546-9754, ttripp@wsu.edu; Robert Bies, Professor of Management, Georgetown University, 202-687-5406, biesr@georgetown.edu
WSU Researcher’s Book Offers Tips on Countering Workplace Revenge
PULLMAN, Wash. - The recent conviction of a disgruntled sheet-metal assembler at a Boeing Co. manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania for doing more than $100,000 in damage to a Chinook helicopter and causing a two-day plant shutdown provided a rare public glimpse at the kinds of problems companies can experience at the hands of their own vengeful employees.
But while companies are often reluctant to speak publicly about problems caused by those within their own ranks who attempt to "get even" with the organization, a Washington State University researcher says such counterproductive and harmful actions by revenge-motivated employees are so pervasive within our society that they should be considered part of the "social fabric of the workplace."
Thomas Tripp, professor of management operations at Washington State University Vancouver, has devoted nearly two decades to researching the problem vengeful actions in the workplace. He believes such incidences often provide critical signals to employers that something dysfunctional is occurring within their organization.
Along with co-author Robert J. Bies, a professor of management at Georgetown University, Tripp chronicles a variety of ways employees have sought revenge in the workplace in a new book entitled "Getting Even: The Truth about Workplace Revenge and How to Stop It," scheduled for release this month by publisher Jossey-Bass.
"Acts of revenge in the workplace, even though they only rarely turn violent and may not even prove particularly costly, can be a good indication that, at best, something's a bit off-kilter in the organization - or at worst, that things have gone deeply wrong system-wide," Tripp said.
Contrary to popular perception, Bies said most cases of workplace revenge are nonviolent (for example, the silent treatment, badmouthing). But acts of workplace revenge can, nonetheless, prove harmful, sometimes extremely so, resulting in destroyed careers and worse. For this reason, he said, managers should view incidences of revenge in the workplace as a critical signal to the organization.
Vengeful actions don't occur within a vacuum, he said, but
rather when the organization's formal systems
break down or when mechanisms for preventing or correcting
injustice aren't in place or simply don't work.
"It's about justice," Bies said of employees inspired to seek revenge against employers, coworkers or customers. "Does the employee perceive the workplace as fair? Does the workplace have fair grievance systems?"
One of the key messages the book holds out to employers and managers is that more employees than they might expect are potential workplace vigilantes.
"We find most revenge is committed by normal, well-meaning people who are simply trying to right a wrong," said Tripp. "In their minds, they are pursuing justice. If the authorities in the organization won't handle an offense, and if workers believe they can get away with revenge, then many normal employees will take the law into their own hands and seek to get even."
In fact, Tripp said the impulse among employees to seek revenge in the face of a perceived injustice is so widespread that there's little an employer can do in advance to identify who might one day morph into a revenge-seeking vigilante.
"We find the biggest predictor of whether employees will act on a revenge impulse is not their personalities but rather the actions of their manager or coworkers, Tripp said. "In short, managers wishing to prevent revenge should not worry so much about what kind of employees they have, but about how those employees are treated."
Complicating the threat of revenge-inspired disruptions of workplace productivity , Bies said, is the fact that most who commit them believe their actions are morally justified - a view often shared by their co-workers.
"At the moment avengers seek revenge, they often have reasoned out that revenge is appropriate and morally justified," Bies said. "They believe that revenge is the right thing to do. And not just avengers think this, but often so do observers, who vicariously experience that feeling of righteousness when others are harmed or when a harm-doer is dealt swift vengeance. In specific circumstances, then, officemates will tolerate revenge."
Ultimately, Tripp said, the best antidote to acts of revenge within the workplace is managers who are able to view the workplace from the perspective of their employees.
"To better understand revenge, to understand why the workers we studied acted on it, we had to be willing to see the conflict from their point of view," he said. "Similarly, for managers to prevent workplace revenge, they need to see the conflict from the employees' perspective. They must be able to fathom why an employee-and a normal, nice, sane employee at that-would think that revenge might be a great answer to a current problem. Managers who cannot adopt this perspective will have a much harder time seeing it coming. And if you can't see it coming, it's harder to stop it."
Tripp holds a doctorate in organizational behavior from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Washington. His research has focused on workplace conflict, and especially on workplace revenge and forgiveness. With Robert Bies, he has co-authored more than a dozen scientific studies on workplace revenge. His professional service has focused on conflict management research. He serves on several academic publication editorial boards and also chairs the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management.