The evolution of unethical behavior engagement amongst longshoremen in France: A 70-year perspective

Our study builds theory about why employees’ engagement in workplace misconduct changes over time. Data collected from 72 interviews with longshoremen, their employers, and port officials in two French ports, supplemented with 70 years of archival data revealed how factors from both the organizational context and greater societal context combine to create a setting in which the seeds of misconduct persist even as the type of misconduct itself transforms. We have three primary findings. First, we find that strain and social control play distinct roles in inciting and allowing unethical behavior. Second, we find ostracism at the societal level plays a critical role in driving societal-targeted misconduct. Third, we find that generational “carry-over effects” from earlier periods’ strain and ostracism account for instances of misconduct left unexplained by classical theories of crime and ostracism.