Organisational embeddedness as a moderator on the organisational support, trust and workplace deviance relationships

Abstract

Emerging research calls for the exploration of the potential negative side of organisational embeddedness. It is important to assess such negative aspects to fully understand the power of embeddedness, and how to address the potential undesirable effects on employees and organisations. The purpose of this paper is to answer this call by assessing the extent to which organisational embeddedness can negatively influence the perceived organisational support-workplace deviance and the organisational trust–deviance relationships. A sample of 969 employees across the financial services sector in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad is used, with a two-wave research design. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the research relationships. The findings support the propositions that organisational support and trust each negatively predicts workplace deviance and organisational embeddedness moderates each of these relationships in an undesirable way, such that, higher embeddedness weakens the desirable relationships between support, trust and deviance. This study addresses a clear gap since limited studies explore the potential negative impact of organisational embeddedness on various work perceptions and behaviours. Embeddedness is largely considered a predictor of various desirable employee and organisational outcomes.