Predicting nonlinear effects of monitoring and punishment on employee deviance: The role of procedural justice

SummaryMore is known about the widespread use of monitoring and sanctioning systems than about the reasons and conditions under which these systems ultimately work. Drawing on prior research on the effectiveness of different amounts of monitoring and punishment, this study follows a justice-based approach and suggests that (a) the relationships already found in the literature from monitoring and punishment threats to both employee deviance and procedural justice (PJ) should be modeled as curvilinear, and (b) that procedural justice (PJ) mediates these relationships. The paper then used hierarchical multiple regressions to test these predictions. Results supported both monitoring and punishment nonlinear effects on deviance, and procedural justice (PJ) was shown to be a full mediator of – i.e., it was able to explain – the effects of monitoring and punishment threats on employee deviance. Findings generally suggest that punishment mainly, but also monitoring to a large extent, work better when used in proper doses, i.e., those producing greater perceptions of procedural justice (PJ).