Organizational retaliatory behavior

Organizational retaliatory behavior (ORB) is a form of workplace deviance. ORB is defined in the bottom up sense as an employee's reacting against a perceived injustice from their employer. ORB is also a top down issue occurring when an employee speaks out or acts in an unfavorable way against the employer.

The International Journal of Conflict Management divides ORB into four different conceptual indicators; rule breaking, level or work behavior, affective commitment, and turnover intention. All of these are forms of Workplace Deviance.

ORB is the result of perceived injustices in the workplace, and can be categorised into the three following groups:

Employees who feel they are being treated fairly are more likely to be loyal to their companies, have higher morale and increased helping behaviors. Employees who feel they are being treated unfairly tend to have lower morale, higher turnover rates and are more likely to exhibit ORB and another forms of workplace deviance including theft and/or sabotage in attempts to get even with their wrongdoer.

The main reason for top down ORB is whistleblowing, and it differs from that of employees. Whilst employees will act out against the organization, employers will act out against the whistle blower by excluding them from meetings, eliminate their perquisites, assignment to less desirable work or to a heavier work load, more harsh criticism, and in certain cases, pressure to drop their lawsuit altogether. These are all forms of punishment to the whistle blower meant to encourage employee silence and to discourage future whistle blowing.

Employers typically will not waste resources retaliating with employees that are young, inexperienced and have no public credibility. Retaliation often occurs against employees with credibility in their field that have stated their claims against the organization publicly.

Workplace or employment retaliation is an offense under laws which address employment discrimination such as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act which provides:

12940. It is an unlawful employment practice, unless based upon a bona fide occupational qualification, or, except where based upon applicable security regulations established by the United States or the State of California:

(a) For an employer, because of the race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or military and veteran status of any person, to refuse to hire or employ the person or to refuse to select the person for a training program leading to employment, or to bar or to discharge the person from employment or from a training program leading to employment, or to discriminate against the person in compensation or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.

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