The Constitution of Employee-Abusive Organizations: A Communication Flows Theory

Abstract

Given the range of destruction wrought by persistent employee abuse, it is crucial to understand how employee-abusive organizations (EAOs) come into being and persist. It is also essential to look beyond individualistic ''bad apple'' explanations to understand the phenomenon's complexity but, to date, little scholarship does so. Indeed, there is insufficient theorizing about the phenomenon. To address this issue, we theorize how EAOs come into being, persist, and change though a confluence of communication flows. This article takes as a starting point and builds upon a message-flows typology from which we create a new theory that explains how EAOs develop and change. The theory identifies abusive message types and underscores how organizing occurs in confluences or synergies among the communication flows in which specific messages occur. We present a case study that drives the theory and illustrates the dynamism among communication flows. The case also illustrates change and the impact of worker resistance.

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