Missteps, Misbehavior, and Mischief

Scholars across management and organizational psychology have examined various ways in which employees and managers “behave badly” at work—whether through organizational injustice, counterproductive work behavior, abusive supervision, or incivility, among others. What are the consequences for those employees who “misbehave” at work, and to what extent does their gender play a role? This chapter examines how prescriptive gender stereotypes—stereotypical beliefs about how men and women should behave—influence perceptions and reactions to men and women who engage in negative behaviors at work. Throughout the chapter, it is argued that people are likely to react differently to some misbehaviors at work, depending on whether they are enacted by men or women. The chapter also argues that stereotypical depictions and prescriptions of men as agentic and women as communal may result in greater leeway for men and harsher punishments for women who engage in negative work behaviors. However, the chapter proposes that an exploration of specific misbehaviors is critical, reviewing existing research to show that it is only gendered misbehaviors involving a simultaneous violation of gender stereotypes that invoke differential penalties for men and women.