Keeping In or Pushing Out? An Integrative Framework of Substances and Substance-Related Control in Organizations

Substances (e.g., alcohol, cannabis, illicit drugs) are an inevitable part of organizational life. Despite their prevalence in workplaces, the research on substances at work, while significant, generally adopts a narrow focus on the negative implications of substance use and remains fragmented, with limited integration across conceptual levels. Yet, substances can surface in the workplace—that is, become present, perceptible, and influential—in ways that go beyond substance use, and their implications are not always negative. Based on a multidisciplinary synthesis of 361 articles, we organize the ways in which substances surface in the workplace within three meta-categories. Each meta-category is situated on a different conceptual level: involvement with substances (i.e., experiential surfacing), informal norms around substances (i.e., contextual surfacing), and formalized official policies and practices (i.e., structural surfacing). Expanding the scholarly discourse on substances, within each meta-category our review identifies a spectrum of narratives around substances, from negative to somewhat positive. Building on these foundations, we propose an integrative framework that shifts attention from substance use to controlling substances in the workplace, which involves establishing, responding to, or escaping from substance-related control. Our framework provides theoretical and methodological recommendations to further advance research on substances in the workplace.