Abstract

NENEH, BN. Applying the theory of planned behaviour to the problem of employee theft in small businesses. JCMAN [online]. 2017, vol.14, n.1, pp.963-985. ISSN 1815-7440.

Employee theft has been widely noted as a momentous threat to the survival of small businesses. Consequently, understanding this volitional behaviour in the context of small businesses has been of interest to both academics and practitioners. However, there is a dearth of evidence on the application of behavioural theories in understanding employee theft intentions in small businesses. Consequently, the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was used in this study to examine the intentions to engage in employee theft. Participants were recruited using convenience sampling, while quantitative questionnaires were administered as the research instrument. Using a sample of 265 employees from 68 small businesses in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, this study identified three factors (attitudes towards theft, perceived behavioural control, and moral norms) significantly associated with the intentions to engage in employee theft. Employees with a negative attitude towards theft and a high moral norm were less likely to develop an intention to engage in employee theft, while employees from businesses with less stringent measures against employee theft (i.e. low perceived behavioural control) were more likely to develop an intention to steal from their employer. The study recommends the need for taking these behaviours into consideration when recruiting employees.

Keywords : attitudes towards employee theft; employee theft intentions; moral norms; perceived behavioural control; small businesses; subjective norms; theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

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