Rule Breaking Behavior And Its Influencing Factors

One of the biggest challenges facing many Chinese enterprises, especially many SMEs, is how to improve the current formalized inner management and make it more efficient. Although standardized and normative organization rules have already been set up in those enterprises after years of development, rule-breaking behavior of employees appears now and then, which brings great loss to the enterprises. It is very important to reduce the rate of employ rule-breaking behavior in order to implement all the various rules in the enterprises and make the inner management fulfill its goal of efficiency.First of all, considering that domestic researches on individual rule-breaking behavior are very scattered and lacking of theoretical basis, this research focuses on western organizational theories, and make a systematic summary of the relevant theories. In addition, by making comparisons to other negative individual behavior in organizational context, the shortcomings as well as the opinions worth adopting by this research are put forwarded as a conclusion of the summary.A general index model of rule-breaking behavior affecting factors was provided in this research. On the basis of the systematic summary of the previous scattered research, many influencing factors of individual rule-breaking behavior were recognized, which could be divided into three main groups named as rule factors, supervisor factors and coworkers factors. So, a comprehensive research model of individual rule-breaking behavior was established, and factors of individual characteristics and demographic factors were-treated as controlling factors.Another innovation was made in the design of the empirical investigation. The questionnaire was designed according to the traffic rule-breaking behavior, in order to testify the research model. This is because the unique characteristics of different enterprises and industries would probably make the research result less applicable. What's more, it is very hard to find one rule which is applicable to all the enterprises, as there are so many various kinds of rules in all the enterprises, while the traffic rule is quite applicable everywhere, which is more suitable for the empirical research.On the basis of statistical analysis of the empirical research, it was suggested to divide the individual rule-breaking behavior in to two categories according to the individual's motive, which are initiative rule-breaking behavior and passive rule-breaking behavior. And these two kinds of rule-breaking behavior were influenced by different factors. The initiative rule-breaking behavior was mainly influenced by rule acceptance, supervisor integrity, supervisor punishment, coworkers' rule-breaking behavior and coworkers' informal punishment, while the passive rule-breaking behavior was mainly affected by supervisor integrity and coworkers' rule-breaking behavior. In addition, individuals of different characteristic and demographic factors showed distinct difference in initiative rule-breaking behavior. In conclusion, the theoretical and practical significances as well as enlightenments for enterprise managers were provided, and the suggestions to future research were also discussed.