A Different Approach to Work Discipline

This chapter entitled “The definitions, types and functions of discipline as well as factors influencing discipline” discusses the main definitions of discipline, its functions and factors important for maintaining discipline. The chapter presents useful information concerning the following:

The author indicates relations occurring between discipline and the freedom of an individual employee in an organisation and that this discipline results from relations among employees as well as their occupational functions, roles and positions.

In this chapter entitled “Models of discipline: Self-Discipline and Organisations Without Bosses”, the author presents the progressive model of discipline, in which punishments for mistakes are gradually toughened, and the positive model, which is oriented more towards training and motivating employees. Both models have their strengths and weaknesses. Research shows that the progressive model is rarely used in the practice of management. Punishing employees is regarded as a failure; it indicates a poor quality of management. The chapter presents useful information concerning the following:

The final sub-chapter presents possible directions of further research into models of discipline and self-control.

This chapter, “The Control and Punishment of Employees”, is devoted to the types, causes and consequences of punishments, relations between rewarding and punishing, the most frequently used types of informal punishments, and punishments imposed on superiors by subordinates. The author describes the conditions of administering punishments, problems connected with it as well as reasons for disciplinary dismissals. The second part of the chapter presents methods of controlling employees, relations between control and employee behaviour, connections between control and trust, as well as issues related to the use of technical control, including the future of technical control. The final sub-chapter presents possible directions of further research into employee control and punishment.

This chapter is entitled “Discipline and the Selected Manifestations of Employee Behaviour”. It discusses psycho-social and organisational causes of counterproductive behaviour, as well as the selected manifestations of unethical and criminal behaviour such as sabotage, theft, financial fraud and corruption. The author also describes types of behaviour harmful to employees, for example, mobbing, stalking, harassment and blackmail. Every sub-chapter contains information concerning manifestations of various types of unethical and criminal behaviour, as well as methods of preventing such behaviour. The author indicates the limitations of various forms of preventing unethical behaviour and problems with their identification. The chapter ends with conclusions concerning possible further research.

This chapter, entitled “The Role and Tasks of Management”, presents various possible ways of shaping work discipline. The author also identifies numerous limitations of the applied procedures, training activities and rules of cooperation. The discussion concerns the tasks of management in undertaking disciplinary actions (e.g. promoting ethical behaviour and pursuing the maintenance of moral order, treating discipline as one element in the whole system of managing human resources, providing managerial support). The chapter contains useful information on shaping discipline management systems and the possibility of using the existing quality management system in the maintenance of discipline. Employee behaviour depends on which ethical values are in place in an organisation. Therefore, shaping organisational justice is a very important task; despite elaborate recruitment and selection processes or employee motivational activities, there are employees labelled as difficult. The methods of managing difficult employees constitute the subject of another part of this chapter.

This book on work discipline does not have a uniform character; it is neither an academic analysis nor a how-to manual. On the one hand, it shows the current state of knowledge of work discipline, and on the other hand, its objective has been to present various practical possibilities of shaping and maintaining discipline. Also, it has been impossible to omit a short description of various types of unethical behaviour. The problem lies in that such behaviour requires specialist knowledge and, consequently, more detailed content. What this book presents is just a sketch, a small segment of research issues or problems with which both managers and employees have to cope today. Chapter 4 “Discipline and the Selected Manifestations of Employee Behaviour” does not contain a complete review of the literature on the subject.