PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES OF CENTLEC MAINTENANCE EMPLOYEES TOWARDS THEFT OF COPPER CABLES

Abstract

Research evidence suggests that employee theft as well as the costs associated with it is on the increase in organisations all over the world. Elimination or at least reduction of employee theft of organisational asset has therefore become a major problem facing management of every organisation today. While, theory and research evidence suggest that employee theft is influenced by a myriad of factors, these causal factors can be classified broadly as individual or organisational. Like causal factors, there are equally numerous approaches to understanding employee theft. One of them, the behavioural approach stands out because stealing is widely acknowledged as a behavioural problem that can emanate from individual or organisational factors and it is believed that by identifying individual and organisational factors that promote thieving behaviour, theft of organisational assets can be minimized. Centlec (Soc) Limited (hereafter CENTLEC), a South African electricity utility company has been experiencing employee involvement in theft of its electricity coper cables. Since 2012, CENTLEC has been moaning about its profitability being eroded by theft of electricity coper cables. In other words, CENTLEC has suffered financially because of electricity copper cable theft yet, it would appear as though authorities at CENTLEC are unaware of effective methods to mitigate the problem. Since CENTLEC disciplinary case reports have consistently characterized some of the theft as ‘insider job’, it makes much sense to explore its employees’ perceptions and attitude towards electricity coper cable theft with a view to identifying and influencing this misbehaviour for the better precisely because, theory and empirical findings suggest that behaviour can be influenced and shaped when the cause of misbehaviour and or attitude is understood. This research was carried out to study the perceptions and attitudes of maintenance employees of CENTLEC towards theft in general and copper cable theft as well as the role of selected individual and organizational factors in this deviant and counterproductive behaviour. The results are quite revealing. Firstly, the CENTLEC environment appears to be conducive to employee theft. Also, some of the individual and organizational factors investigated do appear to influence both employee perception of theft in general and copper cable theft. These and other findings form the basis of the recommendations provided for mitigating the employee theft of copper cable as well as for further research.