ABSTRACT
Lazlo’s tale of workplace deviance captures the dominant image of sabotage, the caricature of the “‘mad saboteur’ who, overwhelmed by the trials and tribulations of everyday organizational life, explodes in a selfindulgent moment of destruction” (Jermier, 1988, p. 128). This view permeates popular accounts of sabotage in the workplace, and it is common to academic treatments as well. The image of the mad saboteur presents a particular characterization of the causes, emotions, goals, and forms of sabotage, categories that we emphasize in this chapter. Its prototypic features are employee mistreatment as a fundamental cause, anger or outrage as the emotional reaction, and a motive that is primarily expressive, whether it is to vent anger or to exact revenge. The type of sabotage
that results from these conditions is a single, extreme act of deviance that demands attention.
