ABSTRACT
Theft by employees can lead to business failures, particularly during a recession, lost employee benefits, defaulted loans, diminished trust and cooperation among workers, and a lack of faith in the business sector. Any discussion of the etiology of human behavior can be frustrating because there are so many varied explanations. Some of the many different explanations for employee theft range from the rotten apple theory to the “gin, girls and gambling” hypothesis offered by Peterson. Mars analyzed the worker’s social environment by using Douglas’s concepts of a grid and strength of group. Moore proposes a concept of human nature that incorporates existence of a natural morality. Recent discussions of employee theft based on research in a variety of settings view it as an attempt to resolve various workplace inequities that are generally expressed in terms of job dissatisfaction. Employees can make a variety of responses to inequity that can be viewed from a mild reaction to a very dramatic response.
