A Literature review on work discipline

Introduction

Over the years, organizations have developed different mechanisms for providing employees
with a formal opportunity to improve unacceptable performance. The first structured
introduction of discipline into organizations was established in the United States of America
in the 1930s in response to the trade unions’ request eliminating summary terminations. It’s
in this place a progressive system of punishment was developed. It was envisaged that this
process would provide a worker with protection against job loss (Huberman, 2009). The
concept of discipline in organizational context has been defined effectively by Kazdin's as,
Punishment is the presentation of an aversive event or the removal of a positive event
following a response which decreases the frequency of that response" [1975, pp. 33-34]. A
relationship or contingency exists between a response and the aversive consequences or
stimuli (Bandura, 1973). In simple terms, the measure is the product that is used when certain
behaviors are observed. The product is meant to be unpleasant to discourage recurrence.

Some experts express opinions about the definition of labour discipline are as follows:
Discipline is management action to enforce the standards organization.[9]. This means that
the discipline of work can be interpreted as the implementation of management guidelines to
strengthen the organization. Discipline of work is a tool used by managers to communicate
with employees so that they are willing to change a behaviour as an attempt to increase one's
awareness and willingness to comply with all company regulations and norms prevailing
social.

PURPOSEOF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of disciplinary management on
employee performance.

OBJECTIVESOF THE STUDY

1. To know the effects of code of discipline on performance

2. To know the effect of Work Discipline on Organizational Commitment.

Literature Review

According to Adams (2003), Organization rules and regulation are among the strategies
designed to instill good conduct of employess just like students in a school. This implies self
-control, orderliness, good behavior and obedience to organization authority

Kabandize (2004) carried out a study on employees control through rules and regulations set
by individual organizations in Uganda and observed that, rules and regulations are enforced
through management, disciplinary committees, supervisors and every one involvement in the
process.

According to Matsoga (2003), during his study on discipline in Organizations of

Botswana, he discovered the wide spread violence and misbehavior that existed in many
organizations. This lack of discipline, which interfered with the normal organization working
process, manifested itself in various ways including absenteeism, vandalism, alcohol
consumption and substance abuse, truancy, inability or unwillingness to do delegated work
by the supervisor. Theft was also identified as a common activity among staffs. However
these researchers concentrated on discipline in organizations without studying its effects on
employees’ performance, which called for this study.

Mullins (2005), opinionates that disciplinary action, such as an employee reprimands, can be
a win-win if the employee needs the message. If the employee does not, the company and the
manager have effectively protected their interests and the interests of employees who are
performing satisfactorily. The goal is to prevent negative impact on performing employees
whose morale is affected by the employee who is not doing his or her job. As a
communication tool with employees, an employee reprimand must be fair. Employers need to
make certain that they are using the tool appropriately and that certain conditions exist for its
effective and successful use. Employee job description must exist, spelling out the required
area of performance for which the employee is receiving the reprimand. If the problem
performance occurring in a non-essential job functions, this needs consideration or a written
job description.

It takes little persuasion on a theoretical level to convince a business leader, those employees
who are more committed or involved, work harder and smarter and will be better for the
company than those who turn up and do merely what they are obliged to do, Gallup Research
Report (2003). The Gallup Research Report (2003) estimated that inactively disciplined
workers are 10 times more likely to say they will leave their organizations within a year than
involved staff. Their 2003 survey in the US and Canada of 1000 workers found that only a
quarter were actively engaged in their work with a huge group of between 56% and 60% not
engaged and 17% actively disengaged. The research estimates that actively disengaged
(uncommitted) and undisciplined workers cost US businesses between $270 and $343 billion
a year due to low productivity

Mutunga, (2009) did a research on the factors that contribute to the level of employee
performance in the airline industry in Kenya. It was concluded that several factors contribute
to employee performance but, discipline, salary and benefits was the largest contributor.

Supervisors and Managers need to be trained on when and how discipline should be used(
Crane , 2007) It is necessary to provide training on counseling skills as these will be used
while dealing with problem employees; Centralization of discipline. Centralized means that
the discipline decision should be uniform throughout the organization. The greater the
uniformity, higher will be the effectiveness of the discipline procedure and impersonal
discipline (Whiford, 2006)

The rules and regulations management establishes in the workplaces are necessary so
management remains in compliance with the law. The rules and regulations enable the
employees to abide to the rules and regulations set and this enables to improve the
performance of an organization (Hassan, 2005) and grievance procedures.
the introduction of unfair dismissal and discrimination legislation and the consequent threat
of defending employment tribunal applications were argued to have provided employers with
a significant impetus to adopt more formal processes though the effective employee rules and
regulations (Edwards et al., 2004).

According to the findings of Orlitzky et al (2003), they indicate that the employee rules and
regulations has a positive impact on employeeperformance and that this is strongest in the
UK context.

Griffin and Mahon (1997) supported the theory of the positive code of ethics and financial
performance relationship with findings from their research. They demonstrated this by
studying and classifying the results of 62 studies, spanning 25 years of research, into three
categories; positive, negative and no effect/inconclusive. They identified 33 results that found
a positive relationship, 20 with negative results and 9 which found no relationship or were
inconclusive.With respect to the relationship between code of ethics and financial
performance, Curtis C. (1998) found that companies publicly committing to follow an ethics
code as an internal control strategy achieved significantly higher performance measured in
both financial and non-financial terms. Similarly, Berrone et al (2005) in their working paper
―Corporate Ethical Identity as a determinant of Firm Performance: A Test of the Mediating
Role of Stakeholder Satisfaction‖ indicate that firms with a strong ethical identity achieve
greater degree of stakeholder satisfaction, which in turn, positively influence the firm‘s
financial performance.

In an exploratory study using the internal dynamics of disciplinary process made by

Rollinson, Handley, Hook and Foot (2007) about the disciplinary experience and its effects
on Behavior, it was tentatively concluded that half of those formally disciplined will
internalize the rules and the other half have the inclinations of breaking the rules. These
behaviors were said to be caused by first; ‘conditioning by punishment’ paradigm, where
punishment stimuli is ineffective in influencing the behavior. The second cause is attributed
to the managerial styles that have created impressions of motives of retaliation on the
disciplined person.

The study conducted by revealed Patrik, 2015 a high correlation coefficient between
workplace discipline and organizational productivity in the organisations that were covered in
the south region of Nigeria. This shows that workplace disciplines which are often neglected
by some management are critical for the success of any going concern.

According to Franklin and Pagan (2006) culture is an influential factor in making disciplinary
decisions.

Research methodology

The research paper being descriptive in nature has the inputs from secondary data using
referred journals, research studies, magazines, newspaper articles, Government statistics,
websites and internet.
Conclusion

A lot of researches have been done in this area. The authors also concluded that work
discipline has direct impact on employee performance, organizational performance and
employee productivity. Workplace discipline which is often neglected by some management
is critical for the success of any going concern. It is therefore recommended that management
of organisations should demonstrate high level discipline to attract a reciprocal disciplinary
behaviour from all employees. Supervisors and leaders of organization are also tasked to
show committed discipline so as to achieve unalloyed loyalty from followership at work.
Employees in their quest to get job satisfaction should be encouraged to show discipline that
traverses the entire length and breadth of the given organisations. These are expected to earn
for companies the needed level of productivity.

References

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