Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to the Problem of Employee Theft in the Retail Industry

Employee theft has been an encumbrance on the retail industry. It has been the biggest component of all inventory shrinkage in the retail industry. Retailers in the United States have lost approximately 40 billion dollars yearly to inventory shrinkage. Contrary to most past research in this area, the conceptualization of employee theft in the current study was as a behavior-based problem. The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative research was to examine the perceptions of retail workers about employee theft in the retail industry. The following components of the theory of planned behavior were used to predict one's intention to commit employee theft: attitude toward employee theft, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, organizational commitment, and moral norms. The data were collected from one hundred and thirty retail employees through various retail stores in the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia. Regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The predictor variables were attitude toward employee theft, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, organizational commitment, and moral norms. The criterion variable was intention to commit employee theft. The findings showed that attitudes toward employee theft and organizational commitment were the two strongest predictors of the intention to commit employee theft. Their Pearson and Spearman correlations with the intention to commit employee theft were respectively r = -.77, p < .001; rs = -.70, p < .001 and r = -.76, p < .001; r s = -.71, p < .001. The findings may help retailers better understand the causes of employee theft and institute appropriate policies and strategies to mitigate employee theft loss in the retail industry. Programs that portray employee theft as an adverse behavior and promote organizational commitment may be used to reduce employee theft. Considering the similarity of employee theft and shoplifting, it is recommended to engage the problem of employee theft and shoplifting concurrently in future research. Thus, future research would target 80% of the sources of inventory shrinkage in the retail industry rather than less than 50% of the problem. Additionally, it is recommended to replicate the findings utilizing a larger sample from multiple geographical regions.