An Interview with Professor Roshni Raveendhran

Q: You’ve done some fascinating research into the key influences that guide employee behavior in the workplace. What does that research tell us?

A: Employee behavior in the workplace can be influenced by things that broadly fall under two categories – formal controls and informal controls. Formal controls refer to anything that is formally instituted by the organization, such as workplace policies, monitoring systems, rules etc. These formal controls influence employee behaviors in the workplace since they outline clear guidelines and boundaries for how employees should behave at work and indicate that there will be consequences when these guidelines are not followed.