57

Workplace deviant behavior has received increasing attention in many countries all over the world. This critical, long-standing issue with enormous social and economic losses to organizations requires additional research, particularly in the public sector which is often one of the largest employers in many countries in Scandinavia, Western Europe, and North America. Drawing from Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study proposes to view workplace deviance as an outcome of a process of resource preservation that individuals thoughtfully engage in as a defensive move to protect against perceived threats on valued resources. Specifically, this study explored significant relationships between depletion of three personal resources (organizational justice, sense of mastery, and employees’ sense of powerlessness) and three dimensions of workplace deviance (property, production, and political deviance). A self-report questionnaire was used to collect the required data from public sector employees in France. Participants with different hierarchical positions have been selected randomly from several public sector organizations. Results supported three hypotheses: Organizational justice (distributive and procedural) has a negative correlation with workplace deviance; sense of mastery has a negative correlation with workplace deviance; and, powerlessness has a positive correlation with workplace deviance. The study implications provide theoretical and practical insights to better interpret distributive and procedural justice, sense of mastery, and power, particularly in public sector organizations to prevent and control workplace deviant behavior.