The scoring of the M.O.I. Inventory is both intuitive and quite easy. While indicators are an important component of analyzing theft and fraud concerns, those indicators cannot be used to evaluate propensity toward deviance, since they are post-theft matters. The two elements that will help you to determine if a person is at risk of deviance are motive and opportunity.
Since motive can only be gleaned from a more intimate knowledge of the subject, they are less valuable for assessing customer risk, while opportunity becomes paramount. For staff and regular suppliers or delivery persons, understanding motive can play a critical role.
As we have discussed elsewhere, there needs to be a critical mass, or tipping point, where someone will commit theft or fraud. But how do you know where that tipping point is?
Aside from direct motive, there also is situational and intrinsic motive that can negatively impact the higher score of an otherwise theft-prone individual. These types of motive often are societal.
An upbringing that places an extreme premium on integrity will negate much of the need-based motive and high opportunity. A religious or devout community also will compel adherence to societal standards. Even a superstition may serve as a negative motive. The term, “negative” does not have the usual connotation of being inferior, but that the motive to steal is negatively affected, which is good for the business.
Many of the people I have interviewed for theft in pharmacies stole other ego items like colognes and grooming merchandise, but did not steal the more expensive prescriptions because, as several stated, “if I steal the prescription, it may not work.”
Some of the other situational negative motives include loyalty to the company, how the employee sees their actions impacting on the wellbeing of others (higher prices, etc.), the deviant behaviour being a bad example to their children and worry about inadvertently catching up other employees in their actions, if caught.
Because of the powerful nature of these reverse motives, we have assigned a value of 1 to 20, with twenty being the strongest level of motive.
For other motives and opportunities, we have assigned values of 1 to 5, 1 to 10 or 1 to 20, depending on the relative strength of those components. The scale is found at the bottom of each identified opportunity or motive.
For each motive and opportunity applicable to your specific employee, choose a level based on “1” being weakest and “5,” “10” or “20” being strongest.
Add the two regular motive and opportunity items together to get a subtotal, then Subtract the reverse motive number. Often, you may have a negative total.
The higher the score, the more likely the employee may be tempted to deviate. These scores will vary, depending on the time and circumstances of the employee’s life.
Using the critical mass assumption, a subtotal score exceeding the average of the opportunity item and motive item should draw attention to the potential for theft or fraud to occur in that situation. If the motive item has a top score of 10 and the opportunity item has a top score of 20, critical mass will occur around 15, or half of the total of the two.
Similarly, subtract the score in the reverse motive from the total, to get a more accurate reflection of propensity to deviate. However, critical mass will occur here where the new overall total is the subtotal of the first two minus one third of the reverse score. Here, critical mass will occur where the negative motive score is 7 and the subtotal is 15 or higher.