Counterproductive work behavior
Counterproductive behavior can be defined as employee behavior that goes against the goals of an organization.[1] These behaviors can be intentional or unintentional and result from a wide range of underlying causes and motivations. It has been proposed that a person-by-environment interaction can be utilized to explain a variety of counter-productive behaviors (Fox and Spector, 1999). For instance, an employee who steals from the company may do so because of lax supervision (environment) and underlying psychopathology (person) that work in concert to result in the counterproductive behavior.
The forms of counterproductive behavior with the most empirical examination are ineffective job performance, absenteeism, job turnover, theft,[2] and accidents. Less common but potentially more detrimental forms of counterproductive behavior have also been investigated including theft, violence, substance use, and sexual harassment.
Within organizations, ineffective job performance is often difficult to detect, diagnose the cause of, prevent, or resolve. This is because most performance measurement systems only assess the impact of various employee behaviors rather than the behaviors themselves. Performance data is the most common method of evaluating ineffective job performance and often includes personnel data, production data, subjective evaluations, and electronic performance monitoring. The causes of ineffective job performance have been evaluated from different theoretical approaches including: attribution theory that links performance to employee characteristics, selection errors that evaluate mistakes of hiring the wrong employees, and inadequate socialization/training that evaluate the social environment and structured training employees receive. Employers need to be careful to avoid the fundamental attribution error whereby performance is linked to characteristics of the employee rather than the environment.
Abseenteeism is typically measured by time lost measures and frequency measures. It is weakly linked to affective predictors such as job satisfaction and commitment. Research has found that women are more likely to be absent than men, and that the absence control policies and culture of an organization will predict absenteeism.
Research on employee turnover has attempted to understand the causes of individual decisions to leave an organization. It has been found that lower performance, lack of reward contingencies for performance, and better external job opportunities.
Accidents are a serious and costly form of counterproductive behavior. Most research on this topic has attempted to evaluate characteristics of the work-place environment that lead to accidents and determination of ways to avoid accidents. There has also been some research on the characteristics of accident-prone employees has found they are typically younger, more distractible, and less socially adjusted than other employees.