The relations of daily counterproductive workplace behavior with emotions, situational antecedents, and personality moderators: A diary study in Hong Kong.

In this diary study conducted in Hong Kong, we examined a theoretical model in which negative emotions serve as an explanatory mechanism through which daily stressors impact daily counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We further theorized that personality variables (negative affectivity, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness) would exert cross-level effects on the within-person relationships. Hierarchical linear modeling results based on a sample of 231 individuals and 5,583 observations across 25 days provide partial support for the mediating role of negative emotions in the within-person stressor–CWB relationships. Specifically, we found that negative emotions (a) partially mediated the within-person relation of perceived ambiguity with CWB directed at the organization, (b) fully mediated the relation of supervisor interpersonal injustice with CWB directed at individuals, and (c) fully mediated the relation of customer interpersonal injustice with CWB directed at the organization. High levels of trait negative affectivity were found to strengthen the within-person relation between daily supervisor interpersonal injustice and daily negative emotions. As expected, high levels of trait Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were found to weaken the within-person relations of daily negative emotions with daily CWB directed at the organization and individuals.

[1]  N. Bolger,et al.  Diary methods: capturing life as it is lived. , 2003, Annual review of psychology.

[2]  David A. Hofmann,et al.  Centering Decisions in Hierarchical Linear Models: Implications for Research in Organizations , 1998 .

[3]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  Relationships of Work Stressors with Aggression, Withdrawal, Theft and Substance Use: An Exploratory Study , 1992 .

[4]  Deborah E. Rupp,et al.  Customer (In)Justice and Emotional Labor: The Role of Perspective Taking, Anger, and Emotional Regulation† , 2008 .

[5]  Andrew G. Miner,et al.  Experience sampling mood and its correlates at work , 2005 .

[6]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[7]  P. Koopman,et al.  Linking the Big Five-Factors of personality to charismatic and transactional leadership; perceived dynamic work environment as a moderator , 2005 .

[8]  S. Parker,et al.  Future work design research and practice: Towards an elaborated model of work design , 2001 .

[9]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  Job stress, incivility, and counterproductive work behavior (CWB): the moderating role of negative affectivity , 2005 .

[10]  Zinta S. Byrne,et al.  The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[11]  Personality, emotional experience, and efforts to control emotions. , 2000 .

[12]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  The social stressors-counterproductive work behaviors link: are conflicts with supervisors and coworkers the same? , 2006, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[13]  Bernd Marcus,et al.  Antecedents of counterproductive behavior at work: a general perspective. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[14]  S. Lirtzman,et al.  Role Conflict and Ambiguity in Complex Organizations. , 1970 .

[15]  Brent A. Scott,et al.  The Interactive Effects of Personal Traits and Experienced States on Intraindividual Patterns of Citizenship Behavior , 2006 .

[16]  A. Isen,et al.  Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. , 1987 .

[17]  Paul E. Tesluk,et al.  Personality as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Fairness and Retaliation , 1999 .

[18]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Stress Fairness to Fare No Stress:: Managing Workplace Stress by Promoting Organizational Justice , 2004 .

[19]  Julie Fitness,et al.  Anger in the workplace: An emotion script approach to anger episodes between workers and their superiors, co-workers and subordinates , 2000 .

[20]  R. Bhagat,et al.  Organizational Stress, Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: Where Do We Go From Here? , 1992 .

[21]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  A model of work frustration–aggression , 1999 .

[22]  Ben Fletcher,et al.  Taking work home : A study of daily fluctuations in work stressors, effects on moods and impacts on marital partners , 1996 .

[23]  S. West,et al.  A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[24]  Daniel Cervone,et al.  Personality architecture: within-person structures and processes. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[25]  Ricky W. Griffin,et al.  ORGANIZATION-MOTIVATED AGGRESSION: A RESEARCH FRAMEWORK , 1996 .

[26]  Julian Barling,et al.  Understanding supervisor-targeted aggression: a within-person, between-jobs design. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[27]  H. Weiss,et al.  Affective Events Theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. , 1996 .

[28]  N. Turner,et al.  Predicting workplace aggression: a meta-analysis. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[29]  Alicia A. Grandey,et al.  The customer is not always right: customer aggression and emotion regulation of service employees , 2004 .

[30]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  The Stressor-Emotion Model of Counterproductive Work Behavior. , 2005 .

[31]  Bernd Marcus,et al.  PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS EXPLAINING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INTEGRITY TESTS AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOR: BIG FIVE, OR ONE IN ADDITION? , 2007 .

[32]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  The interactive effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness on job performance. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[33]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  An emotion-centered model of voluntary work behavior , 2002 .

[34]  Alicia A. Grandey,et al.  Affective States and Traits in the Workplace: Diary and Survey Data from Young Workers , 2002 .

[35]  D. Mackinnon,et al.  Multilevel Modeling of Individual and Group Level Mediated Effects , 2001, Multivariate behavioral research.

[36]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  Using the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale (JAWS) to investigate affective responses to work stressors. , 2000, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[37]  Y Shoda,et al.  Reconciling processing dynamics and personality dispositions. , 1998, Annual review of psychology.

[38]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS , 1991 .

[39]  D. Skarlicki,et al.  Exploring the role of emotions in injustice perceptions and retaliation. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[40]  D. Watson,et al.  Negative affectivity: the disposition to experience aversive emotional states. , 1984, Psychological bulletin.

[41]  Paul R. Sackett,et al.  INTEGRITY TESTING FOR PERSONNEL SELECTION: AN UPDATE , 1989 .

[42]  Richard W. Woodman,et al.  Effects of Perceived Organizational Factors on Role Stress-Job Attitude Relationships , 1988 .

[43]  Dov Zohar,et al.  Predicting burnout with a hassle-based measure of role demands , 1997 .

[44]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[45]  Mark J. Martinko,et al.  Toward an Integrative Theory of Counterproductive Workplace Behavior: A Causal Reasoning Perspective , 2002 .

[46]  J. Diefendorff,et al.  The relations of motivational traits with workplace deviance. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  R. Bennett,et al.  A TYPOLOGY OF DEVIANT WORKPLACE BEHAVIORS: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING STUDY , 1995 .

[48]  L. Cortina,et al.  Incivility in the workplace: incidence and impact. , 2001, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[49]  Deborah L. Kidder,et al.  The Good, the Bad, and the Misguided: How Managers Inadvertently Encourage Deviant Behaviors , 2006 .

[50]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) in response to job stressors and organizational justice: Some mediator and moderator tests for autonomy and emotions , 2001 .

[51]  James K. Harter,et al.  Interactive effects of personality and perceptions of the work situation on workplace deviance. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[52]  M. Mount,et al.  RELATIONSHIP OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIORS: THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF JOB SATISFACTION , 2006 .

[53]  Suzanne S. Masterson,et al.  A trickle-down model of organizational justice: relating employees' and customers' perceptions of and reactions to fairness. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[54]  S. Jackson,et al.  A meta-analysis and conceptual critique of research on role ambiguity and role conflict in work settings , 1985 .

[55]  Mark J. Martinko,et al.  Exploring the role of individual differences in the prediction of workplace aggression. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[56]  Shelly L. Gable,et al.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Behavioral Activation and Inhibition in Everyday Life , 2022 .

[57]  F. Schmidt,et al.  Comprehensive meta-analysis of integrity test validities: Findings and implications for personnel selection and theories of job performance. , 1993 .

[58]  L. Shanock,et al.  Organizational Justice in an Exchange Framework: Clarifying Organizational Justice Distinctions , 2006 .

[59]  William C. Pedersen,et al.  Displaced aggression is alive and well: a meta-analytic review. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[60]  V. Lim.  The IT way of loafing on the job: cyberloafing, neutralizing and organizational justice , 2002 .

[61]  Gregory M. Hurtz,et al.  Personality and job performance: the Big Five revisited. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[62]  Personality moderators of the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinates' resistance. , 2001 .

[63]  A. Stone,et al.  Coping with daily work problems. Contributions of problem content, appraisals, and person factors , 1993 .

[64]  Paul E. Tesluk,et al.  Do supportive organizations make for good corporate citizens , 2001 .

[65]  Christine M. Pearson,et al.  Tit for Tat? The Spiraling Effect of Incivility in the Workplace , 1999 .

[66]  R. Bennett,et al.  Development of a measure of workplace deviance. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[67]  D. Ones,et al.  Interpersonal deviance, organizational deviance, and their common correlates: a review and meta-analysis. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[68]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[69]  A. Brief,et al.  Organizational behavior: affect in the workplace. , 2002, Annual review of psychology.

[70]  Remus Ilies,et al.  Hostility, job attitudes, and workplace deviance: test of a multilevel model. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[71]  Steven P. Brown,et al.  Good cope, bad cope: adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies following a critical negative work event. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[72]  D. Rupp,et al.  When customers lash out: the effects of customer interactional injustice on emotional labor and the mediating role of discrete emotions. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[73]  R. Folger,et al.  RETALIATION IN THE WORKPLACE: THE ROLES OF DISTRIBUTIVE, PROCEDURAL, AND INTERACTIONAL JUSTICE , 1997 .

[74]  R. Larsen,et al.  Personality and susceptibility to positive and negative emotional states. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[75]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal? , 2006 .

[76]  A. Tellegen,et al.  Aggregation, acquiescence, and the assessment of trait affectivity , 2002 .

[77]  P. Shrout,et al.  Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: new procedures and recommendations. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[78]  Remus Ilies,et al.  Leader-member exchange and citizenship behaviors: a meta-analysis. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[79]  J. Colquitt.  On the dimensionality of organizational justice: a construct validation of a measure. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[80]  Karl Aquino,et al.  Justice constructs, negative affectivity, and employee deviance: a proposed model and empirical test , 1999 .

[81]  J. Salgado.  The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Counterproductive Behaviors , 2002 .

[82]  Kibeom Lee,et al.  Organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance: the role of affect and cognitions. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.