Counterproductive Behaviors at Work

The unifying theme of this chapter is a broad focus on the range of counterproductive behaviors by organization members, in contrast with the long tradition of specialized liter-atures focusing on individual behaviors or behavior domains (e.g., theft, absence). Our first theme is the dimensionality of counterproductive behavior, where we review the literature and find consistent patterns of intercorrelations among various counterproductive behav-iors, and suggest a hierarchical perspective with both a broad construct of counterproduc-tive behavior as well as more specific subconstructs. We also examine the relationship of counterproductive behavior to other facets of job performance, including task performance and citizenship behavior. Our second theme is an examination of antecedents of counter-productive behavior. We posit that there is no incompatibility between person-oriented and situation-oriented perspectives on antecedents of counterproductive behavior. We review large bodies of literature showing consistent relationships between individual difference variables and various counterproductive behaviors, and also review literature linking various categories of situational variables to counterproductive behaviors. We posit that common links of person and situation variables to various counterproductive behaviors sup-port taking a broad and inclusive perspective on these behaviors.