Anti-Citizenship Behavior, Employee Deviant Behavior, Organizational
Misbehavior, Dysfunctional Organizational Behavior, and Counterproductive Work
Behavior: A Review, Synthesis and Research Suggestions
Mel E. Schnake, D.B.A.
Department of Management
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698
(229) 245-3822
mschnake@valdosta.edu
Anti-Citizenship Behavior, Employee Deviant Behavior, Organizational
Misbehavior, Dysfunctional Organizational Behavior, and Counterproductive Work
Behavior: A Review, Synthesis and Research Suggestions
Abstract
Several different definitions and categorizations of dysfunctional behavior within
organizations have been identified in the literature. Most of these are broad and include
widely different types of dysfunctional behavior within a single category. This paper
proposes a three-dimensional model of dysfunctional behavior, focusing on the
organization and/or its members of targets of these behaviors. A more precise
categorization scheme may lead to more accurate measures of these behaviors and
serve to focus future research. Important measurement issues are also discussed.
Anti-Citizenship Behavior, Employee Deviant Behavior, Organizational
Misbehavior, Dysfunctional Organizational Behavior, and Counterproductive Work
Behavior: A Review, Synthesis and Research Suggestions
Organizational science scholars have generally focused their theory and
research on various categories of positive employee behavior, such as employee
motivation and performance, organizational citizenship behavior, pro-social
organizational behavior, and spontaneous performance. While various forms of negative
employee behavior exist in organizations, they have received less theoretical and
empirical attention, although recently this appears to be changing. Of course, some
forms of what might be considered negative employee behavior have been studied in
detail. These would include such behaviors as absenteeism, tardiness, turnover,
unethical behavior and theft. The types of negative behavior which have not received
much research attention include those which are often more subtle such as sabotage,
vandalism, wasting organizational resources, passive aggression, and the like.
Murphy
(1993) estimates that such negative employee behaviors cost U.S. businesses between
$6 and $200 billion annually. Harper (1990) found that between 33 and 75 percent of all
employees have engaged in some form of negative organizational behavior, including
theft, sabotage, and vandalism. Clearly, whatever the term chosen for these behaviors,
negative employee behaviors are not uncommon and may take a variety of forms. A
single classification scheme which covers them all may prove to be unwieldy. Further, a
single model may not be appropriate for all forms of negative employee behavior
because of different sets of antecedents and outcomes. However, some form of
synthesis at this stage in the research seems appropriate.
The purpose of this paper is to review the existing theory and empirical evidence
on the various types of negative employee behaviors which have been identified to date,
synthesize these ideas to provide a coherent framework to guide future research,
consider methodological issues inherent in studying these types of behaviors, and
provide suggestions for future research in this area.
Types of Negative Employee Behaviors
Robinson and Bennett (2001, p. 556) define employee deviance as “voluntary
behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in so doing threatens the wellbeing of an organization, its members, or both.” They distinguish between employee
deviance and unethical behavior in that deviance focuses on behaviors which violate
organizational norms, while unethical behavior focuses on behaviors which violate
societal values and laws. However, they note that a behavior could be both deviant and
unethical. Robinson and Bennett (2001) developed a two-dimensional typology (minor
vs. serious and interpersonal vs. organizational) of deviant workplace behaviors. Thus,
workplace deviance falls into one of four categories: production deviance (minor
organizational deviance including leaving early, taking excessive breaks, wasting
resources, intentionally working slowly), property deviance (serious organizational
deviance including sabotaging equipment, lying about hours worked, stealing from
organization), political deviance (minor interpersonal deviance including gossiping about
co-workers, blaming co-workers), and personal aggression (serious interpersonal
deviance including verbal abuse, endangering co-workers). However, this scheme
appears to ignore deviant or dysfunctional behaviors directed at organizational outsiders,
such as customers. Yet, the list of specific behaviors which Robinson and Bennett
(2001) used to develop their taxonomy clearly includes such behaviors (e.g., an
employee verbally abusing customers, an employee physically abusing a customer, an
employee stealing a customer’s possessions).
Giacalone and Greenberg (1997) define antisocial behavior as behavior that
causes harm or is intended to cause harm to an organization, its employees, or its
stakeholders. Examples of antisocial behavior include arson, blackmail, bribery,
discrimination, espionage, extortion, fraud, interpersonal violence, kickbacks, lying,
sabotage, theft, and violations of confidentiality. This definition incorporates behaviors
aimed at both organizational insiders and outsiders, as well as behaviors which cause
harm to individuals and the organization.
Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly and Collins (1998, p. 67) define dysfunctional
organizational behavior as “motivated behavior by an employee or group of employees
that has negative consequences for an individual within the organization, a group of
individuals within the organization, and/or the organization itself.” They point out that
distinguishes their conceptualizations from others such as antisocial behavior and
workplace deviance is intentionality. That is, the actor must intend that the act be
harmful to an individual or group within the organization and/or the organization itself.
This framework permits the same behavior to be functional or dysfunctional, depending
on intent. Their framework results in two general categories: whether the behavior
directly harms individuals/groups (i.e., human welfare), or whether it harms the
organization. It is clear that many dysfunctional behaviors may ultimately harm both
individuals and the organization; however, the emphasis in this classification scheme is
on the direct costs. Drug abuse on the job, for example, harms both the individual
employee and the organization, but it is the individual employee who incurs the greatest
and most direct harm. Dysfunctional behaviors which harm individuals or groups is then
further subdivided into two categories: behaviors that harm others, and behaviors that
harm oneself. Examples of the former category include sexual harassment and physical
violence, and examples of the latter category include drug abuse, unsafe work practices
and suicide. Behaviors which harm the organization are also subdivided into: behaviors
that have specific costs (such as inappropriate absenteeism, theft, destruction of
company property) and behaviors that have general costs (such as dysfunctional
political behaviors, dysfunctional impression management behaviors, and intentional
sub-optimal performance). Behaviors which harm organizational outsiders are ignored
in this framework. This is a very broad framework, perhaps too broad to guide research.
Further, dividing lines between these broad categories are blurred. For example, some
behaviors, such as unsafe work practices, may fall into more than one category.
Finally, the framework results in imprecise categorizations such that smoking and
suicide are included in a category with behaviors intended to harm the organization or its
members.
Spector and Fox (in press) note the parallels between counterproductive work
behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and create a model
based on work place emotions to partially explain both types of voluntary behavior.
CWB is defined as behavior intended to hurt the organization or its employees. OCB is
voluntary, extra-role behavior, aimed at individuals or the organization, which benefits
the organization (Organ, 1988). CWB is a broad category including such behaviors as
avoiding tasks, verbal hostility, physical aggression, sabotage, theft, and intentionally
doing tasks incorrectly. Spector and Fox (in press) present a model which suggests that
positive emotions (e.g., positive mood) result in positive voluntary behaviors such as
OCB, while negative emotions (i.e., anger, frustration) result in negative voluntary
behaviors such as CWB. This approach ignores behaviors which harm organizational
outsiders.
Vardi and Wiener (1996, p. 151) define organizational misbehavior (OMB) as
“any intentional action by members of organizations that violates core organizational
and/or societal norms. They distinguish between three types of OMB: Type S which is
misbehavior which is intended to benefit oneself, Type O which is misbehavior intended
to benefit the organization, and Type D which is misbehavior intended to inflict damage.
Similar to Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly and Collins (1998), employee intent is an important part
of this definition. However, behaviors which are consistent with organizational values
but inconsistent with societal values (e.g., lying to customers) are considered OMB, as
are behaviors consistent with societal values but inconsistent with organizational values
(e.g., whistle-blowing). This approach includes most types of harmful behaviors; both
those that harm organizational insiders and outsiders as well as those which harm
individuals and those that harm the organization.
Other terms describing similar negative employee behaviors include
organizational aggression (Spector, 1978; Neuman & Baron, 1998), retaliation (Skarlicki
& Folger, 1997) and revenge (Bies, Tripp & Kramer, 1997), workplace incivility
(Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Table 1 provides a summary of definitions for these
various types of negative behaviors.
Table 1
Definitions
Robinson & Bennett, 1995
Employee Deviance
Voluntary behavior that violates
significant organizational norms
and in so doing threatens the
well-being of an organization,
its members, or both.
Giacalone & Greenberg, 1997
Antisocial Behavior
Negative behaviors in organizations which are harmful or have
the potential to cause harm to
individuals and/or the property
of an organization.
Vardi & Wiener, 1996
Organizational Misbehavior
Any intentional action by members
of organizations that violates core
organizational and/or societal
norms.
Spector & Fox, in press
Counterproductive Work Behavior Behavior intended to hurt the
organization or other members of
the organization.
Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly,
& Collins, 1998
Dysfunction Work Behavior
Motivated behavior by an
employee or group of employees
that has negative consequences for
an individual within the organiza-
tion, a group of individuals within
the organization, and/or the organization itself.
Spector, 1978
Organization Aggression
Skarlicki & Folger, 1997
Retaliation
Bies, Tripp & Kramer, 1997
Revenge
Puffer, 1987
Noncompliant Behavior
Andersson & Pearson, 1999
Workplace Incivility
Breaking rules or norms.
Low intensity deviant behavior
with ambiguous intent to
harm the target. (Behavior
characterized by rudeness
and disregard for others.
______________________________________________________________________________________
These definitions are all relatively broad and include most deviant or negative
behaviors from gossip or withholding effort to verbal abuse and sabotaging
organizational property. Both legal and illegal behaviors are included in most of these
definitions, as are behaviors which violate organizational norms or policies, and those
which do not violate organizational policies, but inflict harm on others within the
organization. Behaviors aimed at various targets, such as organizational members and
organizational outsiders are also included in many of these definitions. What is needed
is a framework which categorizes these various forms of negative behaviors so that
research efforts can be more clearly focused.
Antecedents of Dysfunctional Behaviors
Few studies address antecedents of dysfunctional behaviors, perhaps in part due
to the lack of clarity of the construct itself. Further, studies which have examined
antecedents have generally focused on a limited range of these behaviors.
In a study examining both prosocial and noncompliant behavior, Puffer (1987)
found noncompliant behavior to be inversely related to need for achievement and
confidence in management Noncompliant behavior was a relatively broad construct
including being late and taking excessive breaks, complaining about the company or
coworkers, violating rules, making unrealistic promised to customers, and failing to do
one’s fair share. These behaviors include those which harm the organization and
individuals within the organization, as well as those external to the organization. Thus,
this one measure of noncompliant behavior extends across several categories of
dysfunctional behavior developed by other authors.
Spector, and Fox (in press) develop a conceptual argument identifying negative
emotion as an antecedent to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). CWB is behavior
intended to hurt the organization or its employees, and therefore excludes behaviors
which harm organizational outsiders. Spector and Fox (in press) argue that an
individual’s appraisal of a situation is influenced by personality traits such as trait anger,
anxiety, locus of control and delinquency and his/her emotional state. Emotional state
results in a readiness to engage in CWB; individual differences and
environmental/situational factors also influence actual behavior. In other words,
negative emotion makes CWB more likely, however, whether it actually occurs also
depends on situational circumstances (e.g., opportunity).
Kidwell and Bennett (2001) examined several organizational contextual
antecedents of employee job neglect. Job neglect was operationalized as various forms
of shirking or withholding effort, including daydreaming, attending to personal business
on company time, putting forth less effort than the employee knew he or she could,
taking longer breaks than allowed and calling in sick when not sick. They found
employee perceived job neglect to be negatively related to group cohesion, job
satisfaction, organizational, commitment, supervisor consideration, and altruism within
the group. It is important to note that this measure of job neglect emphasized behaviors
which harm primarily the organization.
Construct Clarity
One step toward achieving construct clarity is to distinguish between behaviors
which occur within the organization (i.e., those which harm the organization or its
members), and those which affect organizational outsiders.
Robinson and Bennett (2001) provide a starting point for a categorization
scheme. Using two broad categories, whether the behavior violates society’s norms,
and whether the behavior violates organizational norms, creates four relatively general
categories. Behaviors which are compatible with both social norms and organizational
norms are clearly productive and positive behaviors, and would include both in-role job
performance and extra-role performance (i.e., organizational citizenship behaviors).
Behaviors which violate social norms but which are compatible with organizational
norms would include both illegal and unethical behaviors viewed inappropriate by
society, but somehow condoned or even encourage by the organization. Behaviors,
such as over-charging customers, shipping defective products, or sexual harassment or
discrimination may become part of an organization’s culture and be subtly encouraged.
Behaviors which are compatible with social norms, but which violate organizational
norms are dysfunctional only within the organization. Examples of such behaviors
include passive aggression actions such as withholding effort, and whistle-blowing.
Behaviors which are incompatible with both social norms and organizational norms are
generally extreme and blatantly illegal actions such as theft and even murder in the
workplace.
Many of these dysfunctional behaviors may be harmful to the organization, while
others harm individuals. Thus, a third dimension, the target of the act, is required to
more fully delineate between various behaviors. Table 2 illustrates this 2 x 2 x 2
classification scheme. Further, many of the behaviors in each of these four categories
may be aimed at organizational insiders or organizational outsiders. Thus, separate
models may be developed for organizational members versus organizational outsiders.
The model proposed here focuses on the organization and individual members or
insiders.
Table 3
3D Model of Dysfunctional
Behavior Within Organizations
The bottom two boxes at the right in Table 3 which have received the least
research attention. Behaviors which are incompatible with both social norms and
organizational norms targeted at individuals include theft of personal property, character
assassination, spreading rumors or gossip, and verbal or physical assault. Behaviors
incompatible with both social norms and organizational norms targeted at an
organization include theft or misuse of organizational property, sabotage, starting
negative rumors about the company, following organizational rules to the letter in order
to intentionally slow down or harm the work process, intentionally making errors, and
coming to work late or leaving work early.
Discussion
This paper proposes a three-dimensional categorization scheme or model of
dysfunctional behavior within organizations, focusing on the organization and its
individual members as targets of the behavior. It is hoped that a more precise model of
dysfunctional behavior in organizations will focus research efforts and improve
measurement. Studies attempting to measure relatively broad categories of behaviors,
(for example including behaviors aimed at the organization, individual employees and
customers in the same category) may result in imprecise measures of these
phenomena.
These categories might be more precisely defined by incorporating the intent of
the actor. Although difficult to assess, the actor’s motive in committing the dysfunctional
behavior may lead to a deeper understanding of the act. For example, taking excessive
breaks motivated by a desire to harm the organization is a different act than taking
excessive breaks due to a physical problem or stress.
While it is hoped that a more precise model of dysfunctional behavior in
organizations will lead to more precise measurement, several measurement issues must
be addressed. The most basic issue is who rates these behaviors; immediate
supervisors, the actors themselves, or some other observer. Some of these behaviors
may be difficult to observe, however, there are obvious problems associated with selfratings of these kinds of behaviors. Another possibility is a “policy capturing” approach
where respondents are presented with a scenario describing conditions in the work
place and then are asked to rate the likelihood of some hypothetical employee engaging
in several acts (the dysfunctional behaviors).
Much work remains to be done in this area of organizational research. However,
the first step is to clean up the construct. We must more clearly define its boundaries
and subcategories, and then develop more precise measures of these phenomena.
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