Counterproductive work behavior

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is employee behavior that goes against the legitimate interests of an organization. These behaviors can harm organizations or people in organizations including employees and clients, customers, or patients. It has been proposed that a person-by-environment interaction can be utilized to explain a variety of counterproductive behaviors. For instance, an employee who is high on trait anger (tendency to experience anger) is more likely to respond to a stressful incident at work (e.g., being treated rudely by a supervisor) with CWB. Some researchers use the CWB term to subsume related constructs that are distinct: Workplace deviance is behavior at work that violates norms for appropriate behavior. Retaliation consists of harmful behaviors done by employees to get back at someone who has treated them unfairly. Workplace revenge are behaviors by employees intended to hurt another person who has done something harmful to them. Workplace aggression consists of harmful acts that harm others in organizations. Several typologies of CWB exist. Using the term deviance (behavior that violates accepted norms), Robinson and Bennett created a four-class typology of CWBs, dividing them into the following dimensions: production deviance, involving behaviors like leaving early, intentionally working slowly, or taking long breaks; property deviance, involving sabotage of equipment, theft of property, and taking kickbacks; political deviance, involving showing favoritism, revenge, gossiping, or blaming others; personal aggression, involving harassment, verbal abuse, and endangerment A five dimension typology of CWB,. abuse against others production deviance sabotage theft withdrawal An 11-dimension typology of CWB theft of property destruction of property misuse of information misuse of time and resources unsafe behavior poor attendance poor quality of work alcohol use drug use inappropriate verbal action inappropriate physical action A two-dimensional model of CWBs distinguished by organizational versus person target has gained considerable acceptance.