Literary Analysis

Organizational Behaviour

Counterproductive Work Behaviour

Syed Muhammad Mustafa 19487

Khaliq Us Zaman Khan
Haider Jamal 22160
 LITERARY ANALYSIS

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 LITERARY ANALYSIS

CONTENTS
What is Counterproductuve work behaviour........................................................................................2
Relation of Personality Traits and Counterproductive Work behaviour................................................2
Situational Factors and Counterproductive Work Behaviour................................................................3
Task Variety and Counterproductive Work Behaviour..........................................................................4
Cyber bullying Relation with Counterproductive work behavior...........................................................4
Intro:..................................................................................................................................................4
Characteristics:..................................................................................................................................4
Relationship with counter productive work behavior:......................................................................4
Limitations:........................................................................................................................................4
Psychopathy..........................................................................................................................................5
Relation with Counterproductive work behavior:.............................................................................5
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................5
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................5
Burnout.................................................................................................................................................5
Relationship with CWB:.....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion:........................................................................................................................................6
Impact of Yoga on CWB:........................................................................................................................6
Job Satisfaction and Counterproductive Work behavior.......................................................................7
Organizational injustice:........................................................................................................................7
Personality traits:..................................................................................................................................7
Work-family conflict:.............................................................................................................................8
Stress:....................................................................................................................................................8
Internal Control:....................................................................................................................................9
SOLUTION:.............................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography.........................................................................................................................................10

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 LITERARY ANALYSIS

WHAT IS COUNTERPRODUCTUVE WORK BEHAVIOUR

A counterproductive work behaviour, or CWB, is any employee behavior that undermines the
goals and interests of a business. Counterproductive work behaviors come in many different
forms, but can include tardiness, theft, fraud, sexual harassment, workplace bullying,
absenteeism, substance abuse, workplace aggression, or sabotage. These types of behavior
not only impact the quality of work produced by the employee engaging in CWBs but also
can negatively affect the productivity of other employees in the company and create
undesirable risks for the employer.

As a general rule, organizations should try to enlist people who are less inclined to take part
in any counterproductive work practices, and some pre-business tests can assist with
evaluating the probability that an individual is more inclined to CWBs. In particular, conduct
tests and respectability/trustworthiness tests can assist businesses with moderating danger
identified with CWBs by estimating uprightness, rule adherence, perspectives towards
burglary, and in general unwavering quality.

RELATION OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND

COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOUR.
There is significant evidence to conclude that there is a connection between personality traits
and counterproductive work behaviour. A link between Big Five personality model can be
used to examine the link between personality and counterproductive work behaviour. One of
the traits in BFI is Openness. People high on this trait tend to have broad range of interests
and are welcoming to the change, while on the other hand people low on this trait dislike
change in their lifestyle and do not usually enjoy new experiences. When the link of this trait
was examined in relation with counterproductive work behaviour, it was surprisingly found
out that people high on this trait tend to show more counterproductive behaviours rather than
those who are low in this trait.
The main reason which was deduced from the observation was that people high on this trait
like change and they might get bored of doing the same job and they then tend to show
counterproductive work behaviour. So, to conclude we can say that people who are high on
the trait of openness show more counterproductive work behaviour. Another trait of BFI is
Conscientiousness, and people high on this trait are very goal oriented and vice versa for
people low on this trait. The study concluded that people low on this trait show greater
counterproductive work behaviour as they are not very goal oriented and are not very
competitive. When they get exhausted, they get involved in counterproductive practices like
wasting time and pushing deadlines. Another trait of BFI is extraversion and people high on
this trait tend to socialize a lot. There is no concrete evidence given in the study to conclude
that a relation exists between this trait and counterproductive work behaviour. One of the
most important traits is Agreeableness and the person dominated by this trait is expected to
show pro-social behaviours. his personality dimension includes attributes such as
trust, altruism, kindness and affection. People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more
cooperative while those low in this trait tend to be more competitive and sometimes even
manipulative. The research concludes that people low on this trait tend to show more
counterproductive behaviour as they are not very much concerned to show integrity and
honesty within the organization they are working. In conclusion we can say that people low

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on this trait are very likely to show Counterproductive work behaviour. Last but not the least
is Neuroticism. Neuroticism is a trait characterized by sadness, moodiness, and emotional
instability. Individuals who are high in this trait tend to experience mood swings, anxiety,
irritability, and sadness. People high on this trait are very likely to show counterproductive
behaviours like not cooperating with the team or procrastination when they are not
emotionally stable or anxiety.[ CITATION Jes13 \l 2057 ][ CITATION Int13 \l 2057 ]

SITUATIONAL FACTORS AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK

BEHAVIOUR
Apart from being influenced by the personality traits, counterproductive work behaviour is not
always observed because of them. Situational factors also play a very important role in predicting
work behaviours of the people. For example if a person is intrinsically motivated but is scolded by
their respective boss, they may show counterproductivity in their work just because they are not
happy. A typical example given is that of an employee whose car malfunctions while he was coming
to office and that is why he got late. Being late is considered to be a counterproductive work
behaviour but the point to be noted is that this particular employee is not usually late or it is not
part of his personality, rather he just got late because of the situational occurrence. So people
indulge in counterproductive behaviours unwillingly just because of situational factors.

Both individual traits and situational factors have been connected to CWB. For instance,
evidence suggests that personality traits affect how people interpret and react to the
situationsthey face, and thereby, can influence the display of deviant behaviours. [ CITATION
Dal05 \l 2057 ]

The study shows that there are several common counterproductive work behaviours caused by
situational factors. Employees start showing withholding effort which means that they will fabricate
and pretend to be busy or they will start producing below capability. They may also portray
antisocial behaviour in which deny necessary information to co-workers or negatively influence them
against the interests of organization. Most importantly employees may involve in unethical practices

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mostly because they find it very challenging to comply with organizational norms. [ CITATION
Luc20 \l 2057 ]

TASK VARIETY AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK

BEHAVIOUR
Along with personality and situational factors, the relation of counterproductive work behaviour
with task variety is also examined. Task variety refers to the rotation in job roles which means an
employee does not keeps doing the same tasks and is given new roles after a specific period. It was
concluded that employees who were exposed to task variety at a greater frequency tend to show
greater counterproductive work behaviours and people who were not exposed to task variety also
show some counterproductive behaviours but not as much. The least counterproductive behaviours
were observer in employees who were exposed to a moderate task variety. The reasoning behind
the study is given as people who do the same tasks get fed up of doing them repeatedly and
therefore tend to show counterproductive behaviours. Employees who were exposed to task
variety at high frequencies were not able to develop proper skillsets required for their new
roles because of lack of time and therefore automatically show some counterproductive
behaviours. It is to be noted that it is mentioned again and again that the research is highly
subjective and the results may vary from person to person. findings suggest that when task
variety is low CWB appears to be a higher potential risk for organizations than when task
variety is high. Consequently, those in an organization that hold jobs which unify a number
of different tasks seem to be less likely to showCWB. Yet, our results suggest that employees
with a lower level of education and in the economically slightly weaker French-speaking
region of Switzerland have less access to jobswith high task variety. Providing these
employees with more task variety should therefore bea key priority for organizations.
[ CITATION Anj17 \l 2057 ]

CYBER BULLYING RELATION WITH COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

WORK BEHAVIOR
Intro:
Cyberbullying means doing any sort of damage by the use of electronic media and
internet be it intrusive pictures or disturbing texts.

Characteristics:
Cyberbullying on the spot work has 3 characteristics including cyberbullying must
cause a potential danger for organizations, cyberbullying is not normatively deviant,
cyberbullying is not only limited to certain technology devices or media.

Relationship with counter productive work behaviour:

The relationship between cyberbullying victimization and counterproductive work
behavior on in a study shows that there is a significant positive relationship between
cyberbullying victimization and counterproductive work behavior.
Organizational behavior via rumination and negative emotion and will be
connected to counterproductive individual work behavior through the act of
rumination.

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Limitations:
This research has some limitations as well such as it was conducted in only one
type of industry and genders also do have influence on counterproductive work
behavior[CITATION Ada \l 1033 ].

PSYCHOPATHY
Relation with Counterproductive work behaviour:
According to work-home resource model behavioral work outcome (counter productive work
behavior) is influenced by background demand (family incivility) in home domain. If an
employee is not feeling well or is not mentally stable he is found to be most vulnerable to be
a victim of counter productive work behavior. If an employee is having a sick child at his
house or is pre occupied with other family or financial issues, it will affect his productivity at
the organization he is working. Counterproductive work behavior is something really
important for organization’s success or failure. There are several other reasons as well for
counter productive work behavior but psychopathy is mostly ignored and is not paid much
attention. So we need to figure out these issues and provide mental health counselling to
employees and take this matter seriously[ CITATION Rub18 \l 1033 ].
Moreover, technostress is also directly related to Counter productive work behavior[CITATION
Jae \l 1033 ].

Conclusion
By using mediator workplace aggression and worker support present study aim analyze
relation among psychopathy and counterproductive work behavior.
The study was administrated on employee’s working in textile sector in Pakistan with
positive relation between psychopathy and counterproductive work behavior.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Organizations should appoint managers that have high anxiety for their employees as success
of organization is based on employee’s efforts.

BURNOUT
As a result of burnout, it is observed that interest in work, work job, loyalty and trust to work
decreases and psychological depression occurs afterwards.
Maslach and Leiter (1997: 38) determined the causes of burnout as "areas of work life" by
analyzing personal and organizational factors together and stated that burnout will occur due
to the incompatibility between the person and the job.
Since it is a structure that includes the uncertain side of individual behaviors,
counterproductive work behaviors include all of the behaviors that are dysfunctional,
abnormal, aggressive, harassing, vulgar and aimed at causing hidden harm within the
organization.

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Counterproductive work behaviors, which express the behavior of employees who harm an
organization or its members includes acts such as theft, sabotage, verbal harassment, arresting
efforts, lying, refusing to cooperate, and physical assault.

Relationship with CWB:

This study, in which dimensions of burnout are associated with counterproductive work
behaviors, was carried out to examine the effects of burnout levels of employees on their
tendency to exhibit counterproductive work behaviors.
Burnout is the stress syndrome that includes emotional exhaustion developed against the
stress experienced by the person in the workplace, desensitization of the person's work and
the events around him/her, and a low level of personal accomplishment towards customer and
organization managers.
However, the feature that distinguishes burnout from stress is that burnout is an excessive
stress situation caused by social relations between the employee and the person opposite.
For employees who feel this way, going to work is no longer enjoyable as it used to be, and
as a result, situations such as not going to work or not complying with working hours may
cause problems for both the individual and the institution.
Counterproductive Work Behaviors Intentionally slowing down work, prolonging breaks,
damaging equipment, stealing equipment, gossiping, accusing others, nepotism, verbal and
sexual harassment, bribery and similar behaviors can be defined as behaviors that hinder
productivity.
Concepts that can be characterized as counterproductive work behaviors and generally show
similar characteristics are antisocial attitudes, organizational deviation, aggressive behavior,
sabotage, abuse, retaliatory behavior, mobbing/bullying, stealing/theft, withdrawal, etc.
Based on the assumption that burnout will negatively affect the productivity performance of
employees and trigger counterproductive work behaviors, an application that is thought to
make a practical contribution to the literature has been carried out within the scope of the
conceptual framework.

Conclusion:
A study, which has a quantitative research feature, basically reveals that as the burnout levels
of the employees increase, the production obstacle behaviors they exhibit towards their
colleagues, the organization they are a member of and the jobs they are responsible for will
also increase.
Another important finding of the study is that individuals experiencing emotional burnout
mostly exhibit counterproductive work behaviors.
Due to the feeling that their success will decrease and they experience burnout, the
employees who exhibit counterproductive behaviors towards their organization, then exhibit
these behaviors towards their colleagues and their works[CITATION Sey20 \l 1033 ].

IMPACT OF YOGA ON CWB:

Yoga based sessions can be effective in reducing perceived stress and physiological stress,
such as back pain which results in absenteeism because of sickness.

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Oxford University conducted a 10 week yoga intervention with prisoners and found that
yoga can improve psychological wellbeing and mood among prisoners and results showed a
positive effect on stress and their impulsive behaviors.
It is well-known fact that rate of mental issues reported by prisoners is always high in
comparison to the issues reported by normal people and such high level of behavioral patterns
are identified as the sign of aggression, distress, antisocial behavior, alcohol, and drug abuse
within prisoners.
Notwithstanding these impediments, generally speaking consequences of this review were
genuinely critical and positive. This review may give an establishment to bigger financially
savvy preliminaries of yoga meetings at the work environment, which could result in
numerous advantages to the two representatives and businesses. Businesses can see the
advantage of significant reserve funds by diminished CWB, and further developed execution
and usefulness. On the other hand, representatives can see the advantage as far as physical
also, psychological wellness upgrades like diminished pressure, diminished animosity,
worked on personal satisfaction, and expanded positive affectivity. The strength of yoga is
that it very well may be rehearsed at the work environment as a self-administration procedure
where a representative doesn't have to visit anyplace outside. In synopsis, the current review
has shown the adequacy of yoga in decreasing CWB essentially at the working
environment[CITATION Ume \l 1033 ].

JOB SATISFACTION AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK

BEHAVIOR
Job satisfaction is the level of an employee’s positive feelings about his positive
feeling towards their job and organization. Satisfaction and dissatisfied employee
depend upon how the employee fell abut their organization. Job Satisfaction
depends upon number of factors. According to some studies, counterproductive work
behavior is also connected with job satisfaction. If an employee is not treated well
and are unhappy from their organization or their managers or if employee-employer
relationship is not well might make the employee unsatisfied with their job. They are
most likely to work against the goal of their organization and negatively affect their
organization.[ CITATION Nas12 \l 1033 ]
While on other hand, Job satisfaction results bring employees commitment towards
their organization which results in better organizational performance. Higher job
satisfaction brings greater organizational citizenship as employee become happy,
and act positively. Hence, Job satisfaction has a negative relation with employee’s
counterproductive work behaviour.[ CITATION Nas12 \l 1033 ]

ORGANIZATIONAL INJUSTICE:
It can be employee’s attitudes towards the policies, decisions and actions made by
the organization. It is an important aspect of a business as it can bring benefits for
employees and organization both. Justice is also connected with Workplace behavior
if an employee perceive its organization to be just then they become more commited
towards their organization and work with more effort. [ CITATION Nas12 \l 1033 ]

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In most of the cases the affective reaction to injustice is directed towards any
individual (at a higher post) or towards a department which then effect the
organization as it target the organization, affecting its output negatively. Hence,
injustice is detrimental for the organization. [ CITATION Nas12 \l 1033 ]

PERSONALITY TRAITS:
Counter productivebehavior can be off two types towards the organization and
towards individuals working in the same organization. CWB against individuals is
more include using ethnic slurs, verbal abuse etc, this in turn affect organizations
working environment harming its productivity. CWB against individuals is more
closely related with the personality traits. Personality models such as emotional
stability and traits such as conscientiousness and agreeableness are linked with
CWB. Agreeableness is the best predictor for this behavior because people with low
agreeableness are inconsiderate and insulting because their interpersonal skills are
so low.[ CITATION Mou13 \l 1033 ]
Moreover, emotional stability is also related with CWB towards individuals. It
regulates person’s impulses, so having low emotional stability results in stress prone
and with poor self concepts and interaction with them is usually unpleasant. [ CITATION
Mou13 \l 1033 ]

But understanding the relation between individual personality and work place
behavior is an ill-advise. So, this behavior is understood through circumplex
personality trait where multiple personality traits are examined in pairs which helped
researchers to get more info on this behavior.[ CITATION Mou13 \l 1033 ]
Personality is also based upon gender differences. These gender based differences
are likely the result of biological and cultural factors. Women are found to be high on
agreeableness while males are found to be more emotional stable than females
might be because of social and historical based divisions. Males are more likely to
engage in aggressive behaviors at work because they found it to be acceptable while
women are less likely to be aggressive. These differences are because of
differences in power and status experienced by employees in their work
environment. In addition, women are also more calmer and pleasant might be
because of evolutionary mechanisms for this gender-based difference as The Sexual
Selection Theory.[ CITATION Mou13 \l 1033 ]

WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT:
Employees dual role sometime brings role conflict. It arises when there is more than
one situation which has to be fulfilled increasing the responsibilities of individuals.
For some individuals, carrying out both roles is so hard. Like demand from family
and demand from work can come at same time. This situation brings many negative
effects such as depression, stress and physical health. In addition, there is a big
chance that individual can show Counter Productive Work behavior. [ CITATION Wor20 \l
1033 ]

Research shows that there is a significant influence of Work-family conflict on CWB.

When worker experience conflict there is greater chance that it would effect their
performance and can also get in conflict with other workers. [ CITATION Wor20 \l 1033 ]

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This is based on growth , progress and achievements an individual want from their
roles. But these roles cannot run parallel. Moreover, it further rises when individual
focuses on achievement form one of its role, which create imbalance and result in
CWB. Individuals with high conflict have greater difficulty in fulfilling their
responsibilities of both roles. An individual is most likely to engage in in CWB aimed
at organizaiotion such as arriving late or leaving early or even theft. [ CITATION Wor20 \l
1033 ]

STRESS:
Streets is a psychological change to the demands of something a person faces
which exceeds individual abilities. Job stress can be defined when an employee
feels ick, uncomfortable or tense because of a particular job, or workplace or
situation or even due to Work-family conflict etc. Greater job stress faced by an
employee can trigger negative emotions such as anger, frustration & fatigue which
will affect employee behavior and can cause counter productive work behavior. It
can also be triggered by workplace injustice or work load increasing or less attention
from leader or lack of welfare, these all have greater potential to take their stress out
in their workplace to vent these negative emotions on things that can harm
organization directly or indirectly. Directly includes destrying office equipments or
wasting any sort of organizations environment while indirect includes talking bad
about organization or solleagues or leaders. [ CITATION Wor20 \l 1033 ]

INTERNAL CONTROL:
Internal control is the mechanism, rules and mechanism implemented by companies
to promote accountability and prevent fraud.[ CITATION Ahm \l 1033 ]
Quality of internal control processes and strategies relating to employee fraud and
their negative work behavior need to be focused on to decrease Counterproductive
behavior. Employee theft has been found negative relation with quality of negative
relation. Fraud cases involving smaller sum of money go unreported mainly, due to
the belief that it would be pointless and would achieve nothing, shows a rise in
otherCounter productivebehavior. These employee behaviors are influenced by
organisation’s inadequate internal controls. [ CITATION Ahm \l 1033 ][ CITATION Eto17 \l
1033 ]

Influence of control environment depend highly upon how it is perceived by the

employees. Employees always look upon for their welfare and if organization has a
weak internal control, employee might end up doing negative behavior towards
organization. Moreover, how employees perceive the company’s control and work
environment , there is very high chance that they would act positively against any
fraudulent behavior.[ CITATION Ahm \l 1033 ] [ CITATION Eto17 \l 1033 ]

SOLUTION:
A number of studies suggest that selecting employees on the basis of personality
traits of conscientiousness, agreeabless and emotional stability can control for such
behaviors. While other research suggest normative controls including clear

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guidelines, disciplinary procedures, anonymous reporting system and punishments

to offenders. And high level of supervisory support. [ CITATION Ahm \l 1033 ]
Increasing internal control on employee fraud can also limit this behavior towards
organization. Employee’s perception about their organization’s internal control
greatly effects their behavior towards organization. Organizations with severe
policies against CWB reduces these behavior in employees and vice versa.
Moreover, support from top management towards internal control, it reduces fraud
and internal perpetrators. [ CITATION Ahm \l 1033 ]

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Kozako, I. N. (2013). The Relationship of Big Five Personality Traits on Counterproductive Work
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Lucia B. Oliveria, W. M. (2020). Individual and Situational Antecedents of Counterproductive Work

Behaviour . BAR .

Mount, M. K., Kiersch, C. E., Mule, E. G., & DeGeest, D. S. (2013). Gender differences in personality
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Nasir, M., & Bashir, A. (2012). Examining workplace deviance. International Journal of Social
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Rub Nawaz, M. Z.-u.-D. (29 July 2018). The Impact of Psychopathy on Counterproductive Work .

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