Measurement artifacts in the assessment of counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior: Do we know what we think we know?

Abstract

An experiment investigated whether measurement features affected observed relationships between counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and their relationships with other variables. As expected, correlations between CWB and OCB were significantly higher with ratings of agreement rather than frequency of behavior, when OCB scale content overlapped with CWB than when it did not, and with supervisor rather than self-ratings. Relationships with job satisfaction and job stressors were inconsistent across conditions. We concluded that CWB and OCB are likely unrelated and not necessarily oppositely related to other variables. Researchers should avoid overlapping content in CWB and OCB scales and should use frequency formats to assess how often individuals engage in each form of behavior.

Predicting Counterproductive Work Behavior from Guilt Proneness

“…Accordingly, there is precedent for measuring CWB in both formats. We find it reassuring that self and observer ratings of CWB tend to be positively correlated and correlate similarly with theoretically-related variables (Berry et al, 2012;Dalal, 2005;Fox et al, 2011;Spector et al, 2010;Spector & Fox, 2005). Nonetheless, in future research we plan to assess CWB and guilt proneness with self-reports and co-worker-reports to replicate conceptually the current findings and test whether self-reports or observer-reports of guilt proneness are better predictors of CWB and other unethical behaviors.…”

“…We are not suggesting that the variables included in this study are the only variables relevant to predicting harmful and/or unethical behavior at the workplace. There are, of course, other known correlates of CWB, such as honesty-humility (Marcus, Lee, & Ashton, 2007;Zettler & Hilbig, 2010), trait anger and anxiety (Spector & Fox, 2005), organizational constraints (Fox et al, 2011;Spector & Fox, 2005;Spector et al, 2010) and organizational politics (Zettler & Hilbig, 2010). 6 Instead, our goal with this paper was to extend the CWB literature to include a predisposition to feel guilt over wrongdoing.…”

“…For example, CWB is predicted by job satisfaction and job stressors, as well as negative emotions; it has an inconsistent relationship with positive emotions (Spector & Fox, 2005). Interpersonal conflict at work-the degree to which people get into arguments and are treated poorly at their job (Spector & Jex, 1998)-is among the most frequently reported job stressors (Keenan & Newton, 1985) and is one of the strongest known predictors of CWB (Fox et al, 2011;Spector et al, 2006;Spector et al, 2010).…”

The relationship between productive and counterproductive work behaviour across four European countries

“…This is less problematic as supervisor ratings inflate the negative relationships between OCB and CWB more than do self ratings (Dalal, 2005;Spector, Bauer, & Fox, 2010).…”

“…In particular, one major issue with the current research is the domination of US studies and limited consideration of whether the research extends to other national cultures. Those studies directly testing the relationship between OCB and CWB have been based on US (Dalal et al, 2009;O'Brien & Allen, 2008;Sackett, Berry, Wiemann, & Laczo, 2006;Spector, Bauer, & Fox, 2010) or Canadian samples (Kelloway et al 2002). In fact, of the non-US samples included in the often cited meta-analysis by Dalal (2005), 4.1% were reported to be from Canada and South Africa, with 2% from other countries.…”