When is Employee Retaliation Acceptable at Work? Evidence from Quasi- Experiments

Abstract

. The Fairness Study Team at U.C. Berkeley collected the data and added many important ideas. We had a number of discussions with friends and acquaintances about their own misbehavior at work. We specifically thank Miriam Dornstein, Vicki Elliot, Seth Fragomen, Nicole Gerardi, Christopher Kutz, Phil Tetlock, and seminar participants at UCLA for fruitful discussions. In mentioning them here, we in no way mean to implicate them in specific acts of sabotage. Data and programs are available on request. 1 WHEN IS RETALIATION ACCEPTABLE AT WORK? EVIDENCE FROM QUASI-EXPERIMENTS Abstract:When is employee retaliation acceptable in the workplace? We use a quasiexperimental design to study the acceptability of several forms of retaliatory behavior at work, gathering data in this untested area. Consistent with hypotheses from theories of fairness, we find that employee retaliation in the workplace is perceived to be more acceptable if it is an act of omission instead of an act of commission. We do not find that a more damaging retaliatory act is significantly less acceptable than a less damaging one, suggesting a qualitative rather than a quantitative relationship. We also found individual differences: Respondents who are older, female, politically conservative, and managers typically show less tolerance for retaliation, while union members are a bit more accepting than average.

Legitimacy of Control

“…Kahneman et al (1986) find that it is indeed more acceptable for a company to raise prices and for an employer to cut wages if profits are threatened. Finally, in a recent series of studies, Charness and Levine observe that layoffs are more likely to be considered legitimate if product demand is low (Charness and Levine, 2000) and identify when sabotage is considered legitimate (Charness and Levine, 2004). These studies suggest that the legitimacy of the same action could be seen very differently under different circumstances.…”

Distributive Justice and Psychological Well-Being Among Teachers of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Bamenda, North West Region of Cameroon

“…In the organizational context retaliation is used as an instrumental perspective, since employees use it as a way to seek the restoration of justice through actions that compensate for the perceived damages, which are due to unfair treatment. Previous studies propose that this behavior can also occur when employees have strained relationships with their managers and perceive this relationship as unfair (Townsend, et al, 2000;Charness & Levine, 2010). Retaliatory actions can range from verbal abuse, jokes that ridicule the coworkers, dysfunctional communication (gossip), omissions and boycotts.…”