Productive and Counterproductive Behavior in Organizations

Solution Preview

---

One way to help you with an assignment like this one is to answer the questions from various sources, which you can draw on for your final paper. This is the approach this response takes.

RESPONSE:

1. Define productive and counterproductive behavior.

In terms of organizational behavior, productive behavior is all behavior that is aimed at meeting the organizational goal. Some common productive behaviors listed in the literature are honesty, integrity, dependability and others. Conversely, counterproductive behavior is behavior that impacts performance and overall organizational behavior negatively. Jex (2009) defines counterproductive behavior "as behavior that explicitly runs counter to the goals of the organization" (p. 146).
In fact, there are a wide range of behaviors that can be labeled as counterproductive in terms of organizational productiveness, ranging in severity of consequences, however. Long waits as a product of poor scheduling or shortages of staff is annoying but is less severe than criminal activity or violence which would have more serious consequences to the organization. However, both are counterproductive behavior to overall organizational performance (Jex, 2002). Other counterproductive behaviors include absenteeism, workplace stress, sexual harassment, and dishonesty, undependability, lacking integrity, bullying, conflict and others. These counterproductive behaviors impact performance and overall organizational performance through employee motivation, job satisfaction and corporate culture issues (Jex, 2002).

There are various reported reasons for counterproductive behaviors, such as:

Absence
- Absence culture
- Absence policies

Lateness
- Job dissatisfaction
- Long commutes
- Work-family conflict, e.g., having young children

Turnover
- Job dissatisfaction
- Availability of alternative employment (Jex, 2002).

Some facts to consider for your paper (Spector, 2005):

Counterproductive behavior (CPB) takes different forms and have different causes:

There are intentional behavior that harms the organization or organization members, such as:

1. Aggression (physical and verbal)
2. Sabotage
3. Theft
4. Withdrawal

Directed at organization vs. people
- Coworkers
- Subordinates
- Supervisors
- Clients/Customers

Employee theft estimated at $200 billion/year

For example, Hollinger (1986, as cited in Spector, 2005) stealing varied with industry as follows:
- 6.6% retail (merchandise)
- 27.3% hospital (supplies like linens)
- 14.3% ...