INTRAPERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS 53 6. Poor attendance (unexcused absence and tardiness and misuse of sick
leave).
7. Poor quality work (intentionally slow or sloppy work).
8. Alcohol use (alcohol consumption on the job and working under the influ- ence of alcohol).
9. Drug use (possession, use, or sale of illegal drugs at work).
10. Inappropriate verbal actions (arguing with customers and verbally harass- ing coworkers).
11. Inappropriate physical actions (physically attacking coworkers and physi- cal or sexual advances toward coworkers).
To better understand the abundance and variety of dark-side activity following the OMB model presented in chapter 2, we organized our review of OMB man- ifestations around three logical parts: intrapersonal and interpersonal (chap. 3), production and political (chap. 4), and property (chap. 5) manifestations. Although we discuss possible causes, these three chapters focus on the behavior, not its an- tecedents or consequences. Following chapters 6, 7, and 8, we examine the next key issue: What makes organizational members decide to engage in such behav- iors? Thus, these chapters are devoted to antecedents of OMB. Figure 3.1 serves as a framework for this chapter. Assuming that both intra- and interpersonal mis- behaviors are intentional and a consequence of multilevel antecedent factors, we begin our review at the individual level of analysis.
INTRAPERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS
substance abuse on and off the job. The relationships between job conditions and use of four classes of drugs (e.g., alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and cocaine) were investigated in 1984 among a nationally representative sample of young adults ages 19 to 27. Because the data failed to uncover any relationship between sub- stance abuse and work conditions or occupations, the researchers concluded that workers’ substance use is directly attributable to the workforce and less so to the conditions of the workplace.
In an investigation of alcohol abuse in the workplace through the Cornell Uni- versity Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, Bacharach et al. (2002) found that the costs of problem drinking (as a form of counterproductive behavior) in the United States are prohibitive to both employers and employees.
Dollar amount estimates run in excess of $150 billions annually. These costs re- sult from poor quality work, absenteeism, accidents, medical expenses, and so on.
Drinking per se is not necessarily perceived as evil or dysfunctional. In fact, some forms of drinking in the workplace are considered socially acceptable, such as in workplace parties, business dinners, and ceremonies. It is the excessive and irre- sponsible consumption that is bothersome to management and often damaging to drinkers, their families, and their peers. When such conduct is willful and drinkers are aware of the potential harm, problem drinking in the workplace is classified as OMB Type D.
For their empirical research, Bacharach et al. (2002) used survey data collected from thousands of union employees to identify the causes of problem drinking.
They posited both organizational and personal antecedents: workplace culture, policy enforcement, alienation, and stress. Problem drinking, the dependent vari- able, was measured by asking respondents a direct question adopted from Ewing’s (1984) medical instrument for detecting alcoholism. The four-item question relies on honest self-report. The respondent is asked whether, in the last month, he or she felt he or she should cut down on drinking, were annoyed by people criticizing their drinking, or felt guilty about drinking, or had a drink first think in morning to steady nerves or get rid of a hangover. The researchers found that, among the aforementioned antecedents, workplace culture (in terms of perceived permissive drinking norms) is the single most important risk factor that drives employees to drink. By implication, when employees think the organization is permissive in terms of tolerating social drinking during and after work hours, there are good chances for drinking to become problematic and abusive.
The reasons for substance abuse on the job may be summarized by three cate- gories as follows:
1. Social control—a weakened work structure with limited supervision and low visibility may contribute to substance abuse on the job.
2. Alienation—lack of interest on the job, absence of challenging work, and inadequate control over work may cause stress, which in turn may lead to substance abuse.
INTRAPERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS 55 3. Social availability—simply put, certain occupations or work environments
encourage leisure-time drinking and drug use among employees.
Perhaps the best known study of workplace drug abuse and its correlates was reported by Mangione and Quinn (1975). They examined whether counterpro- ductive behavior and drug use at work are symptoms of job dissatisfaction. Data were collected from a U.S. national sample of 1,327 wage and salaried workers.
The findings show a significant negative association between job satisfaction and self-reported counterproductive behavior among men ages 30 years or older. For the same age group, similar results were found for drug use at work.
Harris and Greising (1998) presented a review of drug and alcohol use as dysfunctional workplace behavior. The authors first summarized the results of a recent survey of organizational practices regarding drug and alcohol, followed by an overview of prior research on the topic. They then described two recent studies that examined the effect of drug and alcohol use on employee wages, reporting that individuals who are more likely to use these substances also tend to earn higher wages. Surprisingly, they found that the two variables, wages and drug and alcohol use, are indeed positively correlated. Harris and Greising, noted several explanations for such relationships: (a) this is just a statistical artifact (spurious relationships); (b) for certain individuals, substance use offers a form of relaxation and diversion from job-related stress, which in turn contributes to better performance and income; and (c) certain users are also good performers who follow opportunities for better jobs and thus may actually earn higher income.
An interesting question arising from the substance abuse literature relates to its nature: Is the use of alcohol and drugs in the workplace dysfunctional or merely behavior meant to be diversionary? Perhaps due to the negative connotations asso- ciated with alcohol and drug abuse, there is a tendency to lump together different substances and thereby assume that the effects of use will be the same regardless of the substance. That is, there is often an implicit assumption that different drugs have similar effects for different users in the workplace. Most of the literature has focused on organizational outcomes such as accidents, absenteeism, perfor- mance, and turnover. However, it appears that the use of substances at work is a complex phenomenon not only because of the variety of substances involved, but because their use is associated with a wide variety of causes and outcomes. Use also varies for different work environments and occupational groups (e.g., Shain, 1982; Sonnenstuhl, 1996).
A unique study of drug use within a specific occupational group was reported by Dabney and Hollinger (1999). They focused on pharmacists who, on average, spend 6 years in college studying the intricacies of prescription medicines and their effects on the human mind and body. After graduation, they embark on a career in which their expertise and familiarity with the proper use and dangers of prescrip- tion drugs continuously grow. Despite this wealth of experience and knowledge, pharmacists may become prescription-drug abusers. Based on in-depth interview
data obtained from 50 recovering drug-dependent pharmacists to understand the process by which these professionals come to abuse the tools of their trade, Dabney and Hollinger concluded that, ironically, the knowledge and expertise may actu- ally contribute to progressive prescription drug abuse. They argued that being and becoming a pharmacist presents a paradox of familiarity, wherein technical knowl- edge and the built-in opportunity, in the absence of proper appreciation of the risks of substance abuse, may actually delude pharmacists into believing that they are immune to the harmful effects of prescription drug abuse to their person and careers.
Substance use and job behaviors were assessed in a sample of municipal em- ployees in the southwestern United States (Lehman & Simpson, 1992). Job behav- iors included psychological and physical withdrawal, positive work behaviors, and antagonistic work behaviors (a form of counterproductive and perhaps retaliatory behavior). The employees who reported substance use at or away from work were found to more frequently engage in withdrawal activities and antagonistic work behaviors than did nonusers, although users and nonusers did not differ on positive work behaviors. Hierarchical regression models were used to determine whether substance abuse contributed unique variance to the prediction of job behaviors af- ter controlling for the variance associated with personal and job background. Not surprisingly, the primary finding was that substance use added unique variance to the prediction of psychological and physical withdrawal behaviors.
The seemingly trivial question of whether workplace absenteeism and alcohol use are indeed positively related was addressed by McFarlin and Fals-Stewart (2001). They argued that nearly all investigations examining the link between alcohol use and absenteeism have been generally marked by three characteristics:
(a) they have been correlational, cross-sectional studies examining the relationship between one or more global measures of alcohol use and absenteeism; (b) they have been cross-sectional in nature, with little to no information collected about the temporal relationship between alcohol use and absenteeism; and (c) they typically use samples consisting of problem drinkers.
The actual day-to-day relationship between alcohol use and workplace ab- senteeism was examined by McFarlin and Fals-Stewart (2001). They selected a random sample of 280 employees of one of the three large companies located in the northeastern United States. Using psychometrically sound, semistructured interviews, they gleaned information from employees about specific days of drink- ing during a 1-month period and actually marked the day(s) on a calendar. Data about employees (absences during the same target time period) were collected from the firm’s human resource department and were also marked on an actual calendar. A significant day-to-day relationship emerged between alcohol use and workplace absences; workers were roughly two times more likely to be absent from work the day after they consumed alcohol. The researchers concluded that, given its staggering costs to business each year, identifying a powerful predictor of workplace absence is a necessary first step in developing proactive strategies to reduce alcohol-related absenteeism.
INTRAPERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS 57 Drug testing may be one such strategy. Although management’s use of drug testing programs is becoming a critical organizational issue, no systematic con- ceptual framework has been applied to the study of employee reactions to drug testing. Konovsky and Cropanzano (1991) dealt with this issue from the employee perspective. They focused on the way employees perceive the drug testing program and its fairness and on how this perception may influence both their job perfor- mance and how they feel toward their employer. They used an organizational justice framework to explain and predict the relationships among two types of justice (procedural justice and outcome fairness): employee attitudes (satisfaction, commitment, and management trust) and behavior (turnover intentions and perfor- mance). Survey data from 195 employees in a pathology laboratory indicated that perceptions of justice predict employee attitudes and performance. Specifically, procedural justice, but not outcome fairness, predicted all five criterion variables.
These results demonstrate the importance of procedural justice perceptions for predicting employee reactions to drug testing.
Certainly when members of organizations behave in ways that are personally abusive in both intra- and interpersonal terms, employers must look for ways to monitor and curb such trends. This calls for three types of strategies: (a) formal management control—applying strict policy and discipline measures, (b) organi- zational redesign—restructuring work processes to reduce stress and isolation, and (c) cultural engineering—promulgating a normative value system that condemns abuse and condones proper behavior (Bacharach et al., 2002). In principle, these broad strategies are relevant to most other forms of misbehavior and should be considered relevant as we continue to explore other manifestations. How to apply them (as single strategy, in combination, at what level, etc.) is up to the organiza- tion because there is no single panacea. Local solutions should be a function of the specific diagnosed problems and the circumstances that naturally differ among organizations (see chap. 11).