CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 Relevant Research on Counterproductive Work Behavior
2.2.2 Dimensions and Measurement of Counterproductive Work Behavior
spontaneous behavior that poses a threat to the organization and organizational stakeholders with the intent to harm the organization or organizational members, at the same time, argues that the term counterproductive work behavior is more consistent with a managerial perspective. Lau, Au, and Ho (2003) argues that counterproductive work behavior is a deliberate behavior implemented by employees that affects the performance of individuals and harms the efficiency of the organization. Spector et al. (2006) defines counterproductive work behavior as a series of separate acts committed by employees in the workplace that intentionally harm the organization and its stakeholders (such as customers, colleagues, superiors).
To sum up, counterproductive work behavior is not a single negative behavior, but an integrated concept, so it also needs to be considered from multiple angles for its research. Thus, this study builds on previous research by defining counterproductive work behavior as intentional injurious behaviors to the organization and its stakeholders that are practiced in the workplace by members of the organization (Spector et al., 2006).
2.2.2 Dimensions and Measurement of Counterproductive Work Behavior
Regarding counterproductive work behaviors, in the early stages, researchers focused on single negative behaviors of employees, such as tardiness, absenteeism, and rudeness. And by the 80s, with the economic development, the changes of the environment between the enterprise and the employees, counterproductive work behavior also occurs constantly within the organization, and in turn, the research on counterproductive work behavior has also gradually received the attention of scholars
in various fields.
Spector (1975) research is the first to parse the structure of anti-productive actions, which summarizes employee anti-productive actions in the workplace into six dimensions from a 45 item list work of anti-productive work behaviors by exploratory factor analysis: attacking others, destroying, wasteful, hostile, complaining, bootlegging, and indifference to work. Among them, attacking others and destroying are associated with abuse, complaining are associated with stress, and indifference to work is associated with emotions, and research argues that different forms of CWB may imply a different instrumental motivational system for employees. Wheeler (1976) classifies rule breaking behavior into 2 categories from a legal perspective:
serious and non-serious offending, linking counterproductive work behavior to workplace criminal behavior, where serious offending represents an employee's harm to the organization that has greatly constituted workplace criminal behavior, such as:
personal aggression, bootlegging, etc, and non-serious offending mainly encompasses employees' slack at work in the workplace in combination with intentional violations such as: late arrival, absenteeism, job dragging, etc. Hollinger and Clark (1982) developed the counterproductive work behavior scale based on previous research, which classifies counterproductive work behavior into 2 dimensions: Production deviance (referring to a breach of a good practice), Property Deviance (referring to the destruction or steal of employer's property behaviors). Then, S. L. Robinson and Rousseau (1994) added the interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behavior by constructing a multidimensional system based on Hollinger's scale, drawing the deviance behavior into a four quadrant plot, which was divided into four dimensions:
Production deviance, Property deviance, Social deviance, Personal aggregation. Based on this, a two-dimensional scale of counterproductive work behavior was developed, which divides counterproductive work behavior into two dimensions: organization- oriented counterproductive work behavior (such as theft, sabotage, absence, bribery, etc.), and interpersonal-oriented counterproductive work behavior (such as rudeness, abuse, personal attack, gossip, etc.). The scale includes a total of 19 question items, including 7 question items on the interpersonal pointing dimension and 12 question items on the organizational pointing dimension, and is the most widely used in counterproductive work behavior related research. Gruys and Sackett (2003), in turn,
administered a supplement to Robinson & Bennett's two-dimensional scale and developed the new two-dimensional scale on overproduction behavior, which included 66 question items and examined 11 overproduction behaviors: theft;
vandalism; wrong doing; misuse of time and resources; being unsafe; poor participation; performing poor quality work; drinking alcohol; narcotic use; improper verbal communication; and improper physical actions. Two dimensions of counterproductive work behavior were finally extracted: the interpersonal organizational dimension, and the task related dimension. Chinese scholars have also developed scales for counterproductive work behaviors among Chinese employees, for example, based on Chinese scenarios as M. L. Chen and Lin (2014) conducted the survey of Chinese enterprise employees, and the findings indicate that the counterproductive work behaviors of Chinese enterprise employees are classified into two levels: the level of harm (high, moderate, mild), and the level of behavior (organizational and interpersonal). And the Thai scholar Na-Nan et al. (2020), using 386 SMEs employees in Thailand as the research object, developed a three- dimensional measure of counterproductive work behavior with a total of 27 items, including 13 items for poor behavior, 7 items for misuse of organic resources, and 7 items for inappropriate communication.
To sum up, the research on dimension and measurement of counterproductive work behavior is still in the exploratory stage, but from the perspective of application and operability, the two-dimensional scale of counterproductive work behavior proposed by S. Robinson and Bennett (1995) is more feasible. Thus, drawing on S.
Robinson and Bennett (1995) two-dimensional scale of counterproductive work behavior, this study categorizes counterproductive work behavior into 2 dimensions:
organizationally oriented counterproductive work behavior and interpersonal oriented counterproductive work behavior. And with reference to the M. L. Chen and Lin (2014); Na-Nan et al. (2020) scale, some questions were revised to develop a scale that is consistent with employees in both Chinese and Thai enterprises.
2.2.3 Research on Antecedent Variables of Counterproductive Work