The Association between Stress and the Counterproductive Workplace Behavior

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Workplace stress has become an increasingly serious issue due to its cost to organisational productivity and employee health and wellbeing. Over the years, the association between stress and counterproductive workplace behaviour (CWB) has become an increasingly popular topic of study among organizational researchers. CWB refers to behaviour by employees that harms an organization or its members (Spector & Fox, 2002). Spector and colleagues (e.g., Chen & Spector, 1992; Penney & Spector, 2005) have portrayed CWB as an emotion-based response to stressful organisational conditions.

This connotation is supported by several theoretical frameworks, including Affective Event Theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and Job stress/Emotion/CWB model (Spector & Fox, 2002). AET posits that individuals respond to workplace events with a ‘feeling mode’, and these emotional responses, in turn, manifest affective-based work behaviours. To test this theory, Wegge, Dick, Fisher, West, and Dawson (2006) conducted a survey-based study in the UK call centre industry to examine whether emotion does indeed predict affective-based behaviours. The results suggested that emotional responses to work characteristics are associated with affective commitment (i.e., desire and behaviour decision to maintain membership with the organisation; Meyer, Allen, & Gellatly, 1990) and physical health complaints (e.g. ‘I have had difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep’). This study provides an empirical evidence to support the association between emotions and behaviours.

Job stress/Emotion/CWB model (Spector & Fox, 2002), on the other hand, posits that individuals respond to workplace events with a ‘thinking mode’, appraising the meaning with a rational mindse...

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...ciological review, 69(1), 14-39.

Spector, P. E., & Fox, S. (2002). An emotion-centered model of voluntary work behavior: Some parallels between counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Human Resource Management Review, 12(2), 269-292.

Spector, P. E., Fox, S., Penney, L. M., Bruursema, K., Goh, A., & Kessler, S. (2006). The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal? Journal of Vocational behavior, 68(3), 446-460.

Wegge, J., Dick, R. v., Fisher, G. K., West, M. A., & Dawson, J. F. (2006). A Test of Basic Assumptions of Affective Events Theory (AET) in Call Centre Work1. British Journal of Management, 17(3), 237-254.

Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work.

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