Counterproductive Work Behavior: Investigations of Actors and Targets

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) encompasses a spectrum of actions that harm employees or organizations. These behaviors include:

• bullying
• emotional abuse
• revenge
• retaliation
• mobbing
• aggression

They can range from severe, systematic, abusive bullying to milder, ambiguous episodes of workplace incivility.

This volume examines the conditions and events in modern organizations that contribute to CWB, as well as the steps organizations might take to combat it.

Authors from both North America and Europe analyze the interplay between the environmental factors of the workplace and the personal characteristics of the individual actors and targets of CWB. While these researchers study various aspects of this topic, the book deftly highlights the connections and distinctions in each of the authors' work. The result is an integrative and comprehensive resource that will help stimulate future research in the field.

Contributors

Introduction

I. Actor Perspectives

1. Aggression in the Workplace: A Social–Psychological Perspective
   —Joel H. Neuman and Robert A. Baron
2. Understanding the Many Faces of Workplace Violence
   —Manon Mireille LeBlanc and Julian Barling
3. The Study of Revenge in the Workplace: Conceptual, Ideological, and Empirical Issues
   —Robert]. Bies and Thomas M. Tripp
4. Beyond Counterproductive Work Behavior: Moral Emotions and Deontic Retaliation Versus Reconciliation
   —Robert Folger and Daniel P. Skarlicki
5. The Normative Nature of Employee Deviance and the Impact of Moral Identity
   —Rebecca J. Bennett, Karl Aquino, Americus Reed II, and Stefan Thau
6. Advancing the Assessment of Dispositional Aggressiveness Via Conditional Reasoning
   —Susan M. Burroughs and Lawrence R. James
7. The Stressor–Emotion Model of Counterproductive Work Behavior
   —Paul E. Spector and Suzy Fox

II. Target Perspectives

8. Workplace Incivility
   —Christine M. Pearson, Lynne M. Andersson, and Christine L. Porath
9. Emotional Abuse in the Workplace
   —Loraleigh Keashly and Steve Harvey
10. Mobbing at Work. Escalated Conflicts in Organizations
    —Dieter Zapf and Ståle Einarsen
11. Bullying at Work: A Perspective from Britain and North America
    —Charlotte Rayner and Loraleigh Keashly
12. Concluding Thoughts: Where Do We Go From Here?
    —Paul E. Spector and Suzy Fox

Author Index

Subject Index

About the Editors

Suzy Fox, PhD, is assistant professor at the Institute of Human Resources and Industrial Relations, Graduate School of Business, Loyola University, Chicago, where she teaches organizational behavior, global human resource management, and ethics. Her two research areas focus on barriers to employee well-being and cross-cultural studies of successful women. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and book projects. She is associate editor of Human Relations.

Paul E. Spector, PhD, is a professor of industrial/organizational psychology and the industrial/organizational doctoral program director at the University of South Florida, Tampa. His work has appeared in many journals, and he has written books on both methodology (research design and SAS programming) and content, including a textbook (Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice, 3rd ed., 2003). He is an associate editor for the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and the point/counterpoint editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior. He is also on the editorial boards of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, and Personnel Psychology. In 1991, the Institute for Scientific Information listed him as one of the 50 highest impact contemporary researchers in psychology.

Thoroughly fascinating and undeniably a must-read for all those interested in a balanced examination of counterproductive work behaviors. Highly recommended!
—Doody Enterprises, Inc.