SUMMARY COURSE 3.5:
ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
BY ROWAN MOELIJKER
YEAR 2018/2019
POSITIVE & ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
ERASMUS SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES
,MEETING 3: JUSTICE AND DEVIANT EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOURS
LEARNING GOALS
Problem 3a/b: An eye for an eye/Desperate times call for desperate measures
What are the different deviant employee behaviours?
What are the causes of deviant employee behaviour?
What does deviant employee behaviour correlate with?
What is justice?
What are the determinants of justice/organisational fairness?
What are the consequences of fairness for the employees and organisation?
What is the link between justice/fairness and counterproductive work behaviour?
Problem 3c: Whistleblowers
What is whistle-blowing?
Why does whistle-blowing occur?
What are the determinants for the organisation and the whistle-blower?
What are the consequences for the organisation and the whistle-blower?
How should organisations deal with whistle-blowers?
GENERAL LITERATURE
BOOK CHAPTER 1: JEX, S. M., & BRITT, T.W. (2014). CHAPTER 5 (ONLY OCB: PAGES 160-166!).
IN ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY : A SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER APPROACH (PP. 160–166).
WILEY.
Organisational Citizenship Behaviour
Generally speaking, OCB refers to behaviours that are not part of employees’ formal job descriptions, or
behaviours for which employees are not formally rewarded. The distinction between extra-role performance
and OCB is rather blurred. Technically, the key distinction is that OCBs are not evaluated as part of the formal
appraisal system used to assess employees. In addition, the antecedents of OCB are different from those in-role
and extra-role performance.
Organ classified OCB into five different types:
1. Altruism, also referred to as prosocial behaviour, represents what we typically think of as “helping
behaviours” in the workplace.
2. Courtesy represents behaviours that reflect basic consideration for others.
3. Sportsmanship is different from other forms of OCB because it is typically exhibited by not engaging in
certain forms of behaviours, such as complaining about problems or minor inconveniences.
4. Conscientiousness involves being a good citizen in the workplace and doing things such as arriving on time
for meetings.
5. Civic virtue is somewhat different form the others because the target is the organisation, rather than
another individual. An example of this form of OCB would be attending a charitable function sponsored by the
organisation.
McNeely and Meglino distinguished OCBs that are directed at helping others (OCB-I) from those that are
directed toward the organisation as a whole (OCB-O). However, a recent meta-analysis using advanced
statistical modelling revealed that the correlation between the latent variables of OCB-I and OCB-O was .98,
indicating the two variables were measuring the same overall construct.
Reasons for OCB
According to the first reason for OCB, the primary determinant is positive affect, typically in the form of job
satisfaction. A positive mood increases the frequency of helping and other forms of spontaneous prosocial
,behaviour. Furthermore, positive mood and helping behaviour are actually mutually reinforcing because
helping others usually makes people feel good. Researchers have also found that job involvement, a correlate
of job satisfaction, is positively correlated with supervisory ratings of OCB.
A second explanation for OCB has to do with cognitive evaluations of the fairness of employees’ treatment by
an organisation. This view is theoretically rooted in Equity Theory, which states that employees evaluate their
work situations by cognitively comparing their inputs to the organisation with the outcomes they receive in
return. If employees perceive that the organisation treats them fairly, they are likely to reciprocate the
organisation by engaging in OCB. Moorman found that the best predictor of OCB was interactional justice, or
the matter in which supervisors treat employees as they carry out organisational policies and procedures. In
contrast, other studies have found that procedural justice is a better predictor of OCB than is distributive
justice. Procedural justice refers to employees’ perceptions of the fairness of procedures used to make
decisions such as pay raises; distributive justice refers to perceptions of fairness of the outcomes one receives
as a result of those procedures.
A third explanation for OCB is that it is due to dispositions. According to this viewpoint, certain personality
traits predispose individuals to engage in OCB. Compared to the first two explanations of OCB, the dispositional
viewpoint has received much less attention in the OCB literature because proponents of this view have been
vague as to the specific personality traits that should be related to OCB. A recent study found that employees
who scored lower on a trait of honesty were more likely to be motivated to
perform OCBs because of a desire to create a favourable impression among
others in the organisation. In contrast, employees higher on the trait of
openness to experience were more likely to be motivated to perform OCBs
for prosocial concern for others. Finally, employees higher in the trait of
conscientiousness engaged in OCBs for all three motives (prosocial concern
for others, concern for organisation versus a concern for impression
management).
Figure 5.2 summarizes the results from different meta-analyses of the
antecedents and consequences of OCB.
Special Issues in OCB Research
1. What is still not clear form research on OCB and its effectiveness is the direction of causality underlying this
relationship. Researches have largely operated under the assumption that OCB has a causal impact on group
and organisational effectiveness. However, it is also possible that the direction of causality could be reversed.
2. A second issue concerns the validity of the OCB concept itself. It is becoming increasingly questionable that,
in performing day-to-day activities, employees make the job descriptive versus nonjob descriptive distinctions
on which OCB is based. This suggests that many employees view activities as part of their formal role.
3. A third issue in OCB research is whether employees really engage in OCB without the expectation that such
behaviours will be rewarded. According to Bolino, when OCB is performed with the expectation of future
rewards, it then becomes a form of impression management rather than truly altruistic behaviour.
4. A final issue in OCB research is whether OCB will remain a viable concept in the workplace of the future.
Organisations have been moving away from formal job descriptions.
BOOK CHATPER 2: JEX, S. M., & BRITT, T.W. (2014). CHAPTER 6. IN ORGANIZATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY: A SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER APPROACH (PP. 177–206). WILEY.
, Defining Counterproductive Work Behaviour
Counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) is defined as volitional acts that harm or are intended to harm
organisations or people in organisations. Such behaviours do not have to harm an organisation directly in order
to be considered CWB. Perhaps the best example f this is when service employees deliberately engage in
harmful acts toward customers.
The Structure of Counterproductive Work Behaviour
To keep the number of CWB to a manageable level, researchers have developed classification systems or
structures to describe different forms of CWB.
Bennett and Robinson’s Two-Factor Model
Bennet and Robinson proposed a very broad classification of CWB based on the target of the behaviour. CWB
can be broadly classified in two categories:
Organisational CWB: behaviours that are directed at the organisation as a whole. Examples include
wasting time, sabotage, being late, and talking negatively about the organisation to others.
Individual CWB: represents behaviours that are directed at individual employees. The most common
examples include making rude and insulting remarks directed at others, starting rumors, and excluding
others.
One small modification to this model has been made to the individual dimension to distinguish between
supervisor-directed CWB and CWB directed at other employees.
Spector’s Five-Factor Model
Spector and colleagues proposed that CWB can be classified into five categories, which were largely based on
the content of the behaviour, rather than the target. These five categories include:
(1) production deviance: represents deliberate attempts by employees to work below their capabilities.
(2) sabotage: represents deliberate attempts to directly on indirectly undermine the work that is being done
within an organisation.
(3) theft: the act of employees taking property or materials that do not belong to them.
(4) withdrawal: represents attempts by employees to disengage from the workplace (e.g. missing work/being
late).
(5) abuse toward others: verbal or physical behaviours that mistreat others in the workplace.
Gruys and Sackett’s 11 Factor Mode
Gruys and Sackett proposed a more fine-grained analysis that resulted in 11 distinct forms of CWB which
included: (1) theft and related constructs, (2) destruction of property, (3) misuse of information, (4) misuse of
information, (5) misuse of time and resources, (5) unsafe behaviour, (6) poor attendance, (7) poor quality of
work, (8) alcohol use, (9) drug use, (10) inappropriate verbal action, and (11) inappropriate physical action.
Misuse of information represents an employee using information for purposes that run counter to the goals of
the organisation.
Causes of Counterproductive Work Behaviour
Based on the CWB literature it is possible to classify its causes into two broad categories: (1) person-based, and
(2) situation-based. It is important to understand, however, that these two broad categories are not mutually
exclusive.
Person-Based Causes of CWB.
The basic idea behind person-based causes of CWB is essentially that of “bad apples”’; that is, some people are
just prone to engage in CWB regardless of the situation. The book chapter describes four personality triats that
seem to consistently surface as causes of CWB.
