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The members of an organization are expected to devote 75%
of their energy towards accomplishing results, 15% to overcome
obstacles-natural—and 10% to healthy dissent that can
help the organization continue to adapt and grow. On the
contrary, some organizations face a reverse trend because
of employees' counter-productive behavior at work. At times,
counter-productive behaviors are disheartening. Instead
of devoting 75% of their energy towards accomplishing results,
the employees are forced to spend just 45% of their energy
towards accomplishing results and the rest to overcome obstacles
and dissent. This situation will transmogrify an organization
and will almost result in near rigor mortis.
Paul E Spector, Professor, University of South Florida
and Fox S, Professor, Loyola University of Chicago, says,
"Employee behaviors can be classified into those that
benefit the organization and those that hurt it. Most of
our psychological research has focused on the former, concentrating
on how we can enhance performance. However, from the organizational
point of view, there exists a negative side to behavior,
in that often employees commit acts that can be detrimental
to the organization." (In press). "An emotion-centered
model of voluntary work behavior: Some parallels between
Counter-productive Work Behavior (CWB) and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior (OCB)."* Of course, in some cases
what is detrimental to an organization can benefit an individual.
In recent years, attention has been directed toward understanding
this other type of behavior.
Counter-productive behavior includes aggression, hostility,
sabotage, theft, violence and withholding of output. It
is also known as anti-social behavior, deviant behavior
and organizational aggression. Whatever be the name, the
common thread is that when these behaviors are resorted
to by employees, they hurt fellow-employees, their employers.
In some circumstances, various forms of behavior such as
sabotage and theft can have the objective of retaliating
against the employer for real or imagined injustices. The
employees think that it is paying back their superiors and
employers.
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