Not all forms of misbehavior are created equal: Differential personality facet–counterproductive work behavior relations

We examined whether four personality traits—trait aggression, trait industriousness, trait deceptiveness, and trait self-control—were differentially related to 11 narrow-bandwidth CWB facets: (a) property destruction, (b) inappropriate verbal actions, (c) inappropriate physical actions, (d) poor attendance, (e) poor quality work, (f) unsafe behavior, (g) theft and related behavior, (h) misuse of information, (i) misuse of time and resources, (j) alcohol use, and (k) drug use. Based on responses from 404 employed participants recruited using Mechanical Turk, we found that each narrow-bandwidth personality trait often yielded stronger relationships with overall CWB than with narrow-bandwidth CWB facets.     

Negative Consequences of Felt Violations: The Deeper the Relationship,the Stronger the Reaction

Drawing from past research suggesting that high prior commitment leads to stronger reactions to unfairness in the workplace (Brockner, Tyler, & Cooper‐Schneider, 1992), we predicted that those forming relational as opposed to transactional psychological contracts would exhibit stronger detrimental effects of felt violation on job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and job performance. We also predicted a combined effect of personality and violation on these outcomes. Self‐ and supervisor‐reported data (N= 331 dyads) collected from a variety of organisations supported our predictions. In general, relational contract terms were associated with stronger violation–outcome relationships, and transactional contract terms were associated with weaker relationships. Similarly, four of the Big Five dimensions (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness to experience) moderated the violation–outcome relationships such that it was stronger for higher levels of these traits.