What is it about?

It is widely believed that the people who engage in positive behaviors at work are different from the people who engage in negative behaviors at work. We conducted an experiment in which we explored whether prior studies have reached this conclusion due to methodological flaws, most notably including overlapping items in measures of both forms of behavior. We found that when you eliminate the flaws, results show that the same people engage in both types of behavior.

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Why is it important?

This study corrects some misinterpretations of the relationship between positive and negative behaviors at work.

Perspectives

Suzy Fox and I wrote a paper in 2002 in which we argued that positive and negative behaviors at work are reciprocally related. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216443797_An_emotion-centered_model_of_voluntary_work_behavior_Some_parallels_between_counterproductive_work_behavior_and_organizational_citizenship_behavior This 2010 paper and others we have written corrects our mistaken belief.

Professor Paul E Spector
University of South Florida

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This page is a summary of: Measurement artifacts in the assessment of counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior: Do we know what we think we know?, Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2010, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/a0019477.
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