Counterproductive work behavior among the public service sector employees in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Counterproductive work behavior is a major problem for organizations all over the world. It leads to negative outcomes and costs a lot for the companies. Despite the ubiquity of this issue, research works on the antecedents of counterproductive work behavior are very few. So the present research aims at exploring the factors leading to counterproductive work behavior. From the existing literature review, organizational justice and personality traits have been chosen to examine as the potential antecedents of counterproductive work behavior. While power distance was used as the moderator in the relationship between organizational justices and counterproductive work behavior and perceived organizational support as the moderator in the relationship between personality traits and counterproductive work behavior. For the purpose of the study, data were collected from the public civil servants of department of economic development in Dubai, UAE using the proportionate stratified random sampling. The collected data were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling technique with the help of smart PLS software. The statistical findings showed that procedural, distributive and interactional justices are significant factors that might hinder counterproductive work behavior; while emotional stability, a personality trait was also found to be significantly and negatively correlated with counterproductive work behavior. Findings revealed that power distance had moderating effects in the relationship between organizational justices and counterproductive work behavior; and perceived organizational support had moderating effects in reducing organizational deviant behaviors in conjunction with agreeableness and consciousness. The output of this study will provide significant insights regarding the causes of CWBs in organizations. If organizations understand the reasons of CWBs, they can work proactively to avoid such types of occurrences; ensure various steps to improve the relationships with the employees so that the employees feel more supported and valued by them and ultimately deviance behavior will be reduced. The findings of this study will also help employers to implement recognition programs to help show employees that they are valued by the organization.