Perpetrator's Affective and Behavioral Reactions to Own Counterproductive Work Behavior

Although researchers have argued that counterproductive work behavior (CWB) has detrimental effects on organizational effectiveness and members working in the organizations, the effects of CWB on perpetrator's own work outcomes have received little scholarly attention. The current study addresses this important issue by exploring whether, why, and when employee's past CWB influences the perpetrator's work outcomes in the future. Through a diary study design, we collected data from 70 full-time employees with a total of 697 workday observations in a large Chinese firm. Empirical results provided support to our conceptual model, suggesting that employee's daily CWB had a positive relationship with his/her negative emotion during the day, which in turn decreased the perpetrator's work engagement and increased the perpetrator's CWB in the following day. Furthermore, employee's perception of benevolent leadership was found to mitigate these relationships by relieving perpetrator's negative emotion associated w...