Krischer Penney & Hunter 2010

Can Counterproductive Work Behaviors Be Productive? CWB asEmotion-Focused Coping

Mindy M. Krischer and Lisa M. PenneyUniversity of Houston

Emily M. HunterBaylor University

The goal of our study was to determine whether some forms of counterproductive work behavior(CWB) may serve to benefit employees. Building on the stressor–strain framework and theoriesof coping, we investigated whether two forms of CWB, production deviance and withdrawal,serve as a means of coping to mitigate the impact of low distributive and procedural justice onemotional exhaustion. Results from a survey of 295 employed persons from around the UnitedStates suggest that production deviance and withdrawal may benefit employees by reducingemotional exhaustion in the face of low distributive justice but not necessarily low proceduraljustice.

Keywords: counterproductive work behavior, coping, burnout, justice

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) refers towillful behaviors by employees that have the poten-tial to harm an organization, its members, or both(Spector & Fox, 2005). The most well-known typol-ogy of CWB classifies behaviors according towhether they target another person or the organiza-tion (Robinson & Bennett, 1995), although othershave made finer distinctions. For example, Spector etal. (2006) proposed five categories of CWB: abuseagainst others (e.g., ignoring or arguing with others),sabotage (e.g., physically damaging organizationalproperty), theft, production deviance (e.g., intention-ally working slowly, doing work incorrectly, or ne-glecting to follow procedures), and withdrawal (e.g.,taking longer breaks than allowed, arriving late, leav-ing early).

CWB is estimated to cost organizations billions ofdollars each year (Bennett & Robinson, 2000) and is,therefore, of considerable concern to organizations.Accordingly, researchers have offered a number oftheories to better understand and ultimately control

these costly behaviors. Most theories of CWB, in-cluding the stressor–emotion model (Spector & Fox,2005) and causal reasoning theory (Martinko, Gun-dlach, & Douglas, 2002), describe an affective eventprocess wherein an individual’s subjective appraisalof a workplace event results in a negative emotionalexperience that in turn motivates an act of CWB.Thus, these theories describe employee CWB as areaction to aversive environmental and emotionalexperiences. Neuman and Baron (2005) presentCWB in a general aggression framework and arguethat employees perform acts of CWB either as areaction to a provocative event (i.e., hostile) or toobtain some desired end (i.e., instrumental). Hostilemotives are consistent with affect-driven theories;however, few studies have examined potential instru-mental motives of CWB (notable exceptions includeBies, Tripp, & Kramer, 1997; Folger & Skarlicki,2005).

Diefendorff and Mehta (2007) argued that the ne-glect of individual motivation represents a seriousgap in CWB research. Whereas destructive at theorganizational level, individuals may experiencesome benefit as a result of performing CWB thatencourages these behaviors. According to Penneyand Spector (2007), theories of emotion regulationand coping provide an alternative perspective on theinstrumental use of CWB by suggesting that someemployee CWB may be performed as an attempt tocope with stressful situations at work and reduce theexperience of negative emotions. Coping refers to thecognitive and behavioral steps taken by individuals inresponse to perceived demands or stressors (Lazarus

Mindy M. Krischer and Lisa M. Penney, Department ofPsychology, University of Houston; Emily M. Hunter, De-partment of Management and Entrepreneurship, HankamerSchool of Business, Baylor University.

Portions of this article were presented at the annualmeeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL,August 2009.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-dressed to Mindy M. Krischer, Department of Psychology,University of Houston, Houston, TX 77024. E-mail:[email protected]

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology2010, Vol. 15, No. 2, 154–166

© 2010 American Psychological Association1076-8998/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0018349

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& Folkman, 1984). Stressors typically result in em-ployee strain (e.g., emotional exhaustion, Ito &Brotheridge, 2003), and successful coping buffers thenegative impact of stressors and reduces strain. Al-though CWB has not been studied in relation tocoping, some coping behaviors could be consideredcounterproductive from an organization’s perspec-tive. For example, employee withdrawal (e.g., takinglonger breaks than allowed) may reflect attempts byemployees to limit their exposure to stressful situa-tions and prevent subsequent strain. Production de-viance (e.g., intentionally working slowly) may serveas a strategy to gain control over stressors and theaccompanying negative emotional reactions. In spiteof the similarities between some CWB and coping,no studies to date have examined whether employeesuse CWB as a coping mechanism to prevent strainoutcomes. Therefore, the purpose of the current studywas to examine CWB within a coping framework todetermine whether certain types of CWB mitigate theimpact of job stressors on a common psychologicalstrain: emotional exhaustion.

Emotional Exhaustion and theStressor–Strain Framework

Emotional exhaustion is one of the most widelystudied correlates of job stressors (R. T. Lee & Ash-forth, 1996; Maslach & Jackson, 1984) and is con-sidered an important psychological strain (Maslach &Leiter, 2008; Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004). Emo-tional exhaustion refers to feelings of being overex-tended and generally worn down and is a key com-ponent of burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1984). Froma conservation of resources perspective (Hobfoll,1989), emotional exhaustion represents a depletion ofemotional resources and has been associated withturnover (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998), cardiovascu-lar and sleep problems (Saleh & Shapiro, 2008),decreased motivation, and decreased task perfor-mance and citizenship behaviors (Halbesleben &Bowler, 2007). Emotional exhaustion is also an an-tecedent to other dimensions of burnout, such asdepersonalization of others and reduced personal ac-complishment (Maslach, 1982).

The stressor–strain framework is widely used toexplain how negative events lead to individual re-sponses, including emotional exhaustion, CWB, andcoping (e.g., Fox, Spector, & Miles, 2001; Grant &Langan-Fox, 2006; Ito & Brotheridge, 2003). A keyassumption of this framework is that individuals ap-

praise events in their environment as threatening ornonthreatening, especially with regard to cognitive,emotional, or physical resources (Lazarus, 1991). Inthe workplace, threatening events are referred to asjob stressors and include organizational constraints,interpersonal conflict, role conflict, role ambiguity,and perceptions of injustice (see Fox et al., 2001, fora review). Job stressors can lead to strains, which aredefined as negative outcomes that result from stress(Spector, 1998). Strains can be physical, psycholog-ical, or behavioral (Jex & Beehr, 1991). Physicalstrains include health outcomes, such as tensionheadaches and sleep disruption. Psychological strainsinclude negative emotional reactions, such as anger,anxiety, frustration, and over time, emotional exhaus-tion and burnout. Consistent with the stressor–strainframework, a number of job stressors have beenassociated with emotional exhaustion including workoverload (Maslach & Goldberg, 1998), role conflict(R. T. Lee & Ashforth, 1996), and perceived inequity(Taris, Peeters, Le Blanc, Schreurs, & Schaufeli,2001).

Behavioral strains reflect actions that an individualperforms as a result of experiencing stressors andoften include attempts at coping. According to Folk-man, Lazarus, Dunkel-Schetter, Delongis, and Gruen(1986), coping involves efforts to conserve emo-tional, cognitive, or physical resources either by ad-dressing the stressor or the concomitant negativeemotion. Although many classifications of copinghave been proposed, the most widely used distinctionis between problem-focused and emotion-focusedcoping (Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003).Folkman and Lazarus (1980) define problem-focusedcoping as efforts taken to directly address the sourceof the problem to reduce or eliminate the stressor.Examples of problem-focused coping include gener-ating options to address the problem, evaluating eachoption, and engaging in steps to solve the problem(Baker & Berenbaum, 2007). In contrast, emotion-focused coping serves to reduce an individual’s neg-ative emotional response to a stressor, such as vent-ing emotions, seeking out social support, positivelyreinterpreting events, trying to distract oneself byengaging in other activities, and increasing drug andalcohol use (Baker & Berenbaum, 2007; Latack &Havlovic, 1992). According to Lazarus (1996), theprimary distinction between emotion-focused andproblem-focused coping is the function of coping,not necessarily the specific behavior or cognition.Conceptualizations of coping also distinguish copingfrom coping effectiveness (Latack & Havlovic,

155CWB AS EMOTION-FOCUSED COPING

1992). As coping reflects attempts by an individual tomanage stressors, “coping is ‘effective’ if it prevents,avoids, or controls individual distress” (Latack &Havlovic, 1992, p. 483). Therefore, emotional ex-haustion can be a key indicator of effective coping inthe workplace (Ito & Brotheridge, 2003).

Coping and CWB

From an organization’s perspective, employeecoping behaviors can be productive or counterpro-ductive (Spector, 1998). For example, an employeewho responds to a heavy workload by developing amore efficient process for completing his or her workcontributes to organizational productivity. However,an employee who responds to a heavy workload bydeliberately skipping crucial steps in the work pro-cess that could jeopardize product quality to com-plete work faster or who takes longer breaks to avoidhis or her workload detracts from organizational ef-ficiency and productivity. We are not the first toacknowledge that CWB may reflect employee cop-ing. Spector and Fox (2002) suggested that CWBoften results from an emotional response and aimseither to actively attack the cause of the situation orto “passively and indirectly cope with the emotion”(p. 274). Similarly, Allen and Greenberger (1980)suggested that individuals might engage in destruc-tive or vengeful acts, including CWB, to increasefeelings of control over a stressful situation. In termsof the stressor–strain framework, we suggest thatCWB can be performed as a manifestation of nega-tive emotion associated with stressors, and it mayalso serve an instrumental coping function that mit-igates the negative effect of perceived stressors onsubsequent strain. That is, some forms of CWB mayreflect attempts at emotion-focused coping to preventor reduce emotional exhaustion.

According to Baker and Berenbaum (2007), prob-lem-focused coping is more effective than emotion-focused coping. However, other researchers havesuggested that the wide range of emotion-focusedcoping strategies and wide variety of stressful situa-tions make any blanket statement of the effectivenessof emotion-focused coping suspect (Austenfeld &Stanton, 2004; Baker & Berenbaum, 2007). In par-ticular, the literature on coping outcomes suggeststhat emotion-focused coping is effective in situationswherein one has little to no control over stressors(Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Goral, Kesimci, & Gen-coz, 2006; Zakowski, Hall, Klein, & Baum, 2001).Indeed, Folkman and Lazarus (1980) noted that al-though stressors can elicit both types of coping, prob-

lem-focused coping tends to occur when people feelthat they can effectively address the stressor, whereasemotion-focused coping tends to occur when peoplefeel that the stressor is uncontrollable. In the stressliterature, perceived control over a stressor is said toplay an important role in diminishing the effects ofstressors on subsequent strain (Karasek, 1979). Forexample, the negative effects of having to complete alarge amount of work can be reduced by givingemployees control over the specific tasks and pace ofwork (Spector, 1998). However, not all sources ofperceived stress are subject to the control of employ-ees. In particular, stressors are likely least subject toemployee control when the source is a more powerfulentity, such as the employing organization (Lind &van den Bos, 2002).

Organizational Justice

The lack of organizational justice is one of themost commonly researched workplace stressors andone of the strongest predictors of CWB (Berry, Ones,& Sackett, 2007). Organizational justice refers to theperceived fairness of the interactions between indi-viduals and organizations. Two of the most widelystudied forms of organizational justice are distribu-tive and procedural justice. Distributive justice refersto the perceived fairness of reward allocation (i.e., theextent to which one’s pay reflects the work that onehas completed), whereas procedural justice refers tothe perceived fairness of the processes by whichdecisions are made (i.e., the extent to which decisionsare based on accurate information, made withoutbias). Although other forms of justice are also dis-cussed in the extant literature (e.g., interpersonal andinformational; Colquitt, 2001), we focus on percep-tions of distributive and procedural justice becausethese forms are often perceived as discretionary ac-tivities on the part of the organization as opposed toindividual supervisors (Fasolo, 1995; Moorman,Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998; Shore & Shore, 1995) andtherefore are more likely to be perceived by employ-ees as outside the scope of their direct influence. Agrowing body of research has linked low levels ofjustice with poor psychological and physiologicaloutcomes (e.g., Vermunt & Steensma, 2005), includ-ing emotional exhaustion (Tepper, 2000) and absen-teeism (De Boer, Bakker, Syroit, & Schaufeli, 2002).Therefore, in line with previous research evidence,we propose the following hypothesis:

156 KRISCHER, PENNEY, AND HUNTER

Hypothesis 1: Perceptions of distributive andprocedural justice are negatively related to emo-tional exhaustion.

We further suggest that when faced with low dis-tributive or procedural justice, stressors over whichone has little control, employees may engage in someforms of CWB as emotion-focused coping to reduceemotional exhaustion. We do not, however, expect allforms of CWB to be effective coping strategies inresponse to low justice. Because the source of per-ceived injustice is more powerful than the individual(i.e., the organization), we expect that CWB will belargely covert rather than overt (Aquino, Tripp, &Bies, 2001; Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1994). Ac-cording to Baron and Neuman (1996), others gener-ally perceive overt behaviors, such as destroyingproperty and yelling, as having a clear harmful intent.Overt behaviors may not be effective coping strate-gies for reducing emotional exhaustion because theycome with the added stress of being identified andsuffering consequences (e.g., verbal or written repri-mand, termination) that could lead to additionalstrain. However, covert behaviors, such as purposelyworking slowly or taking longer breaks than allowed,may not be perceived by others as necessarily intend-ing harm, and are therefore less likely to result innegative consequences. Two such covert forms ofCWB are withdrawal and production deviance.

Withdrawal behaviors can buffer the impact of lowperceived justice and reduce emotional exhaustion byhelping employees replenish emotional resources.When employees feel angry about a lack of distrib-utive or procedural justice, leaving work early ortaking longer breaks enables them to temporarilyescape a situation that induces negative emotions(Spector et al., 2006; Westman & Etzion, 2001).While away, feelings of anger may dissipate andemotional homeostasis can be restored. Our argu-ment is consistent with two emotion regulation pro-cesses described by Gross (1998), situation selectionand response modulation. Situation selection refers todeliberately engaging or avoiding certain people,places, or situations to avoid things that might lead tounwanted emotion. Response modulation occurs afternegative emotions have been aroused and consists ofactions taken to reduce the “physiological, experien-tial, or behavioral” aspects of emotional response(Lord & Harvey, 2002, p. 136). For example, ifemployees experience anger or other negative emo-tions because of unfair treatment, then taking timeaway from work may reduce the experience or se-verity of those emotions and, by extension, their

emotional exhaustion. Working slowly, a form ofproduction deviance, may also operate in the samemanner. A recent meta-analysis provides support forthe temporary benefit of withdrawal in response tostressors in terms of physical symptoms of strain(Darr & Johns, 2008). Indeed, there is growing evi-dence that absences from the workplace of any du-ration can lead to positive outcomes such as de-creased perceptions of job stressors and burnout(Etzion, Eden, & Lapidot, 1998), increased workengagement, proactive behavior, and performance,and self-reported well-being (Fritz & Sonnentag,2005; Sonnentag, 2003).

Furthermore, research on retaliation provides sup-port for production deviance as emotion-focused cop-ing performed in response to injustice. According toequity theory (Adams, 1963), when employees per-ceive their ratio of organizational outcomes (e.g.,pay) to inputs (e.g., effort) to be smaller than the ratioof others, they may become resentful and restoreequity by withholding inputs. Thus, production devi-ance may reflect coping in the form of situationmodification or “efforts to directly modify the situa-tion so as to alter its emotional impact” (Gross, 1998,p. 283). Therefore, by allowing employees to feel thatthey are “evening the score,” production deviance,such as intentionally working slowly, doing workincorrectly, and deliberately ignoring procedures,may increase employees’ perceptions of control inthe face of perceived injustice, thereby reducing emo-tional exhaustion. A number of studies have shownthat coping efforts that restore an individual’s per-ceived sense of control are negatively associatedwith emotional exhaustion (Ito & Brotheridge,2003; Leiter, 1991; Meier, Semmer, Elfering, &Jacobshagen, 2008). In addition, research in socialpsychology and neuropsychology indicates that in-dividuals believe that retaliation against offendingothers will make them feel better (Bushman,Baumeister, & Phillips, 2001; de Quervain et al.,2004). Thus, we expect that when employees ex-perience low levels of distributive or proceduraljustice, production deviance and withdrawal mayserve as emotion-focused coping and reduce emo-tional exhaustion.

Hypothesis 2: Production deviance moderatesthe relationship between perceptions of justiceand emotional exhaustion. The negative rela-tionship between justice and emotional exhaus-tion is weaker when production deviance is fre-quent compared with infrequent.


Hypothesis 3: Withdrawal moderates the rela-tionship between perceptions of justice andemotional exhaustion. The negative relationshipbetween justice and emotional exhaustion isweaker when withdrawal is frequent comparedwith infrequent.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We recruited participants through the StudyRe-sponse Project (2004), an online research participantpanel with more than 95,000 participants. Research-ers at Syracuse University designed this tool to pro-vide social scientists with a means of conductingWeb-based surveys with large, diverse samples.StudyResponse participants volunteer to be contactedfor participation (Stanton & Weiss, 2002), and sam-ples collected with this tool have been used in severalrecently published studies (e.g., Harris, Anseel, &Lievens, 2008; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006).

Based on the participant requirements that we pro-vided (e.g., full-time employed adults living in theUnited States), StudyResponse e-mailed the initialrecruitment notice, which included a brief descriptionof the study, including time requirements, incentivesoffered (entry into a random drawing to receive oneof 20 $50 gift certificates), and a link to the Web-based survey, followed by a reminder e-mail 1 weeklater to a random sample of 988 individuals in theirparticipant pool; 522 individuals responded (52.8%).However, we dropped 124 cases because of re-sponses to two items designed to detect nonconsci-entious responding (e.g., “This item for key purposesonly. Please select ‘Agree.’”). We dropped an addi-tional 103 cases because of substantial missing data,leaving 295 usable cases.

Participants (44.5% men and 92% Caucasian)worked in a wide variety of jobs in a broad range ofindustries, including education, law enforcement,technology, government, transportation, finance, andhealth care. They ranged in age from 21 to 67 years(M � 40.6 years) and in job tenure from 2 months to37 years (M � 7.18 years); 16.0% had a high schooldiploma, 35.8% had an associate’s degree or somecollege, 26.2% had a bachelor’s degree, 3.4% hadcompleted some graduate work, 8.8% had a master’sdegree, and 4.8% had an advanced degree (5% didnot respond to the question). Although we requestedthat participants work full-time, 20.8% worked part-time (�40 hr/week). We compared mean scores ofparticipants working full- versus part-time for each of

the measures using t tests for independent samplesand found no significant differences.

Measures

Justice. Distributive justice was assessed withPrice and Mueller’s (1986) six-item scale (e.g.,“Please rate the extent to which you are fairly re-warded considering the responsibilities that youhave”) using a scale of 1 (very unfairly) to 5 (veryfairly; � � .94). Procedural justice was measuredwith Moorman’s (1991) 12-item scale (e.g., “Whendecisions about other employees in general or you inparticular are made in this company, the decisions areapplied with consistency to the parties affected”)using a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (stronglyagree; � � .95).

CWB. The Counterproductive Work BehaviorChecklist (CWB-C; Spector et al., 2006) containsthree items for production deviance (e.g., “Purposelydid your work incorrectly”; � � .66) and four itemsfor withdrawal (e.g., “Came to work late withoutpermission”; � � .69). The checklist uses a responsescale of 1 (never) to 5 (every day). Although thecoefficient alphas for these subscales are below ac-cepted standards, the subscales of the CWB-C areconsidered causal indicator scales in which individ-ual items are not interchangeable indicators of theunderlying construct. Causal indicator scales, includ-ing measures of CWB and socioeconomic status,often result in lower estimated reliabilities becauseindividual items define the construct rather than act-ing as a reflection of an underlying construct (Spectoret al., 2006).

Emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustionwas assessed using six items from the Job-RelatedAffective Well-Being Scale (JAWS; Van Katwyk,Fox, Spector, & Kelloway, 2000). The JAWS as-sesses employees’ emotional reactions to their job bypresenting a list of emotions, both positive and neg-ative, and asking respondents to indicate how fre-quently they have experienced each over the past 30days using a 5-point scale of 1 (never) to 5 (always).Because the JAWS is not typically used to assessemotional exhaustion, we asked two subject-matterexperts (a PhD I/O psychologist and an advancedgraduate student in I/O psychology) to read a briefdescription of emotional exhaustion, along withitems from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach,Jackson, & Leiter, 1996) and identify items from theJAWS that fit the construct definition of emotional


exhaustion. Working independently, the two ratersachieved 100% agreement and identified the same sixitems from the original 30-item scale: depressed,discouraged, frustrated, gloomy, fatigued, and miser-able (� � .90).

Results

Intercorrelations and descriptive statistics of studyvariables are presented in Table 1. Hypothesis 1 wassupported as both distributive and procedural justicewere negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion(rs � �.38 and �.41, respectively, ps � .01). Hy-potheses 2 and 3 predicted that production devianceand withdrawal, respectively, would moderate therelationship between justice perceptions and emo-tional exhaustion such that the relationships areweaker when CWB is frequent compared with infre-

quent. To test these hypotheses, we used hierarchicallinear regression with two justice variables, distribu-tive and procedural, and two types of CWB, produc-tive deviance and withdrawal, as the main effects.Therefore, we estimated four hierarchical linear re-gression models predicting emotional exhaustion.We mean-centered all variables prior to conductingour analyses. For each model, we first entered fourcontrol variables: tenure, hours worked per week,age, and gender. At the second step, we entered themain effect terms. At the third step, we entered theinteraction terms (see Table 2). We found significantinteractions between distributive justice and with-drawal behaviors (� � 0.60, �R2 � .02, p � .01),distributive justice and production deviance (� �0.50, �R2 � .01, p � .05), and procedural justice andwithdrawal (� � 0.42, �R2 � .01, p � .05). How-ever, the interaction between procedural justice and

Table 1Scale Intercorrelations and Alpha Coefficient Reliabilities

Variable 1 2 3 4 5

1. Distributive justice (.94)2. Procedural justice .62�� (.95)3. Production deviance .01 �.01 (.66)4. Withdrawal �.00 �.03 .54�� (.69)5. Emotional exhaustion �.38�� .41�� .27�� .13� (.90)

Note. N � 295. Reliability coefficients are presented along the main diagonal.� p � .05. �� p � .01.

Table 2Hierarchical Regression Results

Variable Model I Model II Model III Model IV

Age �.11� �.11� �.14� �.13�

Gender .07 .03 .04 .002Tenure .02 .03 .01 .02Hours per week .11� .12� .09 .11�

Production deviance �.10 .07Withdrawal �.30 �.19Distributive justice �.67�� .77��

Procedural justice �.53�� .64��

R2 .25 .25 .19 .21Distributive Justice � Production Deviance .50�

Procedural Justice � Production Deviance .24Distributive Justice � Withdrawal .60��

Procedural Justice � Withdrawal .42�

R2 .26 .25 .21 .22Change in R2 .01� .00 .02�� .01�

Note. Standardized regression coefficients are presented from Step 3 in each model.� p � .05. �� p � .01.


production deviance (� � 0.24, �R2 � .00, ns) wasnonsignificant.

To explore the nature of the interactions, we plot-ted three lines using values of the moderator at themean and 1 standard deviation above and below themean (Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). As shownin Figure 1, the relationship between distributivejustice and emotional exhaustion was weaker amongemployees who engaged in high levels of productiondeviance (� � �0.17, ns) compared with those whoengaged in low levels (� � �1.17, p � .01). Thus,Hypothesis 2 was partially supported. As displayedin Figures 2 and 3, withdrawal moderated the rela-tionships between perceptions of low distributive andprocedural justice and emotional exhaustion such that

the relationships were weaker among employees whoengaged in high levels of withdrawal (�s � �0.17,ns, and �0.22, p � .05, respectively) compared withthose who engaged in low levels of withdrawal,(�s � �1.37 and �1.06, ps � .01, respectively).Thus, Hypothesis 3 was fully supported.

Discussion

Leveraging the stressor–strain model and theoriesof coping, we investigated whether two forms ofCWB, production deviance and withdrawal, mitigatethe impact of low perceived justice on employeeemotional exhaustion. We replicated past researchindicating that individuals who experience low jus-

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Figure 1. The effect of perceptions of distributive justice on emotional exhaustion displayedby level of production deviance.

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Figure 2. The effect of perceptions of distributive justice on emotional exhaustion displayedby level of withdrawal deviance.


tice tend to experience more emotional exhaustion(Kausto, Elo, Lipponen, & Elovainio, 2005). Thisfinding suggests that improving justice levels in theworkplace will enhance worker well-being and re-duce the need for workers to cope with stressfulsituations at work. In addition, although the idea thatCWB may function as a form of coping has beenraised before (Allen & Greenberger, 1980; Penney &Spector, 2007), ours is one of the first empiricalstudies to examine whether performing certain typesof CWB is associated with lower levels of an impor-tant psychological strain. In doing so, we contributeto the literature by investigating a potential instru-mental use of CWB and answer Diefendorff andMehta’s (2007) concerns regarding the lack of re-search on motivations of employee CWB. Specifi-cally, we confirmed our expectations that employeesmay engage in production deviance and withdrawalCWB as an attempt to cope with low perceptions ofjustice, and this coping was successful under condi-tions of low distributive justice and, to some extent,low procedural justice. Although we did not capturecausal direction or ordering, our results suggest thatemployees may engage in some CWB to activelyshape their emotional experience at work rather thansimply to react to affective events. We do not sug-gest, however, that this perspective should replaceevent-driven theories, but rather complements themand provides a broader view of employee behavior.

We argued that withdrawal behaviors function asemotion-focused coping strategies to reduce emo-tional exhaustion by allowing employees to escapeaversive situations and replenish emotional re-

sources. Our results support our assertions and indi-cate that the relationships between both distributiveand procedural justice and emotional exhaustion areweaker among employees who engage in high asopposed to low levels of withdrawal. Thus, with-drawal behaviors, by minimizing employees’ expo-sure to unjust treatment by their employing organi-zation, may protect employees from the strain ofemotional exhaustion.

We expected production deviance to function asemotion-focused coping to reduce emotional exhaus-tion by increasing employees’ perceived control by“evening the score” in the face of injustice (Adams,1963), thereby reducing psychological strain. How-ever, our hypothesis was only supported for distrib-utive justice. When employees feel that the rewardsand outcomes they receive are distributed unfairly,deliberately performing work slowly or incorrectlymay enable them to reduce their inputs to restoreequity, thereby reducing the negative emotions asso-ciated with low distributive justice.

Unexpectedly, our results suggest that productiondeviance may not be an effective coping mechanismwith respect to procedural justice. One possible ex-planation is that employees may derive perceptionsof distributive justice from bonuses or pay raises,which are generally discrete events that occur on anannual basis. Thus, reducing inputs via acts of pro-duction deviance may be sufficient to restore theinequity resulting from these relatively discreteevents, as well as restore employees’ sense of con-trol. However, procedural justice perceptions maynot be based on discrete events. According to Lev-

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Figure 3. The effect of perceptions of procedural justice on emotional exhaustion displayedby level of withdrawal deviance.


enthal, Karuza, and Fry (1980), procedures will beperceived as fair to the extent that decisions areenacted in a manner that is without bias, based onaccurate information, correctable, representative ofthe interests of all involved, and ethical. To the extentthat procedural justice perceptions are based on acollection of events or decisions (e.g., decisions thatdetermine pay raises, work schedules, vacation times,promotions, overtime, work assignments), acts ofproduction deviance may not effectively restore em-ployees’ sense of control and therefore may havelittle impact on emotional exhaustion.

Alternatively, production deviance may be emo-tionally exhausting in and of itself. Compared withwithdrawal behaviors that are passive, productiondeviance involves both active and passive behaviors(e.g., deliberately performing work incorrectly vs.working slowly).1 Because active forms of CWBmay require investing more emotional energy, theymay be emotionally exhausting. For example, pro-duction deviance was more strongly correlated withemotional exhaustion (r � .27, p � .01), comparedwith withdrawal (r � .13, t(273) � 2.51, p � .01).Thus, although production deviance may be helpfulin reducing one’s emotional response to discreteevents associated with distributive justice, the emo-tional cost may counteract the benefit for respondingto longer term events (i.e., procedural justice).

Implications for Practice

This study presents a unique perspective on themotivations for engaging in CWB. We suggest thatemployees engage in some CWB because doing so isrewarding in terms of reducing emotional exhaustion.This presents an interesting paradox to practitioners.On the one hand, CWB has traditionally been con-sidered harmful to organizations. On the other hand,CWB may be beneficial for employees, particularly insituations of low distributive justice. Therefore, increas-ing perceptions of distributive justice, which is alsoassociated with increased citizenship behavior, job sat-isfaction, and commitment (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson,Porter, & Ng, 2001), should benefit both organizationsand employees.

The current research also suggests that organiza-tions aiming to reduce production deviance and with-drawal behaviors should consider the motivationsthat drive these behaviors. If organizations provideemployees with other ways to cope with injustice,then employees may refrain from these forms ofCWB. For example, organizations can provide em-ployees with more control by developing a fair griev-

ance system. Providing an outlet for employees toreduce the negative physiological arousal associatedwith perceived stressors, such as access to exerciseprograms or facilities, as well as opportunities andencouragement to use these resources, may also re-duce CWB. Organizations could also encourage em-ployees to take breaks if they feel that they arebecoming overwhelmed and distressed. Althoughbreaks are typically considered CWB and a threat toproductivity, our research suggests that breaks mayactually have an indirect benefit to the organizationby reducing employees’ emotional exhaustion. How-ever, additional research is needed to determinewhether or not providing such outlets for employeesmitigates the impact of low perceived justice onemotional exhaustion.

Limitations and Directions forFuture Research

One limitation of our study is the cross-sectionalnature of our data. Because emotional exhaustion andperceptions of injustice tend to build over time, lon-gitudinal study designs would be better able to assessthe directionality of the justice–CWB–emotional ex-haustion relationship. Moreover, qualitative studiesmay help better discern the specific motivations be-hind the performance of CWB.

In addition, all study variables were assessed viaself-report; therefore, common method variance mayhave artificially inflated the observed relationships.However, several models of stress (e.g., Lazarus &Folkman, 1984; Spector & Fox, 2005) emphasize theimportance of the perception of events, as opposed tothe events themselves, in precipitating strain out-comes. Also, emotional exhaustion is unlikely to beaccurately assessed through other sources (e.g., peerreport). Therefore, self-report is likely the best sourceof information regarding perceived stressors and theexperience of emotional exhaustion. Regarding theuse of self-reported measures of CWB, the Berry etal. (2007) meta-analysis reported that self- and non–self-reported deviance were correlated .89, and therelationship between deviance and its correlates didnot differ greatly when non–self-report was used.Finally, according to Spector (2006), common-method variance may be the exception rather than therule. Thus, using self-report may not have signifi-cantly affected our results. In fact, obtaining self-report data through StudyResponse may have helped

1 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.


alleviate other problems, such as underreportingCWB (R. M. Lee, 1993), given that responses werecompletely anonymous.

Another limitation of our study is that we used sixitems from the JAWS (Van Katwyk et al., 2000) tomeasure emotional exhaustion instead of a more es-tablished and validated scale. Although two indepen-dent raters achieved perfect agreement in identifyingJAWS items that fit the construct definition of emo-tional exhaustion, research has not directly assessedthe validity of this subscale for assessing emotionalexhaustion. Therefore, our criterion variable may bemore reflective of a narrow set of negative emotionalexperiences than of emotional exhaustion.

We did not assess personality in our study, al-though some traits are associated with the perfor-mance of CWB (e.g., negative affectivity, conscien-tiousness, agreeableness; Berry et al., 2007). Inaddition, Connor-Smith and Flachsbart’s (2007) re-cent meta-analysis suggests that personality may playa role in determining an individual’s coping style.Therefore, the use of CWB as emotion-focused cop-ing may vary depending on employees’ personalitytraits. Further research is needed to examine thispossibility.

We found no evidence in our sample that engagingin CWB is rewarding under conditions of moderate tohigh perceptions of justice, which begs the question,“Why do individuals engage in CWB in these con-ditions?” Perhaps employees learn that CWB can berewarding in situations of low perceived justice andthen continue to engage in these behaviors even aftera situation is rectified. More research is needed toaddress the reasons why individuals engage in CWBin high justice conditions. We also focused on dis-tributive and procedural justice as stressors that em-ployees may perceive to be beyond their control.However, additional research is needed to investigatewhether the impact of other uncontrollable stressors(e.g., customers, crowding, downsizing) may also bemitigated by production deviance or withdrawal.

We also recognize that other forms of CWB mayserve an instrumental purpose as well as an emotionalone (Spector et al., 2006). For instance, an employeemay yell at a coworker to work harder or faster, andthis may clue management in to a problem or result inimproved coworker performance. As Lazarus (1996)noted, the distinction between problem- and emotion-focused coping is not always clear, as attempts todirectly reduce a stressor (i.e., problem-focused cop-ing) may also help an individual reduce his or hernegative emotions. We encourage researchers to con-sider the instrumental use of other forms of CWB

(e.g., abuse against others), as well as other potentialpositive effects of CWB on the individual (e.g., de-creased negative emotion, improved performance)and the organization (e.g., increased productivity).

One of the strengths of this study is that partici-pants were employed in a wide range of industriesand jobs. Hence, our results may be more generaliz-able than studies that are limited to employees in asingle organization or occupation. However, we hadto drop a number of cases because of either noncon-scientious responding or excessive missing data. Per-haps because respondents participated to be enteredinto a random drawing to receive one of 20 $50incentives, some may have chosen to respond to fewquestions or respond nonconscientiously simply to beentered into the drawing. Given the growing popu-larity of online research tools such as StudyResponse,more research may be needed to understand the non-conscientious responding and missing data issues thatmay occur with the use of these tools.

Finally, an important qualification of our argumentneeds to be made. CWB occurs in the context of aperson– organization interaction (Spector & Fox,2005). The unfolding nature of this interaction mayaffect the degree to which CWB can reduce emo-tional exhaustion. For instance, if employees contin-uously perform work slowly or incorrectly, take morebreaks than allowed, or arrive to work late, they maybe reprimanded by the organization or even fired. Inaddition, these behaviors may anger coworkers, caus-ing more stress for the focal employee. Furthermore,to the extent that performance and attendance areassociated with financial rewards, employees mayhurt themselves by decreasing their productivity orwithdrawing. From a cost-benefit perspective, thecoping benefit of performing these CWB over thelong-term may be outweighed by the cost. Therefore,although we suggest that CWB can be beneficial toindividuals, we recognize that there may be moreboundary conditions to this argument than we haveset.

Conclusion

This study served as an initial investigation intothe possible instrumental use of engaging in certainCWB as a means of coping with job stressors. Al-though additional research is needed to replicate ourfindings, withdrawal and production deviance appearto reduce employee emotional exhaustion when em-ployees are faced with an uncontrollable stressor (i.e.,low justice). Because emotional exhaustion has beenlinked to lowered employee motivation, engagement,


and job performance (Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007),these forms of CWB may actually benefit rather thanharm organizations (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998).We encourage future research to address this coun-terintuitive implication.

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Received June 3, 2009Revision received September 11, 2009

Accepted October 18, 2009 y


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