Search Results (8)

(1) Background: Workplace procrastination leads to missed deadlines and financial losses, necessitating a deeper understanding of its risk factors and inhibitors for effective interventions. This study aims to bridge the significant gap in the literature regarding the effects of Authentic Leadership (AL) on workplace procrastination behaviors, including soldiering and cyberslacking. AL, as a positive leadership style, is proposed as a key factor in mitigating procrastination by fostering a supportive work environment. Specifically, this research examines how AL impacts procrastination through two psychosocial risk factors—lack of supervisor support and lack of workgroup support—which are hypothesized to mediate this relationship. (2) Methods: Data were collected from 738 employees (62.9% women) who completed a survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was conducted to explore the direct relationship between AL and procrastination, and indirect relationships through support. (3) Results: The findings indicate that AL negatively impacts procrastination behaviors, with stronger effects on soldiering compared to cyberslacking. AL is also negatively associated with perceptions of a lack of support from both leaders and workgroups, with a stronger influence on leader support. Both lack of leader and workgroup support significantly predict soldiering but not cyberslacking. (4) Conclusions: This study highlights AL’s potential to mitigate workplace procrastination by reducing perceptions of insufficient support. Organizations should focus on AL training to promote leader authenticity and supportiveness while fostering strong support networks within workgroups to enhance productivity and reduce procrastination behaviors. These findings also contribute to understanding AL’s role in addressing workplace counterproductive behaviors. Full article

Despite advances in understanding the factors that predict unethical behaviors such as counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB), there is still substantial variance left unexplained in the occurrence of unethical behavior. Recent research has examined how unethical behavior may change beyond initially reported levels due to the gradual erosion of ethicality via justification processes such as moral disengagement. The present study extends this research by examining the role of personality in determining the extent to which individuals make subsequent unethical decisions at greater or lower levels beyond their initial levels. Studies 1 and 2 used an experimental design that presents half of participants with an opportunity to practice moral disengagement by allowing participants to justify their actions. Results in study 1 demonstrate that individuals with high levels of dark personality traits tend to increase their level of unethical decision making when given the chance to justify their actions, whereas those with low levels of dark personality become less unethical. Study 2 examines the extent to which the mediating role of perceived justice changes when participants are given an opportunity to justify their actions. Results from study 2 show the effects of justice as a mediating mechanism are significantly diminished when the justification manipulation is present. Implications emphasize the need to use both selection and development interventions in organizations to reduce gradual decreases in ethicality as well as reduced reliance on cross-sectional research to study a phenomenon that can change as unethical behavior is justified. Full article

Danish prosecutors report exposure to negative acts from professional counterparts in courtrooms, which is associated with an increased risk of burnout. However, knowledge of the characteristics of these acts is limited. Based on existing theoretical frameworks, this study aims to characterize these negative acts. A nation-wide survey of Danish prosecutors (response rate: 81%) yielded 687 descriptions of experiences with negative acts from professional counterparts from a career perspective. These were analyzed using theory-directed content analysis based on the Stress-as-Offense-to-Self (SOS) theory by Semmer and colleagues and Cortina and colleagues’ characterization of incivility in American courtrooms. We identified a total of 15 types of behavior within the three main themes: illegitimate tasks (n = 22), illegitimate stressors (n = 68), and illegitimate behavior (n = 612). Tentative differences in the distribution of experienced negative acts from a career perspective were found for gender and seniority. Women reported negative acts more frequently than men, and assistant prosecutors reported verbal abuse more frequently than senior prosecutors, who, conversely, more often reported a perceived lack of court management. More prospective research is needed on negative acts experienced by prosecutors to assess the scope of these in Danish courtrooms and how they impact the risk of burnout. Full article

Background: Correctional officers’ life expectancy in the U.S. is 59 years, compared to the population average of 75 years. Correctional officers have higher suicide rates than others and carry a higher risk for substance use. This study examined relationships between work stress, psychoactive substance use, and preferred venues for treatment. Methods: Secondary analysis was conducted on 2017–2018 data from interviews with correctional officers, randomly sampled from prisons within Massachusetts and Texas. Independent sample t-test, multinomial logistic regression, and mediation effect model were used for analysis. Results: Of the 1083 participants (mean age = 38.6), 71.4% were males, 62.9% were White, 17.0% were veterans, and 46.7% worked in maximum-security prisons, among which 70.8% used alcohol and 17.2% sedatives in the last month. While 52.3% did not prefer receiving stress management services from the department, 32.9% did not prefer receiving from outside. Alcohol and sedative use were associated positively with work stress and counterproductive workplace behaviors, and negatively with organizational citizenship and task performance. Preferred treatment varied based on work stress and substance use. Conclusions: Work stress and psychoactive substance use among correctional officers are multifactorial. Interventions should be tailored to officers’ needs and preferred treatment venues. Prison reform should address the needs of not only inmates, but also officers. Full article

With the excessive smartphone use in the workplace, supervisor phubbing has drawn broad concerns in managerial and academic fields. Though the neglect is unintentional, this behavior can generate counterproductive working behaviors. The basic assumptions of this study are that supervisor phubbing can impact employee psychological withdrawal behavior directly and indirectly via work alienation. To provide empirical evidence for the assumptions, the two-wave online survey of 302 Chinese employees without any supervisory functions was conducted on the Questionnaire Star platform. Based on the stressor-emotion model, work alienation is proved to be the psychological path in the positive relationship between supervisor phubbing and employee psychological withdrawal behavior. Different from the current studies exploring the impact mechanism of phubbing behavior on psychological withdrawal behavior between parents and children, couples, or friends, we put this mechanism into the workplace and focus on subordinate–superior relationships. In addition, the positive indirect effects are enhanced when employees have higher interpersonal sensitivity. In practice, these findings suggest that organizations should normalize the smart devices use in the workplace, and supervisors should balance their working roles with other roles. In addition, organizations should strengthen training on adjusting to negative emotions and interpersonal sensitivity control at work. Although two rounds of the time-lagged data were collected in a one-month interval, the limitations of cross-section data still exist, so the conclusions cannot establish causality. Hence, future research may conduct experimental or longitudinal research designs to make the conclusion more rigorous. Full article

This study examines the role of equitable management in preventing sexual harassment in the workplace and a loss of productivity during periods of crisis due to natural or social disasters. A structured survey of 445 women from 76 companies in five regions of northern Peru and a structural equation analysis show that companies that implement equitable management can mitigate the adverse effects of social conflicts and natural disasters. These findings indicate that equitable management is inversely related to counterproductive behaviors (β = −0.259, p < 0.001), sexual harassment at work (β = −0.349, p < 0.001), and turnover intention (β = −0.527, p < 0.001) and is positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviors (β = 0.204, p < 0.001) and psychological empowerment (β = 0.240, p < 0.001). Social conflicts and natural disasters, on the other hand, increase workplace sexual harassment (β = 0.244, p = 0.027) and intention to quit (β = 0.252, p < 0.001) and have a considerable impact on the loss of work productivity (β = 0.662, p < 0.001). However, in companies with fairer and more equitable management, this impact is much smaller and mitigated by these good practices. This suggests that equitable management protects against and prevents sexual harassment at work. In addition, it acts as a mechanism that enhances organizational citizenship behaviors and attitudes in the workplace which remain even in adverse external environments. This is an effective tool and strategy for maintaining productivity and organizational resilience in difficult times. Full article

Organizational Justice is an individual’s perception that events, actions, or decisions within an organization adhere to a standard of fairness. Justice researchers have categorized justice into four types, differentiated by how fairness is evaluated by employees: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. Organizational justice perceptions have consequences for the employee and the organization: increasing job satisfaction, commitment, and trust; and decreasing turnover, counterproductive work behaviors, and even workplace violence. Contemporary organizational justice research seeks to understand how to restore justice after an injustice has occurred. Full article

Organizational scholars concur that job security can attach employees to a workplace and improve their job quality. The relationship between job security and employees’ deviant behaviors in the workplace, such as counterproductive work behavior (CWB), lacks insights into how or why this occurs, especially in a diversified employment context. To address these limitations, we developed a theoretical model of job security impact on employees’ CWB from the perspective of social identity. Analysis of employees (N = 208) and their supervisors in a China state-owned company were used to test the hypothesis. Results confirmed the negative relationship between job security and CWB; organizational identification partly mediates the relationship between job security and CWB. Moderated mediation analyses further indicate that the indirect effect of job security on CWB via organizational identification are stronger for temporary employees than for permanent employees. This article contributes to the understanding of job security’s impact on employees’ deviant behavior, practical implications and research aspects are discussed. Full article