An organizational justice perspective to task-and person-focused counterproductive work behaviors towards individuals.

Abstract

The authors investigated the relationship between organizational justice and counterproductive work behaviors directed towards individuals (CWBI) to understand if the two behaviors of task-focused and person-focused CWBIs exist within the domain of CWBI. A total of 143 working adults from various industries were surveyed. Regression analysis revealed non-significant relationships between distributive, procedural and interactional justice and task- and person- focused CWBIs. Hence, the hypothesized composite structure of CWBI could not be proven. An additional regression analysis and a further t-test analysis revealed a marginally significant interactional effect between interactional and distributive justice with respect to task-focused CWBI and significant differences between male and female CWBI scores respectively. The marginally significant interactional relationship emphasizes the importance of interactional justice in the workplace, thereby providing reasons for managers to ensure respectful treatment of employees. Lastly, possible theoretical explanations for the non-significant findings and future research directions are proposed at the end of the paper.