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Background and Purpose

The article personality and counterproductive work behavior is written by Lisa M. Penney,
Emily M. Hunter and Sara J. Perry using conservation of resources theory to narrow the
prole of deviant employees. This article states that how the big five traits like
conscientiousness and emotional stability are concerned to reduce the counterproductive
work behavior (CWB) such as rudeness, sabotage, wasting time, and withholding effort for
the accomplishment of desired goals and preserve the personal well-being by making the
smooth operation of organization. It also mentions that conservation of resource (COR)
theory is a useful mechanism in order to know the instrumental use of CWB to attain the
work goals and minimize psychological strains.
The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature by positioning COR theory as
a framework to explain how conscientiousness and ES are associated with resource
investment strategies that may be considered counterproductive from an organizations
perspective, to build on the trait interaction approach and to explain how we expect the
relationship between conscientiousness and CWB to vary as a function of both personal (i.e.,
ES) and organizational (i.e., job constraints) resources.

Main Issues

Does psychological strain come as a result of lack of resources?
Are conscientiousness and emotional stability (ES) positively or negatively related to
counterproductive work behavior (CWB)?
Does emotional stability moderate the relationship between conscientiousness and CWB?
Do both emotional stability (ES) and constrains moderate the relationship between
conscientiousness and CWB such that the relationship is positive when employees are
low in ES and experiencing high levels of constraints, but negative for all other
combinations of ES and constraints?
Arguments made by the Authors

Past study stated that counterproductive work behavior has the potential to harm an
organization, its members, or both (Spector & Fox, 2005) but in this study states
researchers have acknowledged that CWB may reect instrumental or goal-oriented
behavior (e.g., Fox & Spector, 2010; Neuman& Baron, 2005).
In this study the researchers have argued that the multiple traits of the individuals should
be considered while predicting their behaviors and have shown that the relationship
between conscientiousness and important employee outcomes depends on ES and related
traits.
In the past research it was quoted that conservation of resource (COR) is used to predict
the psychological strains such as emotional exhaustion which occurs as a result of
resource insufficiency but this study has stated that (COR) can be used to obtain resources
and prevent resource losses.
Also this study has been conducted to specify that conscientiousness and emotional
stability are valid predictors of employee behavior across jobs because they are associated
with goals related to task achievement.
As per (COR) theory if resources are insufcient, individuals are motivated to exert
resources to offset additional resource losses (Hobfoll, 1989) but Halbesleben and Bowler
(2007) argued that emotionally exhausted employees are motivated to conserve resources
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and therefore direct little energy towards behaviors that would consume their few
remaining resources (e.g., task performance).
Methodology
Study Design:
The data here are collected from the sample in two phases, approximately 4 weeks apart. The
authors point out that the research design used in the study is not a true longitudinal design.
However, the collection of data at two phases suggests some hint of a longitudinal study. The
use of the longitudinal study design can be deemed as a merit of the study. As the authors
attempt to examine behavioral aspects the use of longitudinal study is an appropriate choice.
Population and Sample:
The sample participants were selected from the Study Response Project. The population can
be said to be as over 95000 participants of the online research panel. Initial recruitment notice
was sent to 988 individuals and out of which 522 responded. For the second survey 368 put
of the 522 respondents participated. The sample consisted of 98 % full time employed
participants and participants for the study were from a broad range of sectors such as
education, healthcare, government, retail, manufacturing and food service. Furthermore, the
sample was also diverse in gender with 44.5 %male participants. However the sample
consisted of mainly Caucasian respondents (92%), which may be a demerit of sample as it is
biased towards a particular race.
Sampling Design:
No any specific sampling design that was used is mentioned in the article. Thus we cannot
comment on it. The choice of selecting samples from an online research panel is a merit as it
reduced the cost and time of data collection. Further choosing participants who volunteered
for the study and offering random drawing incentives helped increase the response rate.
Certain proportion of many industry representations: education, healthcare, government,
retail, manufacturing and food service can be seen in the sample and inclusion of these many
industries increases the generalizability of the findings. However, the selection of
respondents from various industries may lead to confusing results as the type and nature of
CWB may vary across industries. Selection of samples from specific industries the findings
would have allowed more direct examination of the variables.
Data Collection:
The data for the study was collected in two phases; the phases were approximately 4 weeks
apart. The initial recruitment was sent to 988 individuals, out of which 522 responded, with a
considerably high response rate of 52.8%. As for the second survey 368 participants
responded. The participants were recruited through email solicitation. In the first phase
participants received email recruitment notice for a survey for the personality and constraint
measures. For the second phase for the CWB-C was sent after 4 weeks. Also to minimize
response bias respondents were asked to complete the survey somewhere other than work.
Data were collected using self-reporting measures. Participants who responded carelessly and
provided excessive missing data were dropped from the study, which resulted in a final
sample with complete data from both surveys to be 239.

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Measures/Instrument:
Primary data were collected using self-reported surveys. Personality aspects of
conscientiousness and emotional stability were measured using two 10-item scales from
International Personality Item Pool. These scales tested to display integral consistencies and
criterion related validity. The organizational constraints were measured using the
Organizational Constraints Scale, which contained 11 items. Counterproductive work
behavior was measuring a 33-item version of CWB Checklist. The alpha coefficient
reliability for this scale was 0.87. Employee age, gender and job tenure were included as
control variables based on previous research

Data Analysis:
The moderated multiple regression method was used to test the third hypothesis, H3. In this
CWB was regressed onto the control variables (of age, gender and job tenure) and mean
centered predictors to test whether ES moderated the relationship between conscientiousness
and CWB. For the fourth hypothesis to predict whether the relationship between
conscientiousness and CWB is moderated by both ES and constraints the control variables
and predictors were first entered and then all possible two-way interaction terms and three
way interaction terms followed. Further for H4 simple effects were computed and the paths
for all predictors were plotted using one standard above and below the mean.

Major Findings
1. First hypothesis that conscientiousness is negatively related to CWB was rejected given the
correlation coefficient equal to -0.09 that shows conscientiousness is unrelated to CWB.
2. Second hypothesis was supported and it was found that ES is negatively related to CWB
given correlation coefficient being equal to -0.22 and p < 0.01.
3. Third hypothesis was also accepted as it was found via correlation coefficient that ES
moderates the relationship between conscientiousness and CWB i.e. this relationship is
negative when ES is high (r = -0.29, p<0.01) but positive when ES is low (r = 0.27, p<0.05).
The reason for positive relation when low ES is that highly conscientious employee with few
personal resources may engage in CWB to overcome psychological strain by conserving
resources or to obtain required resources for failure avoidance.
4. This research found existence of positive relation between conscientiousness and CWB
given low ES and high constraints (r = 0.36, p<0.01, t (222) = 2.55), but the finding that
conscientiousness and CWB were unrelated when constraints were low, rejected H4.

Main Idea
The main idea of this research is to demonstrate the usefulness of COR theory to understand
the reasons of CWB among employees for achieving their work goals or reducing their strain
by conserving resources. This article communicates, conscientiousness and CWB are
unrelated to each other but ES is inversely related to CWB. However, when ES is taken as a
moderating variable, the relation between conscientiousness and CWB becomes negative
when ES is high and positive when ES is low. Likewise, conscientiousness is related with
CWB when there is high level of constraints regardless of the ES level, but when there are
few constraints, conscientiousness and CWB becomes unrelated.
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Managerial Implications and Research Implications
Most of the organization use conscientiousness personality traits as very important in making
selection decisions where the moderating effect of ES added by this research may help
organization in better predicting CWB of employees which further helps in selection
procedure of employees. The reason found by this research for the issue: even though
employees are high on conscientiousness, it results in high CWB, if ES is low, i.e. to
conserve resources help organizations to prevent CWB as by knowing this they can ensure all
required resources to perform job tasks is with employees. In addition to this, organizations
may also employ optional resource conservation strategies like taking assistance of
employees only to recognize more productive strategies of conserving and attaining resources
or organizations may also encourage employees to take regular breaks etc. Besides these
reasons, this study also helps manager to understand the possible reasons for CWB of their
employees, which may be done to conserve resources, rather than just an attitudinal problem
as thought normally. This research also provides the scope for other studies in future. The
sample here included individuals employed in a wide range of industries and jobs, whichwere
taken to study CWB whose incidence and type may vary across industries, some of the
findings might have been perplexed. Thus, future studies focusing on specific industries are
needed to examine the possibility of such confusion. This research uses goals as the key
mediating mechanism that is not measured here due to which definitive conclusion cannot be
made i.e. conservation of resources is the reason for CWB of employees. Thus, researchers
encourage future research with motivational mediators. Besides this there also lies possibility
that some contextual variables like organizational justice are not measured, which did, had an
effect on the studies relationships. So, to increase confidence of the findings repetition is
required along with different methodologies (true longitudinal designs) and different criteria
(supervisor or peer reported CWB). Another implication would be to investigate the short-
and long-term consequences of CWB. As, although CWB may help employees in conserving
resources in short run, some long term costs may also be there like due to portrayal of CWB,
employees may develop poor relationships in work place that may result in additional
constraints as others may then try to get back at them by various means like failing to assist
those employees in the future etc.
Overall Assessment
This research is significant in the sense it has tried to further contribute to the knowledge in
the subject area. This study makes significant contributions to literature by positioning the
COR theory as a framework to explain how conscientiousness and ES are related to
investment strategies. Further more this study attempts to highlight the interactive effects of
conscientiousness and ES in relation to CWB, an area where previous knowledge was
limited. This study also makes significant contributions as it uses COR theory to build on trait
interaction approach and attempts to explain how the relationship between conscientiousness
and CWB vary as a function of ES. Also this study uses COR to explain how the relationship
between conscientiousness and CWB change as a function of both ES and organizational
resources. This study can be deemed as being significant as it explores the above-mentioned
aspects. Considering the measures of personality, a 10 item scale was used; this scale
demonstrated internal consistency and criterion related validity, which strengthens the study.
Another merit of the study was the attempt to minimize the response bias, which may have
arisen due to the concerns about employer monitoring. The bias was reduced by asking the
respondents to complete the survey elsewhere other than the workplace. The risk of common
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method variance might have weakened the study but the authors have conducted
confirmatory factor analysis of all study items loading on their respective constructs, the
results indicate that common method bias has little influence on the study, thereby
strengthening the study. The diverse sample further strengthens the report by increasing
generalizability. Even though previous researches have examined the main and interactive
effect of conscientiousness and ES in predicting CWB the current study is among the first to
leverage COR in prediction of CWB, a behavioral strain. Therefore we can say that the study
has made significant contributions.
Despite its merits the study has certain shortcomings. The study failed to assess the mediating
mechanisms of task achievement and strain reduction, due to this limitation there maybe
alternative explanations of the study findings. The excessive use of the self reporting
measures can also be a drawback of the study, but the use of two phase data collection and
confirmatory factor analysis reduce this bias and strengthen the study.