Counterproductive work behavior

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is employee's behavior that goes against the legitimate interests of an organization. This behavior can harm the organization, other people within it, and other people and organizations outside it, including employers, other employees, suppliers, clients, patients and citizens. It has been proposed that a person-by-environment interaction (the relationship between a person's psychological and physical capacities and the demands placed on those capacities by the person's social and physical environment.) can be utilized to explain a variety of counterproductive behaviors. For instance, an employee who is high on trait anger (tendency to experience anger) is more likely to respond to a stressful incident at work (e.g., being treated rudely by a supervisor) with CWB.

Some researchers use the CWB term to subsume related constructs that are distinct:

• Workplace deviance is behavior at work that violates norms for appropriate behavior.
• Retaliation consists of harmful behaviors done by employees to get back at someone who has treated them unfairly.
• Workplace revenge are behaviors by employees intended to hurt another person who has done something harmful to them.
• Workplace aggression consists of harmful acts that harm others in organizations.