Organizational structure, organizational form, and counterproductive work behavior: A competitive test of the bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic views

Abstract

Knowledge about the influence of organizational structure and organizational form on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) has been limited, fragmented, and inconsistent. The contradictory findings from empirical studies were in line with the contradictory predictions of the bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy theories. These theories have opposing views regarding the influence of organizational structure elements and forms on CWB. To perform a competitive test of the bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic views, we developed pairs of opposing hypotheses. We examined the relationship between five organizational structure elements and CWB. Our findings showed that participation in decisions and formal standardization are negatively related to CWB, whereas punishment is positively associated with CWB. Specialization and decision autonomy were not related to CWB. We clustered organizational forms based on the degree to which the forms emphasize organizational structure elements. Our results indicated that incidents of CWB are least common in ideal-typical post-bureaucracies and most common in ideal-typical bureaucracies. However, hybrid forms show no significant differences with regard to incidents of CWB. In sum, our study provides evidence that post-bureaucracy theory explains CWB better than bureaucracy theory. However, we argue that the combination of both theories offers a more comprehensive view of this phenomenon than post-bureaucracy theory alone. We implicate that research should extend the integration of structural elements in order to gain a better understanding of CWB.