Sabotage Behavior Research Articles

Can personality traits and daily positive mood buffer the harmful effects of daily negative mood on task performance and service sabotage? A self-control perspective

Although researchers have suggested that employee daily negative mood leads to unfavorable performance outcomes, it remains unclear “when” daily negative mood is particularly or less harmful with respect to performance outcomes. Based on the self-control framework and the undoing hypothesis, we examined whether daily negative mood impairs employee daily task performance and increases service sabotage behaviors, as well as whether individual characteristics associated with self-control can buffer the detrimental impacts of daily negative mood. After testing our theoretical model using data from two field studies with different research settings and designs, we found that employee daily negative mood negatively predicts task performance, while employee conscientiousness and daily positive mood can weaken this association. In addition, employee daily negative mood positively predicted service sabotage, whereas emotional stability attenuated the positive relationship between daily negative mood and service sabotage. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Jaypatient-Induced Service Sabotage Behavior: The Issue of Self-Esteem of Hospital Nurses

Worrying incidents exist where disgruntled nurses destroy good service quality through sabotage behavior. Previous studies report the organizational and environmental factors that might lead to service sabotage behaviors; here individual differences in proclivity to service sabotage within any given environment of managerial context are reported. The study first uses interviews to establish typologies of difficult patients. Regression analysis and ANOVA applied to survey data shows that low self-esteem in nurses leads to service sabotage behavior, and that these nurses are less mature both chronologically and emotionally, less experienced, and less educated than their more typical counterparts.

Understanding hotel employees’ service sabotage: Emotional labor perspective based on conservation of resources theory

Although hospitality employees’ service sabotage behavior in service encounters is not only, more seriously prevailed than generally presumed but also detrimental to the organizations’ growth, and profitability, the topic has not been a major topic in hospitality research. Thus, this study aims to, provide answers to the questions “Why do hospitality employees engage in service sabotage, behaviors?” and “What can hospitality organizations do to mitigate them?” Based on conservation of, resources (COR) theory, we hypothesized hospitality employees’ emotional labor, specifically, emotional dissonance, to be a major source of service sabotage. We also hypothesized burnout to have, a mediating effect, while emotional intelligence has a buffering effect on the mediated relationship, between emotional dissonance and service sabotage via burnout. The results of moderated mediation, regression analyses of the data from 309 customer-contact hotel employees in the U.S. supported all, the hypotheses in this study. The implications of the findings and future research directions were, discussed.

Affectivity, emotional exhaustion, and service sabotage behavior: The mediation role of rumination

In this study, we examined the mechanisms of rumination including its antecedents (positive and negative affectivity) and outcomes (emotional exhaustion and service sabotage behavior). Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from 751 employees in a call center in China. Results showed that positive and negative affectivity were significantly related to rumination, which is then positively related to emotional exhaustion and service sabotage behavior. Moreover, rumination significantly mediated the relationships between positive and negative affectivity, and the outcomes of rumination. Finally, emotional exhaustion was found to be positively related to service sabotage behavior.

Sabotage in Tournaments: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Although relative performance schemes are pervasive in organizations, reliable empirical data on induced sabotage behavior are almost nonexistent. We study sabotage in repeated tournaments in a controlled laboratory experiment and observe that effort and sabotage are higher for higher wage spreads. Additionally, we find that also in the presence of tournament incentives, agents react reciprocally to higher wages by exerting higher effort. Destructive activities are reduced by explicitly calling them by their name “sabotage.” Communication among principal and agents can curb sabotage when they agree on flat prize structures and increased output. If sabotage is not possible, the principals choose tournament incentives more often. This paper was accepted by Peter Wakker, decision analysis.

Sabotage in Tournaments: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Although relative performance schemes are pervasive in organizations reliable empirical data on induced sabotage behavior is almost non-existent. We study sabotage in tournaments in a controlled laboratory experiment and are able to confirm one of the key insights from theory: effort and sabotage increase with the wage spread. Additionally, we find that even in the presence of tournament incentives, agents react reciprocally to higher wages, which mitigates the sabotage problem. Destructive activities are reduced by explicitly calling them by their name 'sabotage'. Communication among principal and agents curbs sabotage due to agreements on flat prize structures and increased output.

Service Sabotage: A Study of Antecedents and Consequences

Although much of the existing research on employee sabotage and deviance focuses on the manufacturing sector, studies have also found evidence of deliberate employee misbehavior in a variety of service settings. In this study, the authors conceptualize and test a model of service sabotage dynamics that incorporates both the antecedents and the consequences of such behaviors. In doing so, the study contributes contemporary empirical evidence of factors associated with the deliberate sabotage of service by frontline customer-contact personnel. Using a survey-based approach, the authors collected data from 259 respondents from a sample of 1,000 respondents. The findings largely support the hypothesized antecedents of service sabotage and show that a range of individual characteristics, management control efforts, and perceived labor market conditions are linked with service sabotage. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that service sabotage behaviors are associated with individual and group rewards, effects for customers, and other performance measures.

From Team Spirit to Jealousy: The Pitfalls of Too Much Transparency

Free riding in team production arises because individual effort is not perfectly observable. It seems natural to suppose that greater transparency would enhance incentives. Therefore, it is puzzling that team production often lacks transparency about individual contributions despite negligible costs for providing such information. We offer a rationale for this by demonstrating that transparency can actually hurt incentives. In the presence of career concerns information on the quality of task execution improves incentives while sustaining a cooperative team spirit. In contrast, making the identity of individual contributors observable induces sabotage behavior that looks like jealousy but arises purely from signal jamming by less successful team members. Our results rationalize the conspicuous lack of transparency in team settings with strong career concerns (e.g., co-authorship, architecture, and patent applications) and contribute to explaining the popularity of group incentive schemes in firms.

Sabotage in the workplace: The role of organizational injustice

This study examines the relationship between injustice and workplace sabotage. Drawing on the organizational justice and workplace deviance literatures, we hypothesize that injustice will be the most common cause of sabotage, and that the source of injustice will influence the goal, target, and severity of sabotage behavior. The results generally support our hypotheses. First, injustice was the most common cause of sabotage. Second, when the source of injustice was interactional, individuals were more likely to engage in retaliation, and when the source of injustice was distributive, individuals were more likely to engage in equity restoration. Third, the source of injustice and the target of sabotage were generally the same, although this relationship was stronger for organizational targets than for individual targets. Finally, there was an additive effect of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice on the severity of sabotage. We discuss the implications of these results for future research on sabotage and deviant workplace behavior.

Exploring Service Sabotage

The attitudes and behaviors of frontline, customer-contact service providers are a significant factor in customers’ perceptions and interpretations of service encounters. To date, research into service quality and customer satisfaction has overlooked evidence that suggests that such employees intentionally act in a variety of deviant, counterproductive ways. The aims of this study are first to explore, describe, and classify such behaviors and second to model the antecedents and consequences of such actions. Existing studies and field interviews are used to forward the notion of “service sabotage”, denoting organizational member behaviors that are intentionally designed negatively to affect service. Data reveal that more than 90% of all informants accept that service sabotage is an everyday occurrence in their organization. A typology of service sabotage behaviors is forwarded and a range of antecedents and consequences proposed. The article concludes with a series of implications.

Employee Sabotage in the Workplace: A Biopsychosocial Model

Recently, there has been an increased interest in workplace violence. However, the psychiatric literature has paid little, if any attention to the specific subject area of workplace property harm or sabotage by employees. The specific psychology and/or psychopathology of the individual worker may be relevant in the evaluation of sabotage behavior. However, psychosocial factors associated with behavior within organizations and originating in part from the job itself are not likely to be considered in the initial assessment. We therefore introduce concepts from the organizational behavior literature that may facilitate and complement psychiatric evaluation of sabotage in the workplace. These concepts will fill the gap in a biopsychosocial assessment of sabotage in the workplace and provide a nexus for future interdisciplinary studies of workplace property violence.

Justifying wrongful employee behavior: The role of personality in organizational sabotage

The role that personality plays in the justification of organizational sabotage behavior was examined. In a two phase study, 120 business students were first surveyed to create a list of 51 methods of sabotage. In the second phase, 274 other business students rated justifiability of the 51 methods and completed Machiavellian and hostility scales. A factor analysis of the justification ratings yielded four factors: (1) methods of sabotaging company profits and production, (2) informational sabotage, (3) violent and illegal methods, and (4) traditional labor methods of sabotage. A 2 (high versus low Machiavellianism) ×2 (high versus low hostility) ANOVA upon factor scores for justifiability revealed significant main effects for hostility and significant interactive effects on Factors 1 and 2. Results were discussed in terms of differences in management and blue collar methods of sabotage and in terms of a self-presentational approach to justification of sabotage.