| Sažetak | Nepoželjna organizacijska ponašanja (NOP) štete organizacijama i zaposlenicima. Novije spoznaje sugeriraju da, uz svjesne aspekte ličnosti, automatski kognitivni procesi koji čine implicitnu ličnost pružaju dodatni uvid u razumijevanje NOP-a. Dvije obećavajuće metode za mjerenje implicitne ličnosti su Test uvjetovanog rezoniranja za agresivnost (TUR-A; James i LeBreton, 2012) i Test implicitnih asocijacija za agresivnost (IAT-A; Schnabel i sur., 2008). Ove metode zahvaćaju implicitni motiv za agresiju i istraživanja sugeriraju da mogu predvidjeti NOP. No mehanizmi putem kojih implicitna agresivnost djeluje na NOP nisu u potpunosti jasni. U ovom istraživanju htjeli smo provjeriti mogu li stavovi prema poslu i emocije na radnom mjestu objasniti djelovanje implicitne agresivnosti na NOP. Istraživanje smo proveli na 360 zaposlenika različitih hrvatskih organizacija koji su osim TUR-A i IAT-A u dva navrata u razmaku od 6-12 mjeseci ispunili upitnike zadovoljstva poslom, ljutnje na radnom mjestu i NOP-a. Također, prikupili smo i suradničke procjene NOP-a. Rezultati su pokazali da je implicitna agresivnost važna odrednica (ne)zadovoljstva poslom, ljutnje na radnom mjestu i NOP-a, ali samo ako je odmjerena TUR-A-om. Medijacijske analize pokazale su da NOP usmjerena prema organizaciji posreduju odnos TUR-A i zadovoljstva poslom, dok je ljutnja na radnom mjestu posredovala odnos TUR-A i NOP usmjerenih prema suradnicima. Ovo sugerira da stavovi prema poslu služe kao naknadne racionalizacije NOP-a usmjerenih prema organizaciji koja proizlaze iz implicitne ličnosti. Ljutnja na radnom mjestu služi kao dodatni poticaj implicitno agresivnim zaposlenicima za upuštanje u NOP usmjerena prema suradnicima. |
| Sažetak (engleski) | Introduction:
Personality is one of the most important psychological determinants of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), which present a large cost to organizations and their employees. However, most of the studies capture only part of personality accessible to introspection – explicit personality. Researchers have recently started to acknowledge that implicit personality processes that happen below the level of consciousness also influence organizational behavior. The main reason why the relationship of implicit personality and CWBs remained mostly unexplored are unreliable measurement methods of implicit personality. Recently, several assessment methods emerged that can validly measure implicit personality, most prominent being the Conditional Reasoning Test (CRT; James & LeBreton, 2012) and Implicit Association Test (IAT; Schnabel et al., 2008). In this study we used these two methods to measure implicit aggressiveness, an implicit motive that most likely relates to CWBs. Studies indicate that both CRT (CRT-A) and IAT for aggressiveness (IAT-A) can predict aggressive and antisocial behavior, including CWBs, over and above explicit personality traits. However, the exact mechanisms through which implicit aggressiveness affects CWBs is not clear. Because implicitly aggressive individuals do not engage in CWBs to act consistently with their self-concept, they need to justify their CWBs somehow. One way of doing this would be to develop negative attitudes about their relationship with the employer. While it is plausible that negative job attitudes can explain the relationship between implicit aggressiveness and CWBs, the exact causal sequence of the relationship between the three variables is not as clear. On the one hand, it could be that aggressive individuals first form attitudes through biased cognitive processes, and then these negative attitudes influence CWBs (implicit aggressiveness→ job attitudes→ CWBs). On the other hand, negative job attitudes might be post-hoc rationalizations of already executed CWBs (implicit aggressiveness→ CWBs→ attitudes). Study by Galić et al. (2018) tested these contrasting causal sequences and showed stronger support for the sequence in which job attitudes follow from CWBs that stem from implicit aggressiveness measured with the CRT-A. Another important psychological construct that could explain effects of implicit aggressiveness on CWBs are workplace emotions. According to the Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), some dispositions predispose individuals to have stronger affective reactions to the events at the workplace. A tendency to feel angry is one of the fundamental characteristics of aggressive individuals and it should psychologically prepare them to engage in aggressive/antisocial behavior. So, it is reasonable to assume that workplace anger will mediate the effect of implicit aggressiveness on CWBs. In line with the above, our main goal was to investigate if job attitudes can help explain the relationship between implicit aggressiveness and CWBs. Compared to the study of Galić et al. (2018), we investigated this with a stronger research design in which we (1) measured implicit aggressiveness with both CRT-A and IAT-A, and (2) used repeated measurement of job attitudes and CWBs. In addition to that, we wanted to further elucidate the psychological processes that explain the relationship between implicit aggressiveness and CWBs by investigating the role of workplace anger in explaining this relationship.
Methodology:
Our sample consisted of 360 employees from various Croatian organizations. Before conducting our study, we developed and validated a Croatian version of the IAT-A. At first time point (t1) participants filled in the CRT-A and IAT-A, and self-reported on job satisfaction, workplace anger, CWBs and explicit personality traits most often related to CWBs (agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability). Six to twelve months later (t2), 164 (45.6%) participants that remained on the same job again self-reported on job satisfaction, workplace anger and CWBs. Also, after t1, for 289 (79.7%) participants we collected otherreports of CWBs from two coworkers. To test our hypotheses, we conducted correlational analyses, and regression and mediation analyses in which we controlled for the explicit personality traits. To deal with the missing data we used the full information maximum likelihood (FIML) procedure to estimate parameters in all the analyses.
Results:
IAT-A scores were not significantly related to basically none of the other variables, so we focused on the analyses with CRT-A. Implicit aggressiveness, as measured with the CRT-A, explained lower job satisfaction over and above explicit personality both at t1 and t2. As for the workplace anger, CRT-A was related to higher levels of anger over and above explicit personality only at t1. Finally, CRT-A explained other-reported CWBs and t1 self-reported CWBs over and above explicit personality but was not related to t2 self-reported CWBs. However, when we split the CWBs into interpersonally (CWB-Is) and organizationally directed (CWB-Os), results showed that CRTA predicted self-reported CWB-Is 6-12 months later but not CWB-Os. Mediation analyses with job satisfaction replicated findings of Galić et al. (2018) and gave somewhat stronger support to the sequence in which CWBs mediated the relationship between CRT-A and t2 job (dis)satisfaction. Unlike the one for the opposite sequence, the indirect effect of CRT-A on t2 job satisfaction via CWBs replicated over self and other-reports of CWBs. However, the indirect effect of CRT-A on CWBs via job satisfaction was also significant, but only for self-reported CWBs. Splitting CWBs by their target showed that these findings apply primarily on CWB-Os and not CWB-Is. As for the workplace anger, the analyses confirmed that it mediates the relationship between CRT-A and self-reported CWBs. However, they also gave support to the opposite direction, in which self-reported CWBs mediate the relationship between CRT-A and anger. The indirect effects did not replicate on other-reported CWBs. Splitting CWBs by target gave much clearer picture. Workplace anger only explained the relationship of CRT-A with CWBIs, and not CWB-Os. Also, for CWB-Is the only significant indirect effect was the one reflecting a sequence where CWB-Is follow from workplace anger that stems from implicit personality. The effect replicated on both self and other-reported CWB-Is.
Conclusion:
Our findings stress the importance of considering unconscious, as well as conscious, personality tendencies of employees to identify workers who can inflict serious harm to both organizations and other employees. We showed that these workers might rationalize their unconsciously motivated CWBs after they committed them by forming negative attitudes toward their job. This might be especially relevant for CWBs directed toward the organization. Also, given that they show a tendency to feel more anger at work, they might also act upon that anger by engaging in CWBs. In this case, they primarily choose CWBs directed toward coworkers. |
