COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOUR IN SERVICE ORIENTED INDUSTRY: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOB CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY

ABSTRACT

Counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) by employees is an uncommon occurrence in organizations. Thus, given the prevalence and economic impact of CWB, researchers have given a lot of attention to research in this area. Thus the present study examined the role of job characteristics and personality in CWB among aviation workers; a group neglected in the CWB literature. Four hundred (400) workers (178 females and 222 males) from AkanuIbiamInternationalAirportEnuguState participated in the study. The participants responded to the validated measures of CWB, job characteristics, and personality scales. The result of regression analyses indicated that job characteristics did not significantly predict counterproductive work behaviour. The result revealed that among the dimensions of the Big Five, only openness to experience and conscientiousness were correlated to counterproductive work behaviour, while openness to experience can significantly predict counterproductive work behaviour. Demographics variables (age and length of service) were found to be a significant predictor of CWB. It is recommended that employees in high emotionally demanding jobs should be retrained at regular intervals. This may help in increasing their capacity to handle the demands of customers and reduce the occurrence of counterproductive work behaviour.