Bad today but not tomorrow: a review of the within-individual antecedents of employee counterproductive work behavior

Sherry Aw and Remus Ilies

Chapter 15 in Handbook of Counterproductive Work Behavior, 2025, pp 261-280 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Traditionally, organizational research has adopted a between-individual perspective in investigating the antecedents of employees’ counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). While this approach has no doubt been insightful, advances over the last two decades have suggested that more proximal, transient conditions in the employee’s immediate environment could be an equally important predictor of employee CWBs through their influence on employees’ psychological states. The aim of this chapter is thus to review the contemporary empirical work on employees’ CWBs, with a focus on the within-individual antecedents of CWBs. In our review, we approach this topic by drawing on cognitive and affective theories, including affective events theory, moral disengagement theory, moral licensing, and self-regulatory theory, to provide a holistic and integrative framework toward understanding when and why employees sometimes do bad things at work. We conclude by discussing potential areas for future research and practical implications of this work.

Keywords: counterproductive work behaviors; emotions; moral disengagement; moral licensing; affective events theory; self-regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035306664
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