Relations among job stressors, perceived justice, negative
emotional reactions to work, counterproductive work behavior (CWB),
autonomy, and affective traits were investigated. Participants
representing a wide variety of jobs across many organizations were
surveyed both inside and outside a university setting. Results were
consistent with a theoretical job stress framework in which
organizational constraints, interpersonal conflict, and perceived
injustice are job stressors, CWB is a behavioral strain response,
and negative emotion mediates the stressor–strain relationship.
Only very weak support was found for the moderating role of
affective disposition (trait anger and trait anxiety), and no
support was found for the expected moderating role of autonomy in
the stressor–CWB relationship
292 employees at a variety of organizations in southern and central
Florida ; 214 (73%) were University of South Florida psychology and
management students who also were employed, and 78 (27%) were
nonstudent employees from manufacturing, financial, utility,
entertainment, and academic organizations in Tampa ; the anonymous
self-report survey included measures of job stressors (autonomy,
constraints, conflict, and justice), affect (positive emotions,
negative emotions, trait anger, and trait anxiety), and
counterproductivework behaviors (CWB).
job stressors, including perceived injustice related to both
negative emotions and CWB ; negative emotions related to CWB ; at
least partial mediation of emotions in the relations between job
stressors and CWB ; organizational stressors (such as constraints
and injustice) were more closely associated with organizational
than personal types of CWB ; interpersonal conflict was more
closely associated with personal than organizational CWB ;
Situations seen by people as unfair are stressors that may lead to
negative emotions and presumably to subsequent strains beyond CWB ;
failure of the data to support the predicted moderating role of job
control (autonomy), particularly in the relations between
task-related stressors (constraints and injustice) and task-related
(organizational) CWB ; focus on affective and behavioral responses
to the perceived rather than “objective” environment ; the use of a
convenience sample of nonstudent employees and the combination of
that sample with a sample of employed students
