ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1990s there has been increasing interest in the study of detrimental behaviors and experiences in the workplace, as reflected in several edited books on the topic (e.g., Fox & Spector, 2005; Sagie, Stashevsky, & Koslowsky, 2003; Vardi & Weitz, 2004). This has represented a shift away from the traditional focus on good employee attitudes and positive contributions to the job through effective performance. Traditionally, most previous attention paid to the negative side of organizational behavior focused on relatively benign (although significant) issues of attendance and turnover (Hulin, Roznowski, & Hachiya, 1985). More recently, however, researchers have become interested in the tendency of employees to engage in a host of hostile and nasty behaviors toward one another that not only undermines the effectiveness of organizations, but that also adversely affects the health and well-being of individuals (e.g., Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2004). Such behaviors have been studied under a variety of rubrics, including workplace aggression (Neuman & Baron, 1997, 2005; O’Leary-Kelly, Griffin, & Glew, 1996; Spector, 1975, 1977), bullying (Rayner & Keashly, 2005), deviance (Bennett, Aquino, Reed, & Thau, 2005; Hollinger, 1986; Robinson & Bennett, 1995), emotional abuse (Keashly & Harvey, 2005), incivility (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2005), mobbing (Zapf & Einarsen, 2005), retaliation (Folger & Skarlicki, 2005; Skarlicki & Folger, 1997), and revenge (Bies & Tripp, 2005; Bies, Tripp, & Kramer, 1997). Whereas the relatively rare cases of extreme violence have captured media attention, it is the day-to-day insidious workplace behavior (IWB) that affects large numbers of employees and that just about everyone is likely to encounter or perform themselves at some time or another.
