Counterproductive work behavior among frontline government employees: Role of personality, emotional intelligence, affectivity, emotional labor, and emotional exhaustion

• Main Authors: Ponniah Raman, Murali Sambasivan, Naresh Kumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2016-04-01
• Series: Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
• Online Access: http://www.copmadrid.org/webcopm/publicaciones/trabajo/tr2016v32n1a4.pdf

The main objective of this research is to study the effect of personality, emotional intelligence (EI), affectivity, emotional labor and emotional exhaustion on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) of front line employees in the government sector. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to 625 front line employees working at service counters in 25 ministries in Malaysia. We received responses from 519employees (response rate = 83%). The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The main findings are: (1) personality factors of employees drive their EI, affectivity, emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and CWB and (2) EI and affectivity impact emotional labor, emotional exhaustion and CWB. Through the integrated model, we have studied the indirect roles of emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. This is one of the few studies that have effectively integrated the five constructs into a single framework to study their effects on CWB.