Investigating Organizational Counterproductivity: The Structurally Oppressive Situations Scale

Abstract

The literature on organizational justice and employee attitudes has made considerable progress toward understanding an employee’s perspective of the employment relationship. However, to date, limited focus has been directed toward understanding the events and situations that precede perceptions of injustice. The primary goal of the present dissertation is to investigate the proposed construct of counterproductive working conditions as a potential antecedent to justice perceptions, and to evaluate how counterproductive working conditions are related to organizational criteria of interest. To accomplish this aim, this dissertation is split into three studies. Study 1 proposes a measure of counterproductive working conditions, with the Structurally Oppressive Situations (SOS) Scale. Study 2 investigates the convergent and divergent validity of counterproductive working conditions with existing constructs. Study 3 explores the relationship between counterproductive working conditions and organizationally relevant criteria (i.e. Counterproductive Work Behaviors and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors).