Personality as a Moderator in the Relationship between Fairness and Retaliation Author(s): Daniel P.

Skarlicki, Robert Folger and Paul Tesluk Reviewed work(s): Source: The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 100-108 Published by: Academy of Management Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/256877 . Accessed: 23/10/2012 19:02
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Academy of Management Journal 1999, Vol. 42, No. 1, 100-108.

PERSONALITY AS A MODERATOR IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAIRNESS AND RETALIATION

DANIEL P. SKARLICKI University of Calgary ROBERT FOLGER PAUL TESLUK Tulane University Skarlicki and Folger (1997) found that distributive, procedural, and interactional justice interacted to predict workplace retaliation. In this follow-up and extension of that study, we investigated whether a person-by-situation interaction explained variance in workplace retaliation beyond what could be attributed to fairness perceptions alone. Negative affectivity and agreeableness were found to moderate the relationship between fairness perceptions and retaliation. A number of authors (e.g., Folger, 1993; Sheppard, Lewicki, & Minton, 1992) have argued that if employees perceive organizational decisions and managerial actions to be unfair or unjust, they are likely to experience feelings of anger, outrage, and resentment. Unjust treatment can elicit retribution, and those who feel unfairly treated might retaliate and punish those who are seen as responsible for the problem. Moreover, when a harmed individual is less powerful than the source of the perceived injustice (the individual's boss or employing corporation, for instance), attempts to restore justice will be largely indirect (Homans, 1961). For example, perceived fairness has been found to be negatively related to absenteeism (e.g., Hulin, 1991) and employee theft (Greenberg, 1990). The study of retaliation in the workplace is part of a growing literature on workplace aggressionindividuals' intentional efforts to harm people with whom they work or have worked in the past (Neuman & Baron, 1998). Researchers (e.g., Hogan & Hogan, 1989; O'Leary-Kelly, Griffin, & Glew, 1996; Robinson & Bennett, 1995) have created various typologies of workplace aggression. For example, Baron and Neuman (1996) proposed three dimensions of aggressive behavior: (1) overt aggression, comprising acts of violence (for instance, physical assault), (2) expressions of hostility, or primarily verbal or symbolic behaviors (gestures, verbal assaults), and (3) obstructionism, or actions designed to impede an individual's ability to perform his or her job (for instance, withholding effort or resources). Although each dimension can have different consequences for both an employee and employer, they can all be motivated by a desire for retaliation. Some forms of overt retaliation, such as sabotage, assault, and theft, however, are low-base-rate phenomena that are difficult to study. Moreover, focusing only on overt forms of getting even can overlook other retaliatory behavior that also interferes with an organization's functioning. Before resorting to overt retaliation, disgruntled employees might engage in more covert retaliation, such as the withdrawal of citizenship behaviors, psychological withdrawal, and resistance (e.g., Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1994). Thus, overt retaliation might represent merely the "tip of the iceberg," the most prominent of a constellation of forms of aggression (Baron & Neuman, 1996). To address these issues, Skarlicki and Folger (1997) investigated the relationship between organizational justice and organizational retaliatory behavior (ORB), defined as the behavioral responses of disgruntled employees to perceived unfair treatment. Their examples of ORB included purposefully damaging equipment and taking supplies home without permission. Skarlicki and Folger found that distributive justice (the perceived fairness of outcomes; Adams, 1965), procedural justice (the perception that fair procedures were used to derive outcomes; Leventhal, 1980), and interactional justice (the perceived fairness of interpersonal treatment by a supervisor; Bies & Moag, 1986) interacted to explain variance in peer ratings of retaliation. A historic debate exists, however, regarding the extent to which behavior is situationally determined versus the extent to which there are broad generalities in behavior. Personality theorists (e.g., Allport, 1931) view behavior as centrally organ100

Thanks to William Graziano,Anne O'Leary-Kelly, and David Watson for their help.

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ized. They have argued that people are predisposed to certain behaviors and that such predispositions are relatively stable over time. In contrast, the social cognitive view of the individual emphasizes person-situation interaction (e.g., Mischel, 1973; Shoda & Mischel, 1993). This view suggests that the psychological effect of a situation depends on how a person interprets the situation and that such differences in interpretation can vary as a function of significant individual differences. The present study consisted of a follow-up and extension of Skarlicki and Folger (1997). We wanted to determine whether certain personality factors moderate the relationship between fairness and retaliation in the workplace and whether the inclusion of personality variables could enhance the predictive power of their model. Theoretical models (Brockner, 1988; Folger & Skarlicki, 1998; O'Leary-Kelly et al., 1996) suggest that personality is important for predicting responses to unfairness. Moreover, the social cognitive view (e.g., Shoda & Mischel, 1993) not only suggests that environments influence behavior, but also that personality factors can shape a person's environment. To our knowledge, no research has investigated whether personality explains unique variance in retaliatory behavior. From a practical perspective, organizational change (for instance, restructuring, downsizing) heightens employees' sensitivity to unfairness and increases aggressive tendencies (Neuman, Baron, & Geddes, 1996). Employees affected by organizational change report increased feelings of anger and frustration (Brockner, Tyler, & Cooper-Schneider, 1992). Thus, organizational change practices could be informed by a greater understanding of individuals' responses to unfairness. Two personality factors were expected to moderate the relationship between organizational justice and retaliation: negative affectivity (NA) and agreeableness. Compared to a person who scores low on a measure of NA, an individual who scores high on such a measure can be described as experiencing greater distress, discomfort, and dissatisfaction over time and in different situations (Watson & Clark, 1984). High-negative-affectivity individuals tend to dwell on their mistakes and shortcomings and to focus on the negative elements in their lives. Although the relationship between personality and retaliation has not been studied directly, indirect evidence suggests that NA is related to certain forms of negative behaviors. For example, Eysenck and Gudjonsson (1989) reported that NA predicted delinquency, defined as the tendency to violate moral codes and engage in disruptive behavior. Heaven (1996) reported that NA was related to selfreports of interpersonal vandalism, violence, and

theft. George (1989) and Cropanzano, James, and Konovsky (1993) reported significant, positive correlations between NA and intentions to quit. Negative affectivity was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between perceptions of fairness and retaliation for three reasons. First, NA tends to increase an individual's susceptibility or responsiveness to stimuli that generate negative emotions (Larsen & Katelaar, 1991). Bolger and Zuckerman (1995) asked participants to complete a 14-day diary recording their reactions to daily interpersonal conflicts. High-negative-affectivity individuals reported greater exposure and negative reactivity to conflicts than low-negative-affectivity individuals. The authors concluded that high-NA individuals' reactivity to conflicts is most detrimental to their affect. Second, high-NA individuals are less inclined to seek direct control of their work environments (Judge, 1993). Instead, they display a preference for more indirect coping strategies, such as those that might be associated with indirect and covert retaliation. Third, for most individuals, certain events at work, such as organizational change or a decline in job security, can generate negative affect or distress along with a heightened sensitivity to fairness issues (Neuman et al., 1996). Given their heightened responsiveness to stimuli that induce negative emotions, high-NA individuals might react particularly negatively to such conditions. Moreover, supervisors might have a less favorable view of these individuals because of the latter's overall negative orientation and outlook. As a result, in times of cutbacks and layoffs, highnegative-affectivity individuals might be among the first to be let go (George, 1992). Thus, focusing on NA makes sense in light of the changes in employment status experienced by many employees. Consequently, we expected to find that NA moderates the relation between perceptions of fairness and retaliation. Hypothesis 1. Negative affectivity moderates the relationship between perceptions of fairness and retaliation. The relationship between fairness and retaliation is greater for high-negative-affectivity individuals than for low-negative-affectivity individuals. Theory and empirical research suggest that the relationship between perceived unfairness and retaliation can also be moderated by agreeableness. Someone who scores high on agreeableness can be characterized as highly cooperative, sociable, and empathetic to others. In contrast, a person who is at the low end of this personality dimension can be labeled antagonistic, temperamental, argumentative, and emotional. Trait theorists (for a review,

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see Graziano and Eisenberg [1997]) have described agreeableness in terms of the difference in people's motivation to avoid arguments. People differ in the extent to which they actively advocate their positions on controversial issues and attack another person's position. Highly agreeable people are less likely to demonstrate high emotion. Buss and Plomin (1984) suggested that in comparison with unemotional people, emotional people become distressed when confronted with emotional stimuli, and they react with higher levels of emotional arousal. As a consequence, a person low on agreeableness might be harder to soothe when distressed. Costa, McCrae, and Dembroski (1989) found that agreeableness was negatively related to self-reports of both hostility and anger. Thus, we predicted that agreeableness would moderate the relation between fairness and retaliation. Hypothesis 2. Agreeableness moderates the relationship between perceptions of fairness and retaliation. The relationship between fairness and retaliation is greater when agreeableness is low (that is, antagonism is high) than when agreeableness is high. Organizational justice theory and research suggest that a person's perception of fairness is best defined in terms of the interaction between distributive justice and procedural and interactional factors. According to referent cognitions theory (Folger, 1987), whether unfavorable outcomes (for instance, low pay) give rise to negative reactions on the part of their recipient depends on the decision maker's conduct or behavior. For example, when unfavorable outcomes are accompanied by improper conduct on the part of a supervisor (a lack of respect, for instance), employees feel particularly resentful toward the decision maker and the organization. In contrast, exemplary or even socially acceptable conduct that meets the recipients' expectations of fair treatment elicits relatively weaker feelings of resentment. The predictions of referent cognitions theory have been supported by over 45 independent samples from both laboratory and field research (for a review, see Brockner and Wiesenfeld [1996]). Thus, in the present study, fairness was defined as the statistical interaction of (1) ratings of outcomes and (2) ratings of managerial practices in terms of procedural or interactional justice. METHODS Respondents and Procedures We surveyed 240 first-line employees of a manufacturing plant in the south central United States.

Data were collected via questionnaires that were administered and completed during company time and returned in sealed envelopes. The employees were assured of confidentiality and informed that the information would be used for research purposes only. Personality data and usable responses were received from 188 (78%) of these employees.1 Women constituted 49.26 percent of the respondent group. The average respondent was 31.4 (s.d. = 7.7) years old, had a high school diploma, and had worked at the company for 3.6 (s.d. = 2.6) years. Measures Distributive justice. Distributive justice was measured by four items that asked employees about their perceptions of the pay they received; a sample item is "I believe that I am being rewarded fairly here at work." The response scale for this and other justice measures was a five-point Likert-type scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Justice scores were the average of the items. Higher scores indicated greater justice. Procedural justice. Procedural justice was measured using an eight-item scale developed by Folger and Konovsky (1989). The scale focuses on Leventhal's (1980) six rules of procedural justice: the degrees to which a company's formal procedures demonstrate consistency, bias suppression, accuracy, correctability, representativeness, and ethicality. A sample item is "Does your company have procedures that ensure information used for making decisions is accurate?" Interactional justice. We measured interactional justice with a nine-item scale based on research by Bies and his colleagues (Bies & Moag, 1986; Folger & Bies, 1989; Tyler & Bies, 1990) that showed that justice perceptions can originate from the way in which procedures are implemented and carried out. Bies found that the actions taken by managers as they enacted procedures and explained decisions were instrumental in determining perceptions of fairness. Consistent with recent studies of interactional justice (see Cropanzano and Greenberg [1997] for a review) the items assessed respondents' perceptions that their supervisors treated them with sensitivity (for instance, "Does your supervisor listen to your personal concerns?") and provided them with a rationale for decisions that

1 The justice and retaliation data are reported in Skarlicki and Folger (1997). Personality data were obtained approximately one year after the measures of justice and ORB were collected.

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affected them (for instance, "Does your supervisor give you an explanation for decisions?"). Personality. We measured personality using a self-reported 35-item adjective scale based on Saucier's (1992) work. The negative affectivity scale consisted of six adjectives: relaxed, anxious, tense, fretful, moody, and nervous. The agreeableness scale consisted of nine adjectives: cold, considerate, harsh, courteous, respectful, kind, disrespectful, sympathetic, and warm. Respondents indicated the degree to which each adjective accurately described themselves, using a response scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). Items were reverse-coded where appropriate, and we derived the two scores by averaging the items. Organizational retaliatory behavior. We measured ORB with a behavioral observation scale (Latham & Wexley, 1994) developed for this study. Specifically, subject matter experts (workers from the plant floor) identified retaliatory behaviors using the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954). A detailed description of the procedures and the ORB scale is provided in Skarlicki and Folger (1997). We used a composite approach to measure retaliatory behavior because studying clusters of behavior provides more reliable and valid measures of the underlying constructs than does studying individual behaviors (Fisher & Locke, 1992). The scale consisted of 17 items that assessed the degree to which respondents reported that they observed a coworker to, for example, "on purpose damage equipment or work process" or "take supplies home without permission." Responses were made on a five-point Likert-type scale assessing the frequency with which they observed the appraisee engage in the behavior (1 = never over the past month; 5 - 6 or more times over the past month). ORB was the average of ratings on the items. Higher scores indicated greater ORB. Individuals are reluctant to self-report deviant behavior because of the potential for reprimands (Murphy, 1993). Thus, we measured ORB with peer reports, which have been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of a person's behavior (McEvoy & Buller, 1987). Peers were randomly assigned within their work groups to assess one another's ORB using the behavioral observation scale. Each respondent's ORB was assessed with one peer evaluation.

were based on a sample of 131 respondents.2 Ttests (p > .05) revealed that the cases deleted because data were missing did not differ from the company (t31 = 1.08). On the basis of item reliability analyses, we dropped one item from the negative affectivity measure ("relaxed") and two items from the agreeableness measure ("harsh" and "disrespectful"). Table 1 shows the variables' means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistency reliability estimates. We used hierarchical multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The predictor variables (main effects) were entered in the regression equation in step 1, followed by the two-way, three-way, and four-way interactions in steps 2, 3, and 4. Because lower-order interactions cannot be interpreted in the presence of significant higher-order interactions (Aiken & West, 1991), only the highestorder significant interactions between fairness and personality were of interest in the present study. Tests of interactions between fairness and negative affectivity and agreeableness are shown in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. In both tables, we also provide the results of a hierarchical regression model in which only justice variables are the predictors of ORB. Although in the present study we used part of Skarlicki and Folger's (1997) sample, the interaction effects observed are the same as those reported in that study. Thus, participant attrition was not viewed as a concern in interpreting our results. As shown in Table 2, the three-way interaction among distributive justice, interactional justice, and negative affectivity was significant (13= -3.26, p < .05). We probed the interaction following procedures recommended by Aiken and West (1991). Results showed that for low-NA individuals, the interaction between distributive and interactional justice was not a significant predictor of ORB. In contrast, when NA was high, the combination of low interactional and low distributive justice was associated with ORB (t131 = -3.16, p < .05). Thus, support was found for Hypothesis 1. As shown in Table 3, the three-way interaction among distributive justice, interactional justice, and agreeableness was significant (3 = -3.98, p < .05). Results showed that the interaction between distributive and interactional justice was not a sig0.87), age (t131 = sample with respect to sex (t131 1.27), education (t131 = 1.80), or years with the

RESULTS Cases with missing data on one or more variables were deleted from the sample; thus, all the analyses

The results of the hypothesis tests were the same whether "pairwise"or "listwise" deletion of missing data was used. We decided to use listwise deletion (N = 131), a more conservative approach to handling the missing data.

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TABLE 1 Correlations and Descriptive Statisticsa

Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Distributive justice Procedural justice Interactional justice Negative affectivity Agreeableness Organizational retaliatory behavior Mean 2.63 3.46 3.52 4.01 5.81 1.49 s.d. 0.91 1.01 0.79 1.49 1.55 0.68 1 (.86) .58 .37** .03 -.10 -.40** 2 3 4 5 6

(.88) .64** -.31** .39** -.51**

(.86) .10 -.16 -.49**

(.82) -.43** .19*

(.79) -.14

(.97)

a N = 131. Internal consistency reliabilities are given in parentheses along the diagonal. * p < .05 ** p < .01

TABLE 2 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Retaliationa

Skarlicki and Folger (1997)b Variable Step 1 Distributive justice Procedural justice Interactional justice Negative affectivity Step 2 Distributive justice x procedural justice Procedural justice x interactional justice Distributive justice x interactional justice Negative affectivity X distributive justice Negative affectivity x procedural justice Negative affectivity x interactional justice Step 3 Distributive justice x procedural justice x interactional justice Negative affectivity x distributive justice x procedural justice Negative affectivity x distributive justice x interactional justice Negative affectivity x procedural justice x interactional justice Step 4 Negative affectivity x distributive justice x procedural justice x interactional justice Total R2 b (P AR2c b P
AR2d

-3.10 (0.72) -2.95 (0.76) -3.37 (0.42)

-3.97*** -2.75*** -3.99***

.03* .02 .04*

-2.33 -0.55 -4.17 0.81 0.03 0.65 1.16 0.11 -0.66 0.35

(1.14) (2.83) (1.43) (0.42) (0.59) (0.22) (0.46) (0.17) (0.42) (0.36)

-2.97* -0.98 -0.80** 1.24* 0.22 3.85** 7.23** -0.85 -3.30 2.54 4.59** 0.96 -3.26* -0.98

.05** .00 .05** .03** .00 .00 .01** .00 .00 .00 .01* .00 .01* .00

0.75 (0.24) 0.88 (0.18) 0.89 (0.19)

4.42** 5.31*** 5.54***

.01 .01* .02*

-0.22 (0.06)

-6.03***

.03**

-0.17 (0.07) 0.02 (0.21) -0.11 (0.05) -0.08 (0.23)

0.02 (0.03) .66**

0.01

.00 .70*

a N = 131. Standard errors are in parentheses. b Results are based on a restricted sample from Skarlicki and Folger (1997) consisting of only respondents who provided us with personality data (N = 131). (: AR2 is the incremental variance explained by each predictor after the other predictors were entered into the equation in each step. For Step 1, AR2 = .38**; step 2, .25**; step 3, .03*. d For step 1, AR2 = .45**; step 2, .24**; step 3, .01*; step 4, .00. p < .05
** p < .01

nificant predictor of ORB when agreeableness was high. In contrast, when agreeableness was low, the combination of low interactional and low distributive justice was associated with ORB (t131 = -2.45,

p < .05). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.

As shown in Table 1, negative affectivity and agreeableness were negatively correlated. To determine the unique variance in ORB explained by each personality variable, we created two residual variables in which the effects of one personality

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TABLE 3 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Retaliationa

Skarlicki and Folger (1997)b Variable Step 1 Distributive justice Procedural justice Interactional justice Agreeableness Step 2 Distributive justice x procedural justice Procedural justice x interactional justice Distributive justice x interactional justice Agreeableness x distributive justice Agreeableness x procedural justice Agreeableness x interactional justice Step 3 Distributive justice x procedural justice x interactional justice Agreeableness x distributive justice x procedural justice Agreeableness x distributive justice x interactional justice Agreeableness x procedural justice x interactional justice Step 4 Agreeableness x distributive justice x procedural justice x interactional justice Total R2 a N = 131. Standard errors are in parentheses. b p AR2: b

3
-2.28** -0.01 -3.49** -0.80* 2.55* 0.22 3.81** 1.92 -0.39 1.77* -4.07* -1.12 -3.98* -0.98

AiR2 d

-3.10 (0.72) -2.95 (0.76) -3.37 (0.42)

-3.97*** -2.75** -3.99***

.03* .02 .04*

-1.71 -1.90 -3.04 -0.70 0.40 0.33 0.55 0.21 -0.05 0.59

(0.52) (1.82) (0.51) (0.32) (0.22) (0.26) (0.22) (0.22) (0.14) (0.36)

.04** .00 .08** .01* .01* .00 .02** .00 .00 .01* .03* .00 .02* .01

0.75 (0.24) 0.88 (0.18) 0.89 (0.19)

4.42* 5.31*** 5.54***

.01 .01* .02*

-0.22 (0.06)

-6.03***

.03**

-0.15 (0.05) -0.07 (0.16) 0.12 (0.04) -0.08 (0.22)

0.01 (0.01) .66**

0.01

.00 .71*

of only respondents who provided us with personality data (N = 131). ' AR2 is the incremental variance explained by each predictor after the other predictors were entered into the equation in each step. For step 1, AR2 = .38**; step 2, .25**; step 3, .03*. d For step 1, AR2 = .44**; step 2, .25**; step 3, .02*; step 4, .00. * p < .05 ** < .01 p

b Results are based on a restricted sample from Skarlicki and Folger (1997) consisting

variable on the other were controlled; we then reran the regressions using the residuals as personality predictors. After controlling for their shared variance, we found that the three-way interaction of distributive and interactional justice with NA was significant (,3 = 3.76, p < .05), as was the three-way interaction of the two justice measures and agreeableness (,3 = 4.01, p < .05). Moreover, NA and agreeableness each explained unique variance beyond that explained by fairness (R2 = .06, 20.18, p < .01, and R2 = .07, F, 116 F8, 116 23.03, p < .01, respectively). DISCUSSION The results of this study provide evidence that supports taking an interactional perspective to explain organizational retaliation. Negative affectivity (NA) and agreeableness accounted for signifi-

cant, unique variance in organizational retaliatory behavior (ORB) beyond the variance accounted for by a model containing only situational variables (viz. Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). Moreover, both personality variables moderated the relationship between fairness and retaliatory behaviors. Taken together, these findings suggest that there is a risk of underspecification in framing behavioral models of retaliation that have only situational or dispositional variables and do not include the interaction between the two. The effects of the interactions between the personality variables and justice on ORB were as hypothesized. When NA was high, the interaction of distributive and interactional justice was associated with retaliation. ORB was highest when negative affectivity was high and both distributive and interactional justice were low. When NA was low, the interaction between distributive and interac-

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tional justice was not a predictor of retaliation. The opposite effects were observed for agreeableness: The interaction of distributive and interactional justice predicted ORB only among respondents who were low on agreeableness. These findings qualify previous justice research by showing that unfair treatment might not affect everyone in the same way. Judge (1993) reported that individuals with high negative affectivity selectively attended to the features of the environment that could have a negative impact on them. Someone who is easily upset, impatient, and angered might be more reactive in the presence of unfairness than someone with low negative affectivity. Similarly, a person with a predisposition for antagonism and confrontation (low on agreeableness) might tend to retaliate for perceived unfairness more readily than a person who is cooperative. The results also suggest that people engage in certain forms of deviant workplace behavior that are evident to their peers. Victor and Cullen (1988) proposed that organizational behavior is linked to organizational norms. In the present study, the mean level of ORB might represent something akin to an organizational norm. The higher levels of retaliatory behavior might represent employees' "going over the top" in response to the interaction of situational (perceived unfairness) and dispositional (NA or agreeableness) variables. Thus, retaliation can be a function not only of personality and perceptions of fairness, but also of a person's perception of common practice. This issue warrants further research. Possible limitations of this research include the low mean of the ORB measure and the positive skew of the distribution. Given that our sample size was sufficiently large, we might infer that retaliation is a low-base-rate phenomenon. Future researchers, however, need to be cautious of the effects of nonnormality on statistical models. Also, the results showed that negative affectivity and agreeableness only explained between 6 and 7 percent more variance in retaliation than fairness did. Thus, only a small effect size resulted from personality's explanation of ORB beyond what justice achieved (Cohen, 1988). The practical significance of these findings is that when employees who are high on NA or low on agreeableness perceive unfair treatment, they might be somewhat more likely to respond in retaliatory ways than employees who are low on NA or high on agreeableness. It is important to note, however, that regardless of the level of distributive justice, high interactional justice offset the tendency for employees to engage in ORB, even among those people who had a predisposition toward hostility (that is,

high NA or low agreeableness). These results are particularly relevant in light of recent evidence that many types of organizational change enhance employees' sensitivity to fairness issues (Neuman et al., 1996) and that employees retaliate for perceived unfairness in ways that can be damaging yet difficult to detect. Our conclusions depend heavily upon the stability of the negative affectivity and agreeableness traits. Although personality theory suggests that traits are stable over time, the one-year delay in data collection (see footnote 1) might make our findings a conservative test of our model. In the present study, we sampled from the varied universe of personality variables. Future researchers might consider investigating other personality variables that might be relevant to the study of retaliation. For example, Neuman and Baron (1997) found a significant relationship between the type A behavior pattern and workplace aggression. Dodge and Coie (1987) reported that individuals who demonstrated a hostile attributional bias (the tendency to attribute a hostile intent to others even when this intent is lacking) were likely to behave aggressively in response to even minor provocation. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in personality in the area of employee selection and person-organization fit. Organizational justice is another area in which personality can lead to new insights and a more complete understanding of organizational behavior. Previous researchers (e.g., Hogan & Hogan, 1989; Hough, Eaton, Dunnette, Kamp, & McCloy, 1990; Ones, Viswesvaran, & Schmidt, 1993) have examined the validity of personality as a predictor of various counterproductive behaviors from the perspective of employee selection. The present study differs from these in that the criterion variable focused on the behaviors of disgruntled employees. Moreover, we were interested in comparing the sizes of the effects of personality and fairness variables on retaliation. Thus, the effect sizes reported here are not directly comparable to the effect sizes reported in studies in which personality was a main effect. We focused on subtle, often ignored, but important reactive tendencies employees might exhibit in response to perceived unfair treatment in the workplace. Thus, this study provides a better understanding of the mix of conditions that leads to retaliatory behaviors. REFERENCES
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tion and theories of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78: 679-703. Robinson, S. L., & Bennett, R. J. 1995. A typology of deviant workplace behaviors: A multidimensional scaling study. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 555-572. Saucier, G. 1992. Benchmarks: Integrating affective and interpersonal circles with the Big Five personality factors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62: 1025-1035. Sheppard, B. H., Lewicki, R. J., & Minton, J. W. 1992. Organizational justice: The search for fairness in the workplace. New York: Lexington. Shoda, Y., & Mischel, W. 1993. Cognitive social approach to dispositional inferences: What if the perceiver is a cognitive social theorist? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19: 574-586. Skarlicki, D. P., & Folger, R. 1997. Retaliation in the workplace: The roles of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82: 434-443. Tyler, T., & Bies, R. 1990. Beyond formal procedures: Interpersonal aspects of procedural justice. In J. S. Carroll (Ed.), Applied social psychology in business settings: 77-98. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Victor, B., & Cullen, B. 1988. The organizational bases of ethical work climates. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33: 1010-1125. Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. 1984. Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological Bulletin, 96: 465-490. Daniel P. Skarlicki is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. He received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior at the Faculty of Management at the University of Toronto. His research interests include fairness, organizational citizenship behavior, layoffs, and retaliation in the workplace. Robert Folger is the Freeman Professor of Doctoral Studies and Research and a professor of organizational behavior at the A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. He received his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research interests include work motivation, fairness, performance appraisal, compensation, layoffs, group decision making, workplace aggression, and ethics. Paul Tesluk is an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at Tulane University. He received his Ph.D in industrial/organizational psychology from Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include employee involvement practices, work group effectiveness, work experience and performance, and multilevel issues in organizational research.