Hostile Work Climate and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: The Role Of Situational Awareness Self-Efficacy and Personality

Workplace discrimination and unequal treatment have become important issues for organizations to navigate, as the public places increasing pressure on organizations to promote diverse and inclusive work environments. One way that organizations may address issues of discrimination is by focusing on their climate. Hostile work climate represents the degree to which employees believe that they or others are targets of mistreatment. To better understand the impact of hostile work climate, I propose a psychological process in which hostile work climate predicts two forms of counterproductive work behavior—withdrawal and withholding of effort—both directly and indirectly through situational awareness self- efficacy. Employing conservations of resources theory, I argued that hostile work climate predicts withdrawal and withholding of effort directly. I also offered the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behavior and social exchange theory as possible alternative explanations. Furthermore, drawing on social cognitive and conservations of resources theories, I argued that hostile work climate hinders employee situational awareness self-efficacy beliefs, which reduces their self-regulatory resources and evokes withdrawal and withholding of effort. Last, I suggested that emotional stability functions as a coping resource and moderates the proposed direct and indirect relationships. Results suggested that hostile work climate predicts withdrawal and withholding of effort directly and indirectly via situational awareness self-efficacy. Findings also suggested that emotional stability plays a role in these relationships. These findings emphasize the need for leaders to create inclusive workplaces to increase employee self-efficacy and reduce counterproductive behavior. Thus, the purposes of this study were to inform theory by exploring: (1) the direct relationship between hostile work climate and withdrawal and withholding of effort; (2) the indirect effect between hostile work climate and withdrawal and withholding of effort via a novel construct, situational awareness self-efficacy; and (3) the role of emotional stability as a moderator.