Productive and Counterproductive Behaviors in Organizations
This paper examines productive and counterproductive behaviors in organizational settings, exploring how each affects job performance, employee morale, and overall organizational success. Drawing on interviews published in the Harvard Business Review with productivity experts David Allen and Tony Schwartz, the paper outlines practical strategies for encouraging productive behavior, including rhythmic work cycles, proper rest, and writing down commitments. It also reviews research from The International Journal of Human Resource Management on counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), including theft, bullying, sabotage, and Internet misuse, and identifies personality traits and organizational justice as key factors in predicting and reducing such behaviors.
- Introduction: Overview of productive and counterproductive workplace behaviors
- Productive Behaviors and Strategies: Managerial strategies to improve employee productivity
- Counterproductive Behaviors Defined: Types and examples of counterproductive work behaviors
- The Scope and Cost of Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Financial and psychological costs of workplace deviance
- Personality Traits and Organizational Justice: Personality predictors and justice-based reduction strategies
- Conclusion: Shared responsibility for productive workplace culture
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper balances two opposing behavioral categories — productive and counterproductive — giving the argument a clear structural symmetry that is easy to follow.
- It blends practitioner advice (Allen and Schwartz via HBR) with peer-reviewed research (Chang and Smithikrai), showing the student can draw from multiple source types.
- Specific statistics — $50 billion in annual losses, 95% of organizations experiencing theft, 24% of women sexually harassed — ground abstract claims in concrete evidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of direct quotation integrated with paraphrase. Rather than dropping quotes in isolation, the student introduces them with attribution and follows with explanation, maintaining analytical voice while letting sources carry empirical weight. This is a foundational skill for undergraduate research writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing introduction, then dedicates a section to productive behaviors and managerial strategies before pivoting to a more detailed treatment of counterproductive work behaviors. It examines costs, typologies, personality predictors, and organizational justice interventions, then closes with a conclusion that synthesizes both sides and places responsibility on both employer and employee. The Works Cited follows MLA formatting conventions.
Introduction
In every organization there are some behaviors that are counterproductive, and there are also productive behaviors to be found. What are those behaviors, what impact do they have on job performance, and what strategies would best ensure that a maximum number of workers are engaged in productive behaviors? This paper reviews those issues and provides answers to these questions.
Productive Behaviors and Strategies
Productive behaviors are those that contribute to the success of an organization and to the happiness of the individual employee. Such behaviors include cooperation, loyalty, flexibility when being assigned to a new task, genuine concern for doing things correctly, and consistency in attendance and adherence to company guidelines.
There are strategies for increasing or improving productive behavior, according to the authors of Getting Things Done (David Allen) and Be Excellent at Anything (Tony Schwartz), both of whom were interviewed in the Harvard Business Review (HBR). Schwartz offers pointed advice for managers: people are not meant to run like computers, at "high speeds, continuously, for long periods of time, running multiple programs simultaneously" (HBR, 84). Humans are designed to be "rhythmic. The heart pulses; muscles contract and relax. We're at our best when we're moving rhythmically between spending energy and renewing it," Schwartz explains.
Schwartz recommends that managers encourage employees to "work intensely for 90 minutes and then take a break to recover." Additionally, instead of three large meals a day, employees are more productive when they "eat small, energy-rich meals every few hours" (HBR, 84). Schwartz also advocates for proper rest during the workday: "We believe napping drives productivity" (HBR, 84). He insists that organizations cannot "keep pushing people to their limits and expect them to produce at a sustainably high level of excellence" (HBR, 85).
Allen identifies another major roadblock to productivity: people "don't write it down" when they agree to do something, causing commitments to go "into a black hole." When people fail to determine precisely what their commitment is or what they "want to achieve," they are not being productive. Allen's prescription is simple — make lists and write things down. "Your head is for having ideas, not holding them," he adds. Externalizing thoughts from the mind is a "huge step," Allen states (HBR, 85).
Counterproductive Behaviors Defined
Counterproductive behaviors are those that work against the interests the organization is designed to fulfill. An article in The International Journal of Human Resource Management identifies several specific examples of counterproductive work behavior (CWB): (a) bullying or swearing at colleagues; (b) playing mean-spirited pranks; (c) falsifying expense reports; (d) sabotaging others' work; and (e) theft (Chang, 1273). The most obvious result of such behaviors is that they reduce the overall effectiveness of the organization and harm employees who are serious, well-behaved individuals.
The authors refer to CWB as "deviance," "antisocial," "unruliness," and "destructive and hazardous behaviors," noting that they can become "pervasive and costly" (Chang, 1273). The authors in this article use the terms deviance, antisocial behavior, and unruliness interchangeably to describe conduct that is both destructive and hazardous to the workplace.
Conclusion
The idea that companies can determine at the time of hiring whether or not a particular job candidate will become a counterproductive force in the workplace is not really workable — although it would be ideal to know in advance if an individual has the potential to be counterproductive. However, there are things that organizations can and should do, including implementing distributive justice and interactional justice, and giving employees rest periods after 90-minute intervals of intense effort, to reduce counterproductive behaviors.
Much of the responsibility for productive behavior nonetheless rests on the shoulders of the employee. In an economic climate in which millions of people are out of work, it behooves employees to exhibit their best and most productive behavior — to help the organization achieve its goals and to sustain their own livelihoods.
Chang, Kirk, and Smithikrai, Chuchai. (2010). Counterproductive behavior at work: an investigation into reduction strategies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(8), 1272–1288.
Harvard Business Review. (2011). Being More Productive. Retrieved December 19, 2011, from http://www.hbr.org.
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