Could Bad Soldiers Turn Out as Good Citizens?

Abstract

The issue of dysfunctional behavior (DBE) in an organization has been discussed by many. For years, those who commit DBE have always been negatively regarded and frequently perceived as bad apples affecting the whole barrel. However, recently, a new stream of research has tried to look at the possibility that employees who act in dysfunctional manner are not altogether bad. Researchers discovered that these employees might even attempt citizenship behaviors (OCB) hoping that it will assuage their guilt, restore justice, or remedy the situation. Hence this concept paper will discuss this possib ility in the context of DBE occurred in pe rformance measurement system (PMS) so as to determine if there is a relationship between these two semantically opposite behaviors. In addition, as individuals may vary in attitudes and values regarding the relationship with others, a personal construct of psychological collectivism (PCO) is proposed to moderate the DBEOCB relationship. Based on reviews of extant literature, the article first elaborates the DBE in the context of PMS before proceeding to the OCB. Propositions on the DBE-OCB relationship as moderated by PCO will be discussed based on social learning theory (SLT). Practical implications will also be discussed.