Counterproductive Work Behavior
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The Canadian respondents who participated in Study 2 demonstrated very similar rating
patterns with the American respondents in Rotundo and Sackett's (2002) study (see Table 3).
These results suggest that there might be some typical patterns of responses that North
Americans share in evaluating the relative importance of the three components of performance.
The present study is among the first investigations of the content and dimensions of
counterproductive work behavior among mainland Chinese. Although our results are preliminary,
they provide useful insights on what constitutes CWB in China. Canadian managers who
participated in Study 2 gave almost identical and large weights to CWB and task performance,
while most Chinese managers gave CWB a lower weight than task performance. The underlying
reasons for this variation are likely to be complex. We speculate that economic and cultural
contexts might have jointly facilitated the tendency that Chinese respondents gave high weights
to task performance and relatively lower weights to CWB. As noted, China's economy is
undergoing a critical stage of reform and downsizing to increase profitability and productivity
(China's SEO Reform, 2004). Consistent with the convergence perspective, the pressure of
"produce or perish" has forced Chinese organizations to place a greater emphasis on productivity
and task performance than ever before. Meanwhile, in line with the divergence perspective
saving face for oneself and that of others is so deeply rooted in the Chinese culture that Chinese
often choose not to be critical of others' undesirable behaviors for protecting face and
maintaining relationships (see Bond, 1992; Chen, 2001).
The findings of the study have a number of potential implications for cross-cultural
management in performance evaluation. The most obvious is that they cast light on the
similarities shared by the Canadian and Chinese managers in their conceptualization of the
content of counterproductive work behavior. Considering the magnitude of the differences in the