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Bored employees misbehaving: The relationship between

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Bored employees misbehaving: The

relationship between boredom and
counterproductive work behaviour
a b c
Kari Bruursema , Stacey R. Kessler & Paul E. Spector
a
Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Upper
Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA
b
Department of Management and Information Systems, School of
Business, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ, 07043,
USA
c
Department of Psychology, University of South, Florida, Tampa,
FL 33620, USA

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 Work & Stress
Vol. 25, No. 2, April
June 2011, 93
107

Bored employees misbehaving: The relationship between boredom and

counterproductive work behaviour

Kari Bruursemaa, Stacey R. Kesslerb* and Paul E. Spectorc

a
Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA;
b
Department of Management and Information Systems, School of Business, Montclair State
University, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA; cDepartment of Psychology, University of South,
Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
Downloaded by [Stacey R. Kessler] at 08:24 26 July 2011

In this study, the relationships among boredom proneness, job boredom, and counter-
productive work behaviour (CWB) were examined. Boredom proneness consists of several
factors, which include external stimulation and internal stimulation. Given the strong
relationships between both the external stimulation factor of boredom proneness (BP-ext)
and anger as well as the strong relationship between trait anger and CWB, we hypothesized
that examining BP-ext would help us to better understand why employees commit CWB. Five
types of CWB have previously been described: abuse against others, production deviance,
sabotage, withdrawal and theft. To those we added a sixth, horseplay. Using responses received
from 211 participants who were recruited by email from throughout North America (112 of
them matched with co-workers), we found support for our central premise. Indeed, both BP-
ext and job boredom showed significant relationships with various types of CWB. The
boredom proneness factor also moderated the relationship between job boredom and some
types of CWB, suggesting that a better understanding of boredom is imperative for designing
interventions to prevent CWB.
Keywords: counterproductive work behaviour; job boredom; boredom proneness; aggression

Introduction
Researchers have long neglected the role of boredom in organizations. The few
researchers who have examined boredom have looked at it as a characteristic of the
job (job boredom), a characteristic of the person (boredom proneness), or as an
emotion. Traditionally, job boredom has been associated with blue collar jobs that
contain monotonous and/or repetitive tasks (Melamed, Ben-Avi, Luz, & Green,
1995). However, researchers have suggested that job boredom is not solely a function
of assembly line jobs (Fisher, 1993). In fact, job boredom is also associated with
white collar jobs as researchers have found job boredom, sometimes coined
‘‘managerial malaise,’’ in upper echelon positions in organizations (Fisher, 1993).
Along these lines, researchers have noted that some individuals are more likely to
experience boredom across a range of situations (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986).

*Corresponding author. Email: kesslers@mail.montclair.edu

ISSN 0267-8373 print/ISSN 1464-5335 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/02678373.2011.596670
http://www.informaworld.com
 94 K. Bruursema et al.

Researchers have found that boredom relates to many undesirable organizational

variables including job dissatisfaction and turnover (Kass, Vodanovich, & Callender,
2001), reduced work effectiveness (Drory, 1982), and withdrawal (Spector et al.,
2006). We propose that boredom will also relate to counterproductive work
behaviours (CWB), that is, behaviours that harm organizations, and/or organiza-
tional stakeholders such as co-workers or supervisors (Spector & Fox, 2005). In
order to understand boredom, it is necessary to examine a person’s disposition
(boredom proneness) as well as the nature of the specific job (job boredom). In the
current study, we examine both aspects of boredom.

Counterproductive work behaviour (CWB)

CWB is behaviour by employees that harms organizations and/or organizational
stakeholders including clients, co-workers, customers, and supervisors (Spector &
Fox, 2005). The construct of CWB subsumes workplace aggression that also consists
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of harmful acts, but generally directed at people as opposed to organizations. Spector

et al. (2006) divided CWB into five types that were shown to have different patterns
of relationships with other variables. Abuse against others consists of either physically
or psychologically harmful behaviours directed towards others in the organization,
ranging in severity from ignoring someone to hitting or pushing someone. Production
deviance is the purposeful failure to perform job tasks effectively, such as working
slowly when there are deadlines. Sabotage refers to the defacing or destroying of
organizational property. Withdrawal encompasses behaviour that restricts time spent
working to less than what is required by the organization. Finally, theft is taking
property belonging to the organization or another individual.
We added a sixth category of CWB, termed horseplay, consisting of behaviours
that deal with playing games or engaging in time and resource-wasting. The idea
behind these behaviours is that they are fun or interesting activities that might harm
the organization or other organizational members. Examples include playing non-
work-related games in company time, using the internet for non-work-related
activities, gossiping, or playing practical jokes.

Boredom
Boredom has been defined as ‘‘a state of relatively low arousal and dissatisfaction
which is attributed to an inadequately stimulating environment’’ (Mikulas &
Vodanovich, 1993, p. 3). Kass et al. (2001) distinguish between boredom as a
reaction to the conditions of the job and boredom proneness. Job boredom is a job
property that induces boredom in people. Jobs with repetitive tasks that have low
skill requirements are likely to be widely seen as boring (Melamed et al., 1995). On
the other hand, boredom proneness refers to individual differences in people’s
likelihood of becoming bored in a given situation (Culp, 2006); a profile of the
boredom-prone individual is one who is a-motivational and perceives routine tasks
as requiring significant effort (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). Empirical research has
found support for differentiating between boredom proneness and job boredom
(Kass et al., 2001).
As regards job boredom, limited research has suggested that monotonous and
repetitive work might adversely affect employees. Individuals reporting high levels of
 Work & Stress 95

job boredom have higher levels of absenteeism (Kass et al., 2001; Melamed et al.,
1995), higher levels of withdrawal (Spector et al., 2006), lower levels of job
satisfaction (Melamed et al., 1995), and reduced work effectiveness (Drory, 1982).
Jointly, these studies provide preliminary support for a link between job boredom
and CWB.
Although previous researchers hypothesized relationships between job boredom
and CWB, the mechanisms underlying this relationship have not been empirically
examined. Fisher (1993) suggests that employees might engage in counterproductive
behaviours in order to ‘‘reduce boredom by creating a change of activity, reasserting
personal freedom of choice, and providing the excitement of risking injury or
discovery’’ (p. 408). Alternately, one might consider the characteristics of jobs that
lead to boredom as a form of job stressor that would be expected to contribute to
CWB. Specifically, Spector and Fox’s (2002) job stressor model suggests that
employees often respond to stressors with CWB. We propose that these two theories
are compatible as from both perspectives, CWB is a means of coping with stressful or
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boring situations.

Regarding boredom proneness. Farmer and Sundberg (1986) describe the boredom-
prone individual as one who tends to report depression, hopelessness, loneliness, and
distractibility. Boredom-prone individuals often view common tasks as requiring a
great deal of effort and report low levels of job satisfaction and psychological well-
being (Gould & Seib, 1997; Kass et al., 2001). They are also more likely to experience
feelings of alienation (Tolor & Siegel, 1989), are more likely to procrastinate
(Vodanovich & Rupp, 1999), and are more likely to report poor mental and physical
well-being (Sommers & Vodanovich, 2000). Therefore, individuals who are boredom
prone may be especially sensitive to repetitive jobs. This is not to say that those who
score low on boredom proneness are never bored and those who score high are
always bored. Rather, there are threshold differences depending on the person’s
boredom proneness level.
Farmer and Sundberg (1986) originally conceptualized boredom proneness as a
unidimensional scale. However, other researchers suggest that boredom proneness is
multidimensional and consists of two to five factors (Culp, 2006; Vodanovich, 2003;
Vodanovich & Kass, 1990; Vodanovich, Wallace, & Kass, 2005). Despite debate as to
the exact number of factors, two factors
external and internal stimulation

consistently emerge across studies (Vodanovich, 2003; Vodanovich et al., 2005).
Boredom prone-external stimulation (which we will refer to as BP-ext) refers to an
individual’s propensity to view the external environment as having low stimulation
while boredom-prone internal stimulation (BP-int) refers to a person’s inability to
occupy oneself or to create an exciting environment (Vodanovich et al., 2005).
BP-ext individuals are more likely to experience anger, to score highly on trait
anger scales, to display aggression and hostility, to lack honesty/humility, to
experience a deficit in anger control, and to engage in unsafe/risky driving (Dahlen,
Martin, Ragan, & Kuhlman, 2005; Dahlen, Martin, Ragan, & Kuhlman, 2004; Rupp
& Vodanovich, 1997). These findings are consistent with Culp’s (2006) idea that these
BP-ext individuals are undersocialized and have a tendency towards behaving
irresponsibly. Although better able to control their anger (Kass, Beede, &
Vodanovich, 2010; Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997), BP-int individuals tend to be less
open to experiences, less extraverted, and lack conscientiousness. Given that trait
 96 K. Bruursema et al.

anger is one of the strongest predictors of CWB (Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Spector
et al., 2006) and that BP-ext is associated with anger and aggression (Dahlen et al.,
2004), it is likely that the BP-ext, as opposed to BP-int, will be related to CWB. This
is not to say that BP-int is benign. Rather, given the link between anger, BP-ext, and
CWB, it makes theoretical sense to focus on the external stimulation dimension. We
do, however, include BP-int for comparison purposes.

Current study and hypotheses

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships between job
boredom, BP-ext, and CWB. Although researchers have found empirical support for
differentiating between boredom proneness and job boredom (Farmer & Sundberg,
1986; Kass et al., 2001), there are still problems with this distinction. Specifically,
some of the items on the job boredom scale that we used in this study are quite
objective (e.g., does monotonous describe your job?), while other items seem to ask
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about an employee’s feelings regarding the job (e.g., do you get bored with your
work?). This problem with the job boredom scale highlights the difficulty in
disentangling feelings from perceptions. In an attempt to combat this methodological
issue, we conducted a factor analysis on the job boredom items and only included
items loading on one factor composed of the more objective items.
As noted, previous researchers have suggested that boredom proneness, in general,
is associated with negative outcomes (e.g., Kass et al., 2001; Watt, 2002). Since
researchers have found a link between BP-ext and both anger and aggression, (Dahlen
et al., 2004) and that trait anger is among the strongest predictors of both workplace
aggression (Douglas & Martinko, 2001) and CWB (Spector et al., 2006), we propose
that BP-ext employees are likely to engage in more CWB, but mainly the more direct
forms that are most likely to be linked to negative emotions such as anger.

Hypothesis 1a: BP-ext will be positively related to the three more active and direct
forms of CWB-abuse, sabotage, and production deviance.

While anger and aggression are related to acts of CWB, it is also possible that
employees who are more prone to BP-ext might do other things in response to this
emotion. First, it is possible that employees might need some form of external
stimulation to reduce these feelings of boredom. Along these lines, injustice is a
common antecedent of theft (e.g., Greenberg, 2000; Payne & Gainey, 2004) and
employees high on BP-ext might be more likely to perceive injustice and respond by
stealing. It is also possible for employees to engage in theft for amusement purposes.
Therefore, we propose that employees who are prone to boredom might commit
more acts of theft in an effort to entertain themselves.

Hypothesis 1b: BP-ext will be positively related to CWB-theft.

Employees who are prone to BP-ext might also withdraw from work situations in
an effort to escape their boredom. In this case, their intentions are to reduce the
discomfort associated with boredom. Therefore, we propose that employees who
score are high on the BP-ext scale may tend to withdraw from work-related activities.
 Work & Stress 97

Hypothesis 1c: BP-ext will be positively related to CWB-withdrawal.

While BP-ext employees might steal materials from the organization or mock
others in order to amuse themselves, they might also directly engage in horseplay in
order to alleviate feelings of boredom. Therefore, we also propose that these
individuals will engage in horseplay behaviours such as searching the internet or
playing practical jokes.

Hypothesis 1d: BP-ext will be positively related to CWB-Horseplay.

The literature examining the link between job boredom and work outcomes is
somewhat more developed than that between boredom proneness and work
outcomes. Similar to results with boredom proneness, researchers have found
significant negative correlations between job satisfaction and job boredom (Lee,
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1986; MacDonald & MacIntyre, 1997). Furthermore, Hershcovis et al. (2007) found
in their meta-analysis that job dissatisfaction was associated with CWB. Taken
together, these findings suggest that job boredom might correlate positively with
CWB. Similarly, researchers have found a link between job boredom and absentee-
ism, a form of CWB withdrawal (Kass et al., 2001).

Hypothesis 2a: There will be a positive relationship between job boredom (both
self and co-worker reported) and CWB-withdrawal.

Researchers have suggested that employees may respond to job boredom with
CWBs such as sabotage in order to stimulate themselves and create some excitement in
the workplace (Fisher, 1993). Therefore, it is possible that individuals working in jobs
perceived as boring might also be prone to engaging in more active types of CWB.

Hypothesis 2b: There will be a positive relationship between job boredom (both self
and co-worker reported) and CWB (production deviance, abuse, and sabotage).

It is also possible that employees view the boring job itself as inherently unjust,
and therefore respond to this injustice with more calculated actions. Previous
researchers have found a link between injustice and boredom. For example, Spector
et al. (2006) found a -.18 correlation between boredom and procedural justice. Fisher
(1993) also suggests that employees might engage in theft in an effort to create
excitement and alleviate job boredom.

Hypothesis 2c: There will be a positive relationship between job boredom (both
self and co-worker reported) and CWB-theft.

Finally, employees experiencing high levels of job boredom might also engage in
behaviours designed to amuse themselves and provide a degree of excitement in the
workplace (Fisher, 1993). Therefore, we also propose a relationship between job
boredom and horseplay.
 98 K. Bruursema et al.

Hypothesis 2d: There will be a positive relationship between job boredom (both
self and co-worker reported) and CWB-horseplay.

Kass and Vodanovich (1990) found that BP-ext was similar to the Type A
behaviour pattern in that both types of people exhibit impatience in situations
imposing constraints and lacking stimulation. This type of boredom proneness was
also similar to sensation seeking in that both show a need for varied, novel, and
exciting environments. This finding could suggest that BP-ext individuals would
perform particularly poorly under conditions that could yield job boredom (e.g.,
mundane and repetitive tasks that may lead to understimulation). Furthermore, the
presence of impatience could signal emotional reactions to negative environmental
conditions that could elicit CWB. Combine this with the finding by Watt and
Vodanovich (1992) that boredom proneness significantly correlated with impulsive-
ness and the finding by Vodanovich, Verner, and Gilbride (1991) that boredom
proneness correlated with all sub-facets of negative affect (e.g., depression, hostility,
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anxiety, dysphoria), and the case for a relationship with CWB strengthens.
Essentially, when BP-ext employees are placed in a non-stimulating work environ-
ment, they are likely to feel impatient, anxious, and hostile and act impulsively, thus
leading them to engage in CWB.

Hypothesis 3: The relationship between job boredom and CWB (all 6 types) will
be moderated by BP-ext such that the relationship will be stronger when BP-ext is
high than when BP-ext is low.

Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 211 employees working 30 hours or more per week
throughout North America. Participants held jobs in a wide variety of industries,
including arts, education, finance, information technologies, healthcare, human
resources, management, and sales. They were asked to choose one co-worker with a
similar or identical job to their own to fill out a brief survey on their own perceptions
of job boredom. Of the 211 respondents, 114 returned the co-worker survey, resulting
in 114 matched pairs. Most of the participants were female (61%) and the mean age
of the participants was 35 years.

Measures
Participants’ surveys included measures of boredom proneness, job boredom, and
CWB. Additionally, participants provided the following demographics information:
industry type, educational level, hours worked per week, gender, and age. Co-workers
only completed the job boredom scale.

Boredom proneness. Boredom proneness was measured using Farmer and

Sundberg’s (1986) 28-item Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS). The response format
was changed from true-false to a 7-point Likert scale (from 1  strongly disagree to
7 strongly agree) in order to increase its precision, following the procedure used
 Work & Stress 99

by Dahlen et al. (2004). For this study, internal consistency for the full scale was
.82. This supported prior studies, which have reported internal consistencies
between .79 and .84 (e.g., Kass & Vodanovich, 1990; McLeod & Vodanovich, 1991;
Watt & Blanchard, 1994). Based upon suggestions from previous researchers (i.e.,
Vodanovich, 2003; Vodanovich et al., 2005), we also divided these items into two
subscales: boredom proneness due to a lack of external stimulation and boredom
proneness due to a lack of internal stimulation. An example item for BP-int is, ‘‘In
any situation, I can usually find something to do or see to keep me interested’’ and
example item for BP-ext is, ‘‘It takes a lot of change and variety to keep me really
happy.’’ BP-ext was our main focus, but we included the internal stimulation items
as a source of comparison. The external stimulation factor contained 8 items and
has an alpha of .75 for the current sample. The internal stimulation factor also
contained 8 items and had an alpha of .63.

Job boredom. Lee’s (1986) scale was used to measure job boredom. The Job
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Boredom Scale consists of 17 items along a 7-point Likert scale (1 never to

7 always) that ask respondents to indicate how dull and tedious they tend to find
their jobs/work life to be. Previous coefficient alphas for the scale have been
reported at .95 (Kass et al., 2001). Researchers have provided validation evidence
indicated by significantly negative correlations between job boredom and job
satisfaction using the Job Descriptive Index (JDI; Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969).
While additional validity evidence suggests that the boredom proneness scale and
the job boredom scale are distinct concepts (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986), some of
the job boredom items were similar to items on the boredom proneness scale.
Furthermore, although some items ask about the nature of job tasks, some asked
about how the respondent feels about the job. Therefore, we conducted a principal
components factor analysis with varimax rotation on both the self-reported and
co-worker reported items and found three distinct factors (only two factors,
though, when assessing the co-workers’ responses). For both sets of items, four
items that seemed to best reflect the nature of the job loaded on a single factor.
These included: ‘‘Does the job seem repetitive?’’, ‘‘Does monotonous describe your
job?’’, ‘‘Is your work tedious?’’, and ‘‘Is your work pretty much the same day after
day?’’ Since we were attempting to assess characteristics of the job, we only
included these items in our analyses. The alphas were .85 for the self-reported scale
and .86 for the co-worker reported scale.

Counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). CWB was measured using the 45 items of
the Counterproductive Work Behaviour Checklist (CWB-C) developed by Spector
et al. (2006). Thirty-three of the items produce five subscales of CWB. These include:
abuse, production deviance, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal. Response choices for
the scale were: 1 never, 2  once or twice, 3  once or twice per month, 4 once
or twice per week, 5 daily or almost daily. Respondents were instructed to answer
the questions with respect to their present job. Since this scale is a causal indicator
(formative measure), meaning that the related but conceptually distinct items
combine to form the construct, rather than vice versa (Bollen & Lennox, 1991),
coefficient alphas for the scale and subscales are not important. For this study, total
scale reliability was .91. This supports previous findings as Spector et al. reported an
alpha of .87 for the total scale.
 100 K. Bruursema et al.

Additionally, we included a new subscale of ‘‘horseplay’’ consisting of five items

that dealt with playing games or engaging in time and resource-wasting but
potentially fun or interesting activities. The five new items are as follows: ‘‘Created
or engaged in a non work-related game or activity to entertain myself and/or others
during a meeting, seminar, or training session’’; ‘‘Used the internet to browse, blog,
email, or otherwise amuse myself for non work-related purposes’’, ‘‘Engaged in
amusing activities such as gossiping or joking with co-workers that distract me and
others from work’’, ‘‘Played practical jokes on co-workers or customers to entertain
myself and/or co-workers during work time’’, ‘‘Wasted company resources or
supplies to create something for my own purposes or to amuse myself or others’’.
The alpha was .70.

Procedure
All survey responses were collected in an online format using standard survey
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software. Respondents were recruited through an email snowball administration. We

began by asking networks of colleagues, friends, and acquaintances who then asked
their colleagues, friends, and acquaintances to participate. We were also provided
with email contact lists from some friends and family members. Due to the nature of
the administration, there is no way to determine response rates.
In order to measure job boredom independently, we used both self reports and
co-worker reports of job boredom. Participants were asked to choose one co-worker
who had a job similar to their own to complete the online job boredom scale. The co-
worker report provides an additional lens for examining aspects of the job itself
independently of the target respondent. To match pairs while maintaining
anonymity, participants were asked to choose a secret code to enter at the beginning
of their survey, and to give the code to their co-worker to enter at the beginning of
his/her survey.
Note that our moderator hypothesis (Hypothesis 3) was tested with six sets of
moderated multiple regression analyses. A hierarchical approach was used with the
additive terms included at step 1, and the product term added at step 2. Each analysis
included one of the six types of CWB regressed on job boredom and BP-ext at step 1,
and job boredom, BP-ext and the product of job boredom and BP-ext at step 2.
Significance of the product term at step 2 was taken as evidence of a moderator
effect. The form of the significant moderators was plotted by substituting values into
the step 2 moderator equations at /  one standard deviation from the mean of the
BP-ext variable.

Results
Descriptive statistics and the correlation matrix are presented in Table 1. Hypotheses
1a-1d were all supported, as BP-ext related to all five types of CWB and to our
additional horseplay scale. That is, these boredom-prone workers were more likely to
have high scores on abuse (r .32), sabotage (r .27), production deviance (r .29),
theft (r .30), withdrawal (r .40), and horseplay (r.22; all psB.01). Interestingly,
BP-ext was most strongly correlated with withdrawal (.40), suggesting that employees
prone to this type of boredom are likely to avoid the work environment by engaging
Downloaded by [Stacey R. Kessler] at 08:24 26 July 2011

Table 1. Zero-order Pearson correlations among study variables.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. CWB

2. Abuse .89**

3. Sabotage .63** .48**

4. Withdrawal .74** .53** .35**

Work & Stress

5. Production deviance .76** .62** .68** .48**

6. Theft .64** .43** .53** .49** .54**

7. Horseplay .74** .57** .32** .52** .35** .37**

8. BP-ext .38** .32** .27** .40** .29** .30** .22**

9. BP-int .09 .11 .07 .14 .02 .10 .02 .02

10. Job boredom .28** .30** .22** .31** .21** .17* .10 .35** .20**

11. Co-worker job boredom .20* .24** .11 .16 .16 .00 .15 .15 .03 .33**

Mean 72.78 23.91 3.53 9.53 8.31 5.60 10.66 27.56 23.36 13.63 13.24
SD 15.10 5.65 1.03 3.18 2.08 3.74 3.74 8.12 5.78 5.06 5.03
Notes: *pB.05, **pB.01, CWB  counterproductive work behaviour, BP-ext  external boredom proneness, BP-int  internal boredom proneness. N 211 for all
correlations except for co-worker reports (N 114).

101
 102 K. Bruursema et al.

in such activities as taking longer breaks than are permitted or working fewer hours
than expected. This makes sense given Spector et al.’s (2006) explanation that
withdrawal ‘‘is an attempt to avoid or escape a situation rather than do direct harm
[as] an individual might wish to escape . . . situations that induce negative emotions’’
(p. 450). Therefore, BP-ext employees seem most likely to engage in withdrawal
behaviours, as compared with other forms of CWB, as a means of avoiding feelings
of boredom.
Hypotheses 2a
2c were fully supported for measures of self-reported job
boredom and partially supported for co-worker reported job boredom. More

Table 2. Moderated regressions using external stimulation.

Production
Abuse Sabotage deviance Withdrawal Theft Horseplay
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Employee

Step 1

Intercept 15.886 2.354 5.868 4.301 4.330 7.702

Job boredom (JB)a .243** .029* .050 .124** .019 .016
External
stimulation (ES)a .171** .028** .064** .129** .050** .100**

Step 2

Intercept 21.341 4.164 8.414 8.762 6.216 10.885

Job boredom (JB)a .144 .10 .130 .193 .115 .210
External .034 .04 .032 .039 .021 .020
stimulation (ES)a
JB  ESa .014 .005** .007* .011* .005* .008
R2 Change .011 .038** .019* .024* .021* .009

Co-worker

Step 1

Intercept 14.601 2.399 5.169 3.704 4.366 6.420

Job boredom (JB)a .239** .016 .052 .062 .014 .097
External .232* .033* .093** .178** .068** .116*
stimulation (ES)a

Step 2

Intercept 18.550 3.277 6.483 6.507 3.623 12.330

Job Boredom (JB)a .062 .051 .049 .152 .043 .355
External .083 .000 .043 .072 .096 .107
stimulation (ES)a
JB  ESa .011 .002 .004 .008 .002 .017
R2 Change .005 .008 .004 .009 .002 .024
N  211 for employee reported job boredom and N  114 for co-worker reported job boredom.
a
Unstandardized regression coefficient.
* p B.05, ** p B.01.
 Work & Stress 103

Figure 1. Boredom proneness (external stimulation) moderating job boredom and with-
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drawal.

specifically, job boredom was significantly related to measures of abuse, sabotage,

withdrawal, production deviance, and theft, with correlations ranging from .17 to .31
(all psB.05). Co-worker reports of job boredom significantly related to abuse
(r.24, pB.01) but not to the other four measures of CWB. Additionally, we did not
find support for hypothesis 2d as neither self reports nor co-worker reports of job
boredom related to the incumbent’s report of horseplay.
Hypothesis 3, our moderator hypothesis, was partially supported using self-
reports of job boredom but not using co-worker reports of job boredom (see Table 2
and Figure 1). This means that BP-ext moderated the relationship between self-
reported job boredom four types of CWB (sabotage, production deviance, with-
drawal, and theft), such that BP-ext employees are more likely to engage in
withdrawal behaviours when encountering job boredom than are low BP-ext
employees. Please note that Figure 1 presents only one interaction as the other
interactions were similar in form to this figure.

Discussion
Our results suggest that boredom as a function of both the job and an employee’s
disposition has important implications for organizations in that both were related to
at least some types of CWB. On the disposition side, perhaps this occurred because
BP-ext individuals are angry and frustrated because they hold the organization
responsible for their boredom. Given the strong link between anger and both
aggression (Douglas & Martinko, 2001) and CWB (Spector et al., 2006), it is not
surprising that BP-ext would relate to CWB.
Our analyses suggested that dispositional boredom serves as a moderator of the
job boredom-CWB relationship. Specifically, employees high in BP-ext might
attempt to cope with the experience of boredom by destroying property, stealing,
or ultimately attempting to avoid work by withdrawing from the environment. This
fits with the idea that BP-ext individuals are especially susceptible to the effects of
boring situations and will therefore engage in CWB as a means of coping with the
 104 K. Bruursema et al.

boredom. It is important to note that BP-ext individuals did not abuse their fellow
co-workers in response to job boredom. Perhaps this is because BP-ext employees
working in boring jobs believe that, at least to some extent, the organization is to
blame for the boring job and not their co-workers. Therefore, in keeping with prior
findings (Bruk-Lee & Spector, 2006), employees directed CWB towards the target of
their displeasure, that is the organization, as opposed to their colleagues.
Additionally, it should be noted that the BP-int subscale did not correlate with
any type of CWB.

Theoretical implications and future research

Our findings support our proposed link between the boredom literature and the
CWB literature. We believe that the key link is anger, as boredom researchers have
found relationships between anger, aggression, and BP-ext (Dahlen et al., 2004),
while CWB researchers have found a strong connection between anger and CWB
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(Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Spector et al., 2006). We believe that these boredom
findings fit nicely within Spector and Fox’s (2002) job stress/emotion CWB model. In
line with this model, job boredom seems to be a stressor or an aspect of the work
environment that leads to negative emotions and, ultimately, to CWB.
In many ways, the reaction of a BP-ext employee fits nicely within the idea of the
psychological contract (Morrison & Robinson, 1997). Since these contracts are often
unspoken, it is quite possible that in a BP-ext person’s schema he or she expects the
organization to provide a job free from boredom. Therefore, although this study
sought to examine the link between the boredom and CWB literatures, it also
provides a roadmap for psychological contract researchers to examine the role of
boredom, at least from the employee’s viewpoint. It might be that BP-ext employees
need to work in fast-paced jobs where they will not have time to be bored. In other
words, perhaps it is unfair to label these boredom-prone types as ‘‘bad employees.’’
Rather, they could be productive and an asset to organizations under the right
circumstances.
Although our study assessed boredom at the job level, it would be useful to link
various job conditions to boredom as an emotional state. Job conditions that might
lead to boredom included both qualitative underload (tasks that are too routine and
simple given a person’s skills) and quantitative underload (having too little to do to
keep busy). Other elements of the job that might contribute to boredom should also
be investigated. Given the sparse organizational literature on boredom, it would be
fruitful for researchers to explore conditions of work that lead to this emotion.

Limitations
One of the most important limitations in the current study is our lack of power to
detect moderators using the co-worker data, since we only had 114 co-worker
responses. Perhaps this explains why the results were stronger with the self-report
measure (N 211) of job boredom. Aguinis, Beaty, Boik, & Pierce (2005) noted that
a lack of power to detect moderators is not uncommon. In their review of moderator
tests, the median effect size was .002 (adjusted F2 for categorical moderators). It is
important to note that their paper reviewed studies published in three top journals.
Given these common findings of low effect sizes as well as the expected downward
 Work & Stress 105

biases of effect sizes, our comparatively strong R2 change values are likely quite
meaningful.
Another limitation is the single source for the CWB data. Research using multi-
source data has found correspondence between self and other report CWB measures,
and in many cases a similar pattern of relationships with other variables (e.g., Bruk-
Lee & Spector, 2006; Penney & Spector, 2005). This suggests that it is unlikely that
the relationships between self-reported CWB and other variables are due to shared
biases among self-report measures.
One should keep in mind that while our study was designed to address
hypothetical antecedents of CWB, our cross-sectional non-experimental design
does not allow for causal conclusions. Although it may be that CWB is the effect
of being in a boring job, it is also possible that engaging in CWB is the cause of
perceptions of boredom, that is, individuals who engage in such behaviours
rationalize their actions using the boredom associated with the job.
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Implications for practice

While a number of authors have expressed concerns that managers need to pay
attention to stress and CWB (e.g., Spector & Fox, 2005), our results suggest that
managers also need to take steps to reduce workplace boredom. Such steps include
reducing the monotonous nature of jobs to the extent that it is feasible, or to provide
breaks from long periods of routine work. Some of these reductions are aided by
better incorporating technology into the workplace. Managers should also look to
qualitatively enhance the nature of employees’ work. One common way to do this,
for example, is to enhance the scope of an employee’s project work by allowing
employees to work on multiple stages of a project. As proposed by Hackman and
Oldham (1976) in their job characteristics model, having feelings of responsibility for
outcomes of the work helps to motivate employees. Perhaps motivated employees are
less likely to experience boredom and therefore will be less likely to commit CWB.
Another implication is the need to teach coping skills to boredom-prone
employees so that these employees can handle situations where they are likely to
experience boredom. Coping skills can take a variety of forms including teaching the
person to take short breaks to reduce feelings of boredom, to switch between
multiple tasks often, or even to provide one’s self with rewards in order to maintain a
level of motivation.

Conclusions
The major findings of this study suggest that boredom is a potentially important
variable that contributes to CWB in organizations. Individuals who find themselves
in boring jobs might engage in various types of counterproductive behaviours.
Furthermore, high BP-ext employees are particularly likely to respond to job
boredom with CWB. What is unclear from this study is how job boredom
and boredom proneness relate to various affective states and traits, such as anger,
anxiety, boredom, and perhaps depression (another low arousal state). Our study
clearly indicates that boredom should no longer be neglected in research on CWBs.
 106 K. Bruursema et al.

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