The Moderating role of negative affect on relationship Between inter personal conflict and Counterproductive behavior

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Immoral behaviors such as counterproductivity have increased in different industries and organizations. Consequently, studies have been conducted to examine environmental predictors for counterproductive behaviors such as occupational stressors or negative emotions. Evidently, focusing on this subject is of substantial importance.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Today, counterproductive behaviors have become prevalent in organizations and industries, becoming the focus of numerous researchers (Babamiri, 2011؛ Zare, 2012; Christian & Ellis, 2014). Such behaviors could bring about a number of impacts such as increasing turnover and reducing productivity for organizations and their employees (Coyne, Gentile, Born, Ersoy & Vakola, 2013). Counterproductive behaviors are highly correlated with occupational stressors (Fida & et. al, 2014; Fox & Spector, 1999). One of the occupational stressors related to counterproductive behaviors are interpersonal conflicts (Ho, 2012; Penney & Spector, 2002), which are directly connected to negative emotions at workplace (Chen, Zhao, Liu & Dash Wu, 2012). The three main constructs in the present study include interpersonal conflicts, counterproductive behaviors, and negative affect. According to the theoretical model, the purpose of this study is to investigate moderating role of negative affect on relationship between interpersonal conflict and counterproductive behaviors.
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The current study was the correlation research and the population was the employees of Isfahan's Mobarakeh Steel Company that 319 persons were selected through available sampling. Research instruments consisted of the interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale Spector & Jex (1998), Job Related Affects Scale Fox & Spector (1999) and Counterproductive Work Behavior Index Fox, Spector &Miles (2001). Data was analyzed using the hierarchical regression and moderate analysis.
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The results showed that given considerable interpersonal conflicts, the counterproductive behaviors reported by the person himself as well as his coworker would increase when the staff are in a highly negative affect. In fact, the results denote the substantial role of negative affect in forming counterproductive behaviors at workplace, confirming the moderating impact of this variable in the relation between counterproductive behaviors and interpersonal conflicts at workplace.
5- CONCLUSIONS& SUGGESTIONS
The present study was conducted with the purpose of examining the moderating impact of negative affect in the relation between counterproductive behavior and interpersonal conflicts at workplace. The results showed that the main impact for the interpersonal conflicts and negative affect were not significant, whereas the interactive effect for counterproductive behaviors graded by the subject himself and their coworker shows a significant relation. Furthermore, the results indicated that whenever the staff are in a highly negative affect, they are more likely to show counterproductive behaviors. These results could be exploited by mangers in organizations and industries in order to enhance the performance of their staff as well as reducing counterproductive behaviors at workplace. In fact, a pleasant, positive atmosphere could be offered by managers at the workplace so as to reduce the negative affect of the staff, followed by decreasing the extent of counterproductive behaviors and interpersonal conflicts.
Key Words: Negative affect, Counterproductive behavior, Inter personal conflict