CWB-C Overview

Overview of the Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklish (CWB-C)

Paul E. Spector

University of South Florida

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) consists of acts that harm or are intended to harm organizations. They include acts directed toward both organizations and individuals, including aggression (physical and verbal), sabotage, theft, and withdrawal. The Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist (CWB-C) comes in two versions. The full 45-item was designed to be scored as either overall CWB (all items), or as two subscales (43 items) that are classified into CWB directed toward the organization versus people. The 32-item version produces 5 subscales of abuse (harmful and nasty behaviors that affect other people), production deviance (purposely doing the job incorrectly or allowing errors to occur), sabotage (destroying the physical environment), theft, and withdrawal (avoiding work through being absent or late). Responses are made on a 5-point frequency scale Never, Once or twice, Once or twice per month, Once or twice per week, Every day. Details of the scale’s development and history can be found in Spector, P. E., Fox, S., Penney, L. M., Bruursema, K., Goh, A., & Kessler, S. (2006). The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 446-460.

Reliability

Internal consistency reliability estimates (coefficient alpha) are available from 3 combined samples in Spector et al. (2006).

Subscale	n	Mean	SD	Observed Range	Possible Range	Coefficient Alpha
Abuse	736	22.1	6.2	17-77	17-85	.85
Production deviance	737	3.7	1.3	3-12	3-15	.63
Sabotage	738	3.6	1.1	3-11	3-15	.55
Theft	738	5.8	1.5	5-20	5-25	.63
Withdrawal	738	6.9	2.3	4-16	4-20	.64
CWB-Organization	735	31.1	7.4	21-81	21-105	.86
CWB-Person	735	26.3	6.3	22-88	22-110	.86
CWB-Total	731	58.9	12.6	44-173	44-220	.90

N = 731-738 for all but Abuse, CWB-Person, and CWB-Total where n = 460 due to missing data. Alphas revised since the 2006 paper to account for deleting item 4 from Abuse and reporting standardized alpha.

Scoring

To score the CWB-C, simply sum the responses to appropriate items, where 1 = the least frequent response (Never) and 5 = the most frequent response (Every day). The total score is the sum of all 45 items. The table shows the items by subscale. For more discussion see Spector et al. (2006).

Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist Items By Subscale

How often have you done each of the following things on your present job?

1=Never 2=Once or twice 3=Once or twice per month 4=Once or twice per week 5=Every day

CWB Item Number and Item	2 Factor	5 Factor
1 Purposely wasted your employer’s materials/supplies	CWB-O	Sabotage
8 Purposely damaged a piece of equipment or property	CWB-O	Sabotage
9 Purposely dirtied or littered your place of work	CWB-O	Sabotage
6 Came to work late without permission	CWB-O	Withdrawal
7 Stayed home from work and said you were sick when you weren’t	CWB-O	Withdrawal
17 Taken a longer break than you were allowed to take	CWB-O	Withdrawal
19 Left work earlier than you were allowed to	CWB-O	Withdrawal
5 Purposely did your work incorrectly	CWB-O	Production deviance
13 Purposely worked slowly when things needed to get done	CWB-O	Production deviance
18 Purposely failed to follow instructions	CWB-O	Production deviance
10 Stolen something belonging to your employer	CWB-O	Theft
22 Took supplies or tools home without permission	CWB-O	Theft
24 Put in to be paid for more hours than you worked	CWB-O	Theft
25 Took money from your employer without permission	CWB-O	Theft
32 Stole something belonging to someone at work	CWB-P	Theft
2 Daydreamed rather than did your work	CWB-O
3 Complained about insignificant things at work	CWB-O
14 Refused to take on an assignment when asked	CWB-O
15 Purposely came late to an appointment or meeting	CWB-O
16 Failed to report a problem so it would get worse	CWB-O
23 Tried to look busy while doing nothing	CWB-O
4 Told people outside the job what a lousy place you work for	CWB-O
11 Started or continued a damaging or harmful rumor at work	CWB-P	Abuse
12 Been nasty or rude to a client or customer		Abuse
20 Insulted someone about their job performance	CWB-P	Abuse
21 Made fun of someone’s personal life	CWB-P	Abuse
26 Ignored someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
30 Blamed someone at work for error you made	CWB-P	Abuse
31 Started an argument with someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
33 Verbally abused someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
34 Made an obscene gesture (the finger) to someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
35 Threatened someone at work with violence	CWB-P	Abuse
36 Threatened someone at work, but not physically	CWB-P	Abuse
37 Said something obscene to someone at work to make them feel bad	CWB-P	Abuse
39 Did something to make someone at work look bad	CWB-P	Abuse
40 Played a mean prank to embarrass someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
42 Looked at someone at work’s private mail/property without permission	CWB-P	Abuse
43 Hit or pushed someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
44 Insulted or made fun of someone at work	CWB-P	Abuse
27 Refused to help someone at work	CWB-P
28 Withheld needed information from someone at work	CWB-P
29 Purposely interfered with someone at work doing his/her job	CWB-P
38 Hid something so someone at work couldn’t find it	CWB-P
41 Destroyed property belonging to someone at work	CWB-P
45 Avoided returning a phone call to someone you should at work