Coworkers Behaving Badly: The Impact of Coworker Deviant Behavior upon Individual Employees

This article provides a review of the literature addressing the impact of coworkers’ deviant, dysfunctional, or counterproductive behaviors upon individual employees. We provide a framework for the collection of findings on this issue, revealing that coworker deviant behavior negatively impacts individual employees’ attitudes, affect, and actions through three routes: (a) direct impact, whereby an employee is the target of coworkers’ deviant behaviors; (b) vicarious impact, whereby an employee is impacted by witnessing or learning of coworkers’ deviant behaviors; and (c) ambient impact, whereby an employee is impacted by working in an environment characterized by collective coworker deviant behavior. In our discussion of these routes of influence, we outline the relevant empirical findings for and theoretical perspectives of each, as well as the moderators of these effects. We conclude our review by identifying recommended future research directions based upon our critical assessment of this literature.