Hopelessness and Counterproductive Work Behaviors among Support Staff of Makerere University

Abstract

Counterproductive work behaviors is due to the competitive nature of the job environment where most of the people in the world are spending a lot of time for job related work purposes while ignoring the others with influence to their job. However, such attitudes leave some staff not happy while working in the environment full of counterproductive work behaviors yet it is not the only factor which has influences on the staff members. There is also some determinants like hopelessness which also leads to negative counterproductive work behaviors at the work place. Hopelessness in organizations is absolutely dangerous because it could damage the behaviour of employees as an employee is left without any good expectations of success this results into despair hence causing counterproductive work behavior such as theft, calling late, fraud, sexual harassment, violence, drug and alcohol use. Furthermore the inappropriate use of the internet in short and long run which does not give a person the purpose and the drive that he/she needs to achieve in particular task that they assigned to perform this makes an individual to think of any possibility of satisfaction through some rewards that give them high levels of comfort at their work. Basing on the results the respondents who indicated lower scores were more hopeless which brings to high engagement in the counterproductive behavior, while those with high scores shows that there is reduced rate of hopelessness thus, reduced level of engagement in the counterproductive behavior