Abstract:
The present research examines hostile work environment (gender harassment, abusive supervision, ethnic discrimination and religious harassment) and interpersonal conflict in predicting counterproductive work behaviour among wholesale and retail shop workers in Accra and Kumasi. The survey method was used to collect data from a diverse sample of 318 workers from different wholesale and retail shops in Accra and Kumasi. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze the hypotheses. Results indicate that hostile work environment account for more variance in predicting counterproductive work behaviour than interpersonal conflict. In addition, gender harassment, a subtheme of hostile work environment accounted for more variance in explaining counterproductive work behaviour, followed by abusive supervision, ethnic discrimination and religious harassment respectively. The moderating analysis showed that sex and age of respondents moderated the relationship between interpersonal conflict and counterproductive work behaviour. That is female and older workers engaged more in counterproductive work behaviour than male and younger workers. It is recommended that owners of wholesale and retail shops should provide workers with respectful and conducive working environment so as to motivate them to put up their best in enhancing organizational performance.
