Content uploaded by Bret Bradley
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Bret Bradley on Mar 02, 2022
Content may be subject to copyright.
Running Head: BOILING FROGS 1
Boiling frogs: Reconsidering the impact of deviance targets, severity, and frequency in
teams
Abstract
Deviance can impact team performance but it is unclear how this process unfolds. Common
measures delineate between interpersonal and organizational deviance rather than considering
the impact felt by teammates. Instead, we categorize deviant acts into team-relevant and team-
irrelevant measures. We then consider how deviance severity and frequency impact affective
states and team performance. Guided by affective events theory’s focus on work events shaping
emotional reactions and subsequent behaviors, we suggest that deviant acts that are negative
work events increase negative affect and harm team performance, particularly when frequent.
Team-irrelevant deviance is not a negative work event and thus should not impact team affect or
performance. Within team-relevant deviance, because severe forms are objectively wrong and
punished severely, teammates can overcome them whereas subtle and clandestine minor forms
harm the team the most, especially when frequent. Support was found within 1,114 recorded
deviant acts from 435 employees in 114 organizational teams.
Keywords: workplace deviance, deviance severity, team performance, negative affect,
affective events theory, deviance target
Acknowledgement: We are grateful to Joel Carnevale and two anonymous reviewers for
their insightful and constructive feedback on prior versions of this article.
BOILING FROGS 2
Boiling frogs: Reconsidering the impact of deviance targets, severity, and frequency in
teams
1. Introduction
Workplace deviance is so pervasive that 95% of organizations have reported some form
of employee deviance (Henle, Giacalone, & Jurkiewicz, 2005), resulting in the loss of billions of
dollars annually (Berry, Ones & Sackett, 2007). In addition to these financial costs, deviance
harms teammates and the interpersonal relationships between them regardless of whether they
are the direct target of the acts or simply witness or hear of them (Robinson, Wang, & Kiewitz,
2014). Within teams, deviance and related forms of mistreatment can create negative affective
responses (Cole, Walter, & Bruch, 2008), a spiral of incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999) and
a contagion of retaliatory acts throughout the team (Mayer, Thau, Workman, Van Dijke, & De
Cremer, 2011; Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998). These and similar findings have led scholars
to note that ‘most members of work organizations, it appears, engage in some form of
misbehavior that is related to their work, albeit in varying degrees of intensity, severity, and
frequency’ (Vardi & Wiener, 1996: p. 152). Thus, seeking to mitigate the effect of deviance is an
important consideration for academics and practitioners alike (Hsieh & Wang, 2016).
For the last quarter of a century, research has stemmed largely from the work of
Robinson and Bennett (1995), in which they define deviance as ‘voluntary behavior that violates
significant organizational norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organization, its
members, or both’ (p. 556). They created a typology suggesting that deviant behaviors fall along
two dimensions – the target, which is either interpersonally- or organizationally-directed, as well
as the severity, which ranges across a continuum of less to more severe behaviors. Their
subsequent measure (Bennett & Robinson, 2000) only includes the target dimension but has been
BOILING FROGS 3
credited with gaining interest and advancing the field (Berry, Carpenter, & Barratt, 2012; Berry
et al., 2007; Stewart, Bing, Davison, Woehr, & McIntyre, 2009).
As a consequence, researchers have advanced beyond overall measures to recognize
distinctions between various acts based upon their target. While an important extension,
interpersonal deviance includes several stakeholders (i.e., coworkers, managers, customers,
subordinates) and thus likely does not have a consistent felt impact on specific groups or
individuals. For example, verbally abusing a customer and gossiping about a coworker are both
interpersonal deviance yet a coworker is likely to be more directly impacted by the gossip and
react accordingly. This is true even though verbally abusing a customer is one of the most severe
forms of interpersonal deviance according to Robinson and Bennett (1995) while gossiping about
a coworker is recognized as the least severe form. Because studies on interpersonal deviance
frequently categorize all of these acts together, their felt impact on different targets can be
overlooked. This is particularly problematic in workplace teams and we suggest that the
traditional interpersonal and organizational categories of deviance should be reconsidered. In
their place, we offer a new categorization – team-relevant deviance comprises those acts that
directly target or harm members of the team or the team itself, and team-irrelevant deviance
includes acts that are targeted outside of the team (e.g., customers, managers, coworkers not in
the team, the organization). We then consider how this new classification may provide insight
into the effects of deviance on team performance.
We also return to Robinson and Bennett’s (1995) original full conceptualization to
consider the severity and frequency of the acts. Because only the target is examined in the
majority of deviance research, severity is sometimes acknowledged (e.g., Christian & Ellis,
2011), yet rarely studied (for exceptions see Ambrose, Seabright, & Schminke, 2002 and
BOILING FROGS 4
Karelaia & Keck, 2013). After finding support for the distinction between more and less severe
organizational deviance, Stewart and colleagues (2009) called for more advancements in
deviance severity. We extend this research by examining whether the severity of deviant acts
directed within and outside the team impacts the team’s performance. Likewise, frequency has
been used as a measure of various forms of deviance (e.g., Bordia, Restubog, & Tang, 2008;
Tepper, Henle, Lambert, Giacalone, & Duffy, 2008) rather than a unique characteristic that may
enhance the felt impact of deviance in teams. We consider how the frequency of deviant acts
may moderate the impact of their severity on team performance.
Baur and colleagues (2018) demonstrated that difficult or extreme environments can
drain the positive resources needed to respond to challenges. Thus, as these acts become more
frequent, they likely deplete the resources needed to cope, and subtly erode the functioning of the
team. To do so, we draw from Weiss and Cropanzano’s (1996) affective events theory and
suggest how various forms of deviance (e.g., frequent low severity team-relevant deviance) may
result in different perceptions of negative work events, and in turn impact team performance. As
such, we offer a combined perspective of how the target, severity, and frequency may interact to
create differential impacts and thus address a growing criticism that leaving out some aspects of
deviance may limit the generalizability of results (Marcus, Taylor, Hastings, Sturm, & Weigelt,
2016).
We then seek to expand our understanding to consider team-level negative affect as a
pathway through which deviance severity and frequency is likely to impact team performance.
Like individuals, teams react to work events such that team members that experience events that
lead to shared positive affect are likely to experience improved interpersonal relationships,
increased team satisfaction and commitment, as well as more helping behaviors, and less
BOILING FROGS 5
absenteeism within teams (Barsade & Knight, 2015). However, there is less clarity regarding the
impact of negative affect on team outcomes (Knight & Eisenkraft, 2014). We suggest that
because employee perceptions of negative work events differ depending on the target (team-
relevant or team-irrelevant), severity (more or less severe), and frequency of specific deviant
acts, it will be those acts that create negative work events that should result in increased team
negative affect and subsequently reduced team performance.
Collectively, we seek to make three contributions to the literature. First, we advance
research in workplace deviance by answering recent calls to revert back to the original
conceptualization of deviance (e.g., Marcus et al., 2016; Stewart et al., 2009). The current
understanding of deviance targets frequently does not consider the important characteristics of
severity and frequency and may not hold in teams. We suggest that team-relevant deviance
should create salient negative work events and this is particularly true for frequent less severe
versions of these acts. By plotting the individual deviant acts on a continuum, as originally
devised by Robinson and Bennett (1995), we develop a continuous measure of deviance severity,
thereby extending beyond categorical measures.
Second, we offer support for the tenants of affective events theory such that negative
events create negative emotional reactions that in turn damage performance-based outcomes. We
also contribute to theory by recognizing that not all deviance creates the same perceptions of
negative events and that the severity and frequency of the acts contribute to these differences.
Specifically, we suggest that negative events, such as those that pose an internal threat to the
team (i.e., team-relevant), will harm the team’s performance when they are subtle (i.e., less
severe) and frequent. Events that do not create internal threats (i.e., team-irrelevant), even if they
BOILING FROGS 6
have the potential to harm others outside of the team, will be less likely to create negative
emotional reactions and this will remain true regardless of their severity and frequency.
Third, we contribute to teams research by identifying how characteristics of deviance
create disparate effects on team members. We draw from Knight and Eisenkraft’s (2015) meta-
analytic findings which suggest that the impact of negative affect on team performance is
determined by whether the event creating the negative affect is from an endogenous (within the
team) or exogenous (outside of the team) source. We theorize that the driving force behind
whether a deviant act will create negative team outcomes is not whether it is targeted at an
individual or the organization but rather its effect on members of the team. In this way, we
recognize a multi-stakeholder approach to employee behaviors (e.g., Reynolds, Shoss, & Jundt,
2015) such that what may be considered as less detrimental to the overall organization may have
an important impact within teams and what is perceived as more egregious to the organization
may not be as impactful to teams.
2. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Development
2.1 The Impact of Deviance Targets and Severity
Deviance is important in team contexts due to its ability to harm relationships between
teammates by eroding cohesion and communication or increasing relationship conflict, stress,
and perceived threats (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Riskin, Bamberger, & Erez, in press) which
can harm performance (Bradley, Anderson, Baur, & Klotz, 2015). Accordingly, researchers have
found that overall workplace deviance and dysfunctional behaviors are negatively related to team
performance (Cole, Walter, & Bruch, 2008).
Much of the work to date that has sought to extend beyond overall measures of deviance
has focused on the target of the deviance as being directed at either an individual (i.e.,
BOILING FROGS 7
interpersonal deviance) or the organization (i.e., organizational deviance). While this is an
important advancement, the delineation between the two subsets of deviance is not always well
defined. For example, if an employee goes against a boss’s decision, this act could be classified
as interpersonal deviance by disobeying the supervisor as well as deviance directed at the
organization for not abiding by organizational procedures. Additionally, various forms of
interpersonal deviance likely have differing impacts depending on the specific target even if the
behavior is the same. For instance, when compared to gossiping about a manager, gossiping
about a coworker may have a greater impact on the interpersonal relationships within a team.
Likewise, stealing a customer’s possessions may create more harm to the image and reputation
of a company than stealing a coworker’s possessions, but the latter may have a greater
detrimental impact within a workgroup. As a result, deviance that directly impacts members of a
team or the team as a whole, is likely to create more harm to the team’s performance even if such
acts are considered rather minor overall.
This approach is consistent with prior meta-analytic results by Knight and Eisenkraft
(2015) who noted that positive events leading to positive emotional responses are consistently
beneficial within teams whereas negative events (e.g., deviance) require greater attention to the
contextual factors that inform the events. Because shared experiences of events impact group
functioning and the relational bonds between teammates (Barasde & Gibson, 2012), it is
important to consider how the focus of events can impact subsequent team members’ attitudes
and behaviors. The events that lead to negative emotional responses have been categorized as
internal or external to the team (Kelly & Barsade, 2001). Those events focused outside of the
team have been suggested to be less harmful within the team and possibly even have positive
outcomes such as the promotion of group survival and coordinating attention to an external threat
BOILING FROGS 8
(De Dreu, West, Fischer, & MacCurtain, 2001). Alternatively, when the events are focused
within the team, teammates are more likely to feel threatened and to view the group in a negative
light (Fischer & Manstead, 2008). Similarly, Dineen and colleagues (2007) found that team
members who become dissatisfied by external events are likely to rally together and increase
group solidarity whereas dissatisfaction caused from within the team weakens their solidarity.
Therefore, we redichotomize the interpersonal and organizational targets to instead create
two collections of deviant acts – those that are team-relevant such that they harm the
interdependence and interpersonal relationships within the team and those that are team-
irrelevant. Of note, team-irrelevant deviance is not simply a relabeling of organizational deviance
but would instead also include acts directed at individuals outside of the team (e.g., customers,
supervisors, non-teammates). Likewise, team-relevant deviance would comprise acts that have
traditionally been considered as interpersonal and organizational but that directly impact the
team.
Given this focus on deviance that is either team-relevant or irrelevant, we consider how
the acts within these groups may impact the team’s performance, particularly when their severity
is also considered. To guide this consideration, we draw from Weiss and Cropanzano’s (1996)
affective events theory, which suggests that performance-related outcomes are impacted by work
events. Basch and Fisher (2000) defined a work event as “an incident that stimulates appraisal of
an emotional reaction to a transitory or ongoing job-related agent, object, or event” (p. 37). For
employees working in teams, these events may be positive such as receiving assistance from a
teammate, which result in positive emotional reactions and enhance positive behaviors. Work
events may also be negative including a teammate engaging in deviant behaviors such as
absenteeism, theft, or gossiping. Negative work events have been found to elicit strong negative
BOILING FROGS 9
feelings that negatively impact subsequent attitudes and behaviors; including less creativity,
flexibility, and worse decision making as well as an unwillingness to help others through
prosocial behaviors (Porath & Erez, 2009).
Not every occurrence would be considered a work event according to affective events
theory nor would all work events evoke the same responses. Team-irrelevant acts (e.g., misusing
expense accounts, accepting kickbacks) are less likely to be perceived as negative work events
by members of a team because they are targeted outside of the team and are not felt as strongly
within the team. Many of the most severe forms of deviance, (e.g., embezzlement, verbally
abusing customers, sabotaging merchandise, stealing company equipment) fall within this
category of team-irrelevant deviance. Such acts can lead to negative outcomes including
lawsuits, fines, loss of reputation, higher insurance premiums, and the inability to recruit new
customers (Litzky, Eddleston, & Kidder, 2006). However, these costs are largely contained to the
organizational level. Alternatively, team-relevant deviance such as gossiping about a coworker,
endangering coworkers in reckless behavior, competing in a non-beneficial way, and blaming
coworkers for mistakes create more salient negative work events because they directly harm the
functioning of the team. While they often do not receive the same attention as large-scale team-
irrelevant deviance, within teams these subtle yet team-relevant acts are negative work events
and impact the functioning of a team and its members.
With the expectation that team-relevant deviant acts are more likely to be perceived as
negative work events by the team, we consider how the relative severity of the various specific
acts impacts the team’s performance. Due to the nature of team-irrelevant deviance as being
directed outside of the team, we do not expect these acts to have a large impact within a team
regardless of their severity. These acts, such as stealing company equipment, sabotaging
BOILING FROGS 10
merchandise, misusing discount privileges, and accepting kickbacks are more likely to be outside
of the internal functioning of teams, and thus less observable to most teammates. As a result,
team members are less likely to perceive such acts as negative work events because they do not
directly impact the team. Moreover, such acts may be reactions to external events. For example,
when organizations do not communicate why groups of employees receive reduced pay, those
employees may engage in theft of organizational resources – a severe form of deviance directed
outside of the team (Greenberg, 1990). These reactions to external threats can create a
superordinate goal for the members of the team to join together (Sherif, 1958) rather than the
divisive nature of deviance that negatively impacts members of the team.
Alternatively, because team-relevant deviant acts are likely to be salient negative work
events, they should draw attention and focus from team members who either have been directly
impacted or witnessed the effect on teammates. The most severe acts that are team-relevant
include endangering coworkers by reckless behavior, sexually harassing a coworker, and stealing
a coworker’s possessions. While severe, these acts are also obviously inappropriate. This
perceived wrongness is evidenced through organizational policies that seek to match the severity
of the punishment to that of the action (Wheeler, 1976) and may also violate laws. While these
acts can harm an organization, teammates are able to offer social support to help each other cope.
Research on punctuated equilibrium and group processes suggests that severe deviant behavior
may cause a strategic change resulting in subsequent performance increases to overcome the
threat (Gersick, 1991). Markova and Folger (2012), for example, found that employees in
interdependent jobs (e.g., teams) reported increased role clarity in the presence of such a deviant
coworker. Further, research on reactions to punishments suggests that employees react more
positively to punishment that is perceived to be fair, resulting in increased task and contextual
BOILING FROGS 11
performance (Ball, Trevino, & Sims, 1994). It is possible that the severe punishments that follow
severe deviance are considered fair and therefore result in less harm.
On the other hand, the subtler behaviors that characterize team-relevant less severe
deviance may cause more harm to the team’s performance. These acts include various forms of
absenteeism and shirking responsibilities (e.g., taking excessive breaks, coming in late or leaving
early, calling in sick when not) as well as uncivil or rude behaviors (e.g., gossiping about a
coworker, competing in a non-beneficial way, blaming coworkers for mistakes). Research has
found that incivility experienced in teams damages creativity (Motro, Spoelma, & Ellis, 2021)
and reduces proactive behavior of teammates (Schilpzand & Huang, 2018). Similarly, rudeness
was found to impact team processes such as information and workload sharing, helping, and
communication (Riskin et al., 2015).
Further, because the punishment for less severe acts is both more subjective and less
severe, organizations may erroneously create an environment that tolerates minor deviant
behaviors (Martin, Lopez, Roscigno, & Hodson, 2013). Employees consider the likelihood and
severity of the punishment before engaging in deviant acts (Vardi & Wiener, 1996). As a result,
informal norms frequently exist that tolerate some forms of deviance but only up to certain limits
when less severe acts are permitted (Sieh, 1987). These norms can exist at the team level
(Hollinger & Clark, 1982) and create a second standard whereby the actions may conform to the
local norms while deviating from the organizational norms (Warren, 2003). Such findings are
consistent with Vaughan’s (1996) notion of the ‘normalization of deviance’ and the gradual
acceptance of low scale deviant behaviors.
As such, while employees and society judge severe acts as clearly wrong and reject them,
less severe acts are more acceptable in organizations (Wheeler, 1976) and in society due to
BOILING FROGS 12
normalization effects (Vaughn, 1996) and thus may create more damage to team performance.
Because they pose internal threats within the team, they are likely to increase relationship
conflict and harm beneficial dynamics including cohesion and communication, which are
established mechanisms that impact team performance (Bradley, Baur, Banford, & Postlethwaite,
2013). Subtle deviance likely transitions from the unexpected to the expected, and finally to the
accepted (Pinto, 2014). Thus, while the severity of team-irrelevant deviance is not expected to
impact team performance, the less severe forms of team-relevant deviance should do more harm
to workgroup performance than more severe forms. We therefore offer the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: The severity of team-relevant deviance is positively related to team
performance such that low severity team-relevant deviance has a greater negative impact on team
performance than does high severity team-relevant deviance.
2.2 The Moderating Effect of Deviance Frequency
Through the observation or experience of differential consequences for deviant
behaviors, employees modify their definitions of proper behavior (Bandura, 1977). As a result,
deviance can be contagious within teams (Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998) and increased
through a downward spiral of retaliatory behaviors (Mayer et al., 2011). Therefore, it is
important to consider how the frequency of deviant acts may impact team performance.
Deviance frequency has been used as a way to measure various forms of deviance
including overall deviance (Bordia et al., 2008) and abusive supervision (Tepper et al., 2008).
However, measuring deviance from its frequency does not account for other characteristics of the
behaviors (e.g., severity, target). In addition to considering the relevancy to the team and the
severity of deviant acts, their frequency can further clarify the nature of deviance in teams. While
Robinson and colleagues (2014) suggested that the base rate of employee misbehavior likely
BOILING FROGS 13
moderates the impact of deviance on employee outcomes, research addressing the substantive
nature of frequency is minimal. Instead, there is a general expectation that when deviant acts are
more frequent, they are more detrimental. This is certainly a concern as frequent acts are more
likely to become normalized (Pinto, 2014) and trigger negative reactions such as anger (Phillips
& Smith, 2004). As employees rely on environmental cues to infer whether actions are
appropriate (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), frequently occurring teammate deviance may indicate
that such actions are acceptable and therefore repeated (Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998).
Consistent with our prior arguments, because team-irrelevant deviance is not perceived as
a negative work event within the team, we do not expect the severity to be related to the team’s
performance nor do we expect the frequency of these acts to alter this non-relationship.
However, we do expect the frequency of team-relevant deviance to moderate the impact of
deviance severity on team performance. Because team-relevant deviance is expected to be
perceived as a threat within the team and thus a negative work event, particularly the less severe
versions, frequently occurring acts of this type should enhance the damage to the team’s
performance. Frequent threats, even when minor, may be particularly damaging as they inhibit
the recovery of resources, which increases the chances of a negative spiral from resource
depletion (Riskin et al., in press). Supportive research has found that incivility – a frequently
occurring, less severe deviant behavior (Andersson & Pearson, 1999) – negatively impacts the
target as well as bystanders (Porath & Erez, 2009) through negative psychological conditions
that hinder performance and productivity (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001).
As such, frequency may exacerbate the negative impact of low severity deviance that is
expected to have a greater impact on team performance. Building on our prior argument that less
severe team-relevant deviance will be more harmful to team performance, we expect that
BOILING FROGS 14
frequent less severe acts will create the most damage to team performance. Because they are
subtle and pervasive acts and the assessment of wrongness of minor deviance is more subjective,
they should damage the functioning of the team over time. Moreover, as deviance increases in
frequency, it creates more incidents for which team members must adapt and cope while
reducing the opportunities to experience positive emotions to counterbalance the effects (Diener,
Sandvik, & Pavot, 2009). Severe deviant acts are still more clearly judged as inappropriate
because even though we expect frequent versions to impact the team, they should not be as
detrimental as the frequent minor versions and these severe team-relevant deviance acts will be
met with strong organizational reactions, punishments, and corrections to the behavior.
Thus, we are reminded of the story of the boiling frog such that a frog immediately
exposed to boiling water will leap from the pot but a frog placed in a pot of cool water with the
temperature slowly increased to a boil will not recognize the threat until it is too late (Gino &
Bazerman, 2009). We expect the same for teams exposed to deviant acts. Deviance that is team-
irrelevant, whether severe or not, is targeted outside of the team and does not directly impact the
team – it is akin to turning up the temperature on an adjacent burner. Regardless of whether the
acts are frequent, such that the temperature is constantly being increased, the experience for the
team, as represented by a frog in a pot away from the heat source, is largely unchanged.
However, when the deviance is team-relevant, minor deviance is akin to a cooler starting
temperature but when repeated may ultimately increase the temperature to create a boiling point
that will have a more deleterious impact. In contrast, exposing the team to sudden boiling water
(i.e., severe deviance) which is both obviously outside of the norms for appropriate behaviors
and more overt, will lead to self-protective activities, thus serving as a shock but without the
same detrimental consequences.
BOILING FROGS 15
Severity and frequency work together because negative events that pose an internal threat
to the team will damage team performance, and this damage is enhanced the more frequently the
acts occur. Frequently occurring less severe acts that threaten the team should create the most
harm because important team processes like communication and cohesion are stifled leading to
less coordination and productivity while detrimental processes like relationship conflict increase
which harms internal team functioning and performance. Events that do not create internal
threats to the team, even if they pose threats to stakeholders outside of the team, will not damage
team performance because they are not expected to affect important teamwork processes. This
effect should remain true regardless of the frequency of team-irrelevant deviance. We thus
propose the following:
Hypothesis 2: Deviance frequency moderates the relationship of team-relevant deviance
severity on team performance such that the damaged caused by less severe deviant acts on team
performance is increased when the acts are frequent.
2.3 Team Negative Affect
Affective events theory suggests that individuals have emotional reactions to the events
they experience and these reactions inform their subsequent attitudes and behaviors (Weiss &
Cropanzano, 1996). Employee emotions are thus the proximal reactions to workplace events
(Cropanzano, Dasborough, & Weiss, 2017). We conceptualize workplace deviance as providing
the opportunity for a negative event for teammates exposed to these behaviors within their team,
and affective reactions as the most likely mechanism linking them to team performance. Watson,
Clark, and Tellegen (1988), described negative affect as “a general dimension of subjective
distress and unpleasurable engagement that subsumes a variety of aversive mood states,
including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness.” (p. 1063). Prior research has
BOILING FROGS 16
found that deviance relates to negative affect (Aquino, Lewis, & Bradfield, 1999; Christian &
Ellis, 2011; Ferris, Spence, Brown, & Heller, 2012; Michel, Newness, & Duniewicz, 2016) and
within groups, negative affect damages extra-role and in-role performance (Cole, Walter, &
Bruch, 2008; George, 1990).
Team negative affect represents the aggregation of the individual members’ state
negative affect and is indicative of the shared experiences and feelings within the team (Kelly &
Barsade, 2001). While individual differences (e.g., trait affect) may create some heterogeneity in
affective responses, convergence is expected in teams due to many reasons including the
attraction, selection, and attrition that increases team homogeneity (George, 1990), emotional
contagion across teammates (Barsade, 2002), and the frequent shared experiences of similar
events (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Team affect has been found to impact attitudes about the
team, cooperation and conflict, creativity, effort, team efficacy, decision making, and
performance (Barsade & Knight, 2015).
We seek to build from the prior findings to further consider how workplace deviance may
evoke negative emotional reactions (i.e., negative affect) in teams. Supporting our model, Ghosh,
Dierkes, and Falletta (2011) found that negative affect mediates the impact of experienced
deviance in the form of negative mentoring and employees’ subsequent incivility. Additionally,
Cole and colleagues (2008) found that negative team affective tone mediates the relationship
between dysfunctional team behavior and team performance. Likewise, other related behaviors
such as workplace incivility, bullying, and mistreatment have been found to produce negative
affect (Lim, Cortina, & Magley, 2008; Mayer et al., 2011) as has the subset of interpersonal
deviance (Michalak, Kiffin-Petersen, & Ashkanasy, 2019). In general, deviance should result in
team negative affect because it has the ability to harm the team’s reputation and inhibit goal
BOILING FROGS 17
attainment (Felps, Mitchell, & Byington, 2006). More specifically, when negative acts are
perceived as relevant and harmful, teammates should respond with negative emotions (Cole et
al., 2008) that reduce the team’s ability to focus on tasks and harm performance (Ashton-James
& Ashkanasy, 2005).
Although affective events theory has been used to relate to various measures of deviance
(e.g., act-specific, target-focused, overall), researchers have not considered how the severity and
frequency of the acts may impact the creation of negative affect. This oversight has led to some
disagreement. Ferris and colleagues (2012) recognized that their measure of deviance was
primarily comprised of less severe acts but noted they expected the results to generalize to more
severe forms. Yet others recognize that varying work events trigger affective responses that
differ based on their type, intensity, and duration, and thus will differentially impact subsequent
workplace behaviors (e.g., Michalak et al., 2019).
Within the development of the prior hypotheses, we theorized that while team-irrelevant
deviance may have a large impact on individuals outside of the team or the organization as a
whole, it will be less likely to be perceived as a negative work event within the team because
these acts do not directly impact the team. These conditions were expected to remain constant
regardless of the severity and frequency of the acts. Thus, because the severity of team-irrelevant
deviance is not expected to impact team members’ assessments of negative work events, and
because affective events theory suggests that work events prime emotional reactions, then we do
not expect team-irrelevant deviance severity to impact the creation or enhancement of team
negative affect even when frequent.
Following this same approach, we expect that the severity and frequency of team-relevant
deviance will impact team negative affect. As we expect that less severe versions of this
BOILING FROGS 18
deviance will be more likely to be perceived as negative work events when compared to more
severe versions, we thus expect that the minor forms will also create stronger emotional
responses. Employees who experience their teammates’ deviant behaviors likely feel emotions
such as anger, frustration, or distress and can retaliate by shirking, ignoring requests for help, or
more deviance (Cortina et al., 2001; Riskin et al., in press). Coworker deviance, especially when
it directly impacts the team, may be perceived as immoral behavior which Fitness (2001) found
to be the primary cause of anger from coworkers. As a result, team members will appraise such
events as threatening and develop negative affect (Michel et al., 2016). When such negative
affective states are experienced, employees are alerted to their undesirable current situation and
seek to change it through reduced work effort, withdrawal, or other harmful behaviors (Mayer et
al., 2011), which should reduce the team’s performance.
As a result, the less severe acts of team-relevant deviance such as engaging in
absenteeism, leaving work for coworkers to complete, competing in non-beneficial ways or
gossiping about a teammate are likely to elicit emotional reactions including anger, contempt,
and disgust. Alternatively, while the more severe forms of team-relevant deviance (e.g., stealing
a coworker’s possessions, sexually harassing coworkers) may create similar reactions, we expect
these reactions will be lessened because these acts are more observable to outsiders, likely to
require organizational intervention, and evoke more severe punishments which may extend up to
termination, lawsuits, and imprisonment. Unlike severe forms that are quickly recognized and
addressed with severe legal ramifications for organizations that permit these behaviors to
continue, less severe forms, especially when frequent, may indicate a subtle and gradual erosion
of the team’s culture, creating a clandestine and long-term destructive environment.
BOILING FROGS 19
We assert that an important reason frequent low severity deviance is expected to have a
bigger impact on team performance is due to its effect on teammates’ state negative affect. When
employees often gossip or engage in absenteeism and favoritism within their teams, teammates
are likely to have a negative affective reaction such as feeling angry, distressed, or irritable.
These reactions should then damage team performance through a combination of reduced team
processes such as communicating and sharing information and increased problematic interactions
such as relationship conflict. This approach is consistent with affective events theory that
suggests that negative work conditions elicit negative emotional responses that demotivate and
distract employees, thereby harming their performance (Elfenbein, 2007). However, scholars
have also suggested that work experiences may impact team outcomes through other pathways,
including knowledge hiding (Singh, 2019) and reduced trust (Schabram, Robinson, & Cruz,
2018). In order to account for these other potential pathways, we suggest that team negative
affect is a partial rather than a full mediator. We therefore propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Team negative affect partially mediates the moderated relationship of
team-relevant deviance severity and frequency on team performance such that the interactive
effect increases team negative affect, which in turn decreases team performance.
3. Methods
3.1 Sample
We partnered with a Western U.S. call center for the study. Several banking and lending
institutions contract the organization to provide both outbound (e.g., sales and collections) and
inbound (e.g., addressing questions and complaints) customer service. Each team interacts with
only a subset (e.g., high net worth) of customers for one client organization. All team members
are full-time employees, titled as customer service and retention specialists, and work
BOILING FROGS 20
extensively within teams to share customer records, rely on and support each other, and have
their performance evaluated at the team level.
Each team member was advised that data was to be used for academic research and
received an assurance of anonymity before being given an opportunity to participate in an online
questionnaire via his or her work email. Of the 653 employees, 470 provided complete responses
(overall response rate = 71.98%; average team response rate = 72.20%) and were nested within
122 teams that ranged from 5 to 8 members. After reviewing the aggregation statistics for the
team negative affect measure, eight teams comprising 35 employees were removed, thus creating
a final sample of 435 employees nested within 114 teams. Combined, these teams had 1,114
recorded incidents of deviance across the prior year – an average of 9.77 incidents per team.
Respondents’ age (M = 26.24 years, sd = 8.26 years), tenure (M = 2.04 years, sd = 1.67
years), gender (74% female), and education level (4% some high-school education, 17.7% high-
school degree, 39.6% some college education, and 38.7% a college degree) fit the profile for the
industry. Their ethnicities varied with 45.3% Caucasian, 22.3% African-American, 18.5%
Hispanic, 11.1% Asian, 2% Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 1% Native American.
3.2 Measures
Descriptions of the measures are included below. Because the measure of team
performance (team-level performance appraisals) is conducted annually, we used an annual time
period for all appropriate measures (i.e., deviance and team negative affect). Due to the low base
rate found in deviance research (Liao, Joshi, & Chuang, 2004), an annual assessment can
increase the reliability and validity of the measure. Additionally, in their development of the
Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), which serves as the foundation of our team
BOILING FROGS 21
negative affect measure, Watson and colleagues (1988) found valid responses when respondents
were asked to indicate their negative affect across the prior year.
The covariates were retrieved from the organizational records at Time 1, team negative
affect was collected from employees at Time 2, and deviance and team performance were
collected from the team files at Time 3, which also coincided with the performance appraisal
discussions by supervisors with their teams. The time periods were separated by two weeks.
3.2.1 Team performance. We measured team performance using the organization’s
archival records of the annual supervisor-rated evaluations of team-level performance.
Performance was assessed on a five-point scale in four dimensions: (1) quantity of work, (2)
efficiency, (3) ability to meet expectations, and (4) the team’s reputation (α = .95) – dimensions
used in prior studies to measure team performance (e.g., Van de Ven & Ferry, 1980).
3.2.2 Deviance target. We reviewed Robinson and Bennett’s (1995) typology of deviant
behaviors and determined which acts impact members of the team or the team itself and which
acts are directed at targets outside of the team (e.g., customers, organization). Those that impact
the team were labeled as team-relevant whereas those that do not were labeled as team-
irrelevant. Table 1 lists all of the deviant acts from Robinson and Bennett (1995), the
determination of the target for each as either team-relevant or team-irrelevant, as well as their
severity.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 1 about here
-------------------------------
3.2.3 Deviance severity. Deviance severity was measured from the incidents recorded in
the teams’ files throughout the year. These measures are beneficial because they reflect all
recorded incidents of deviance (Bordia et al., 2008), overcome self-serving biases in self-reports
(Bing et al., 2007), and are documented at the time of the incident rather than dependent on
BOILING FROGS 22
retrospective biases (Ferguson & Barry, 2011). Because we sought to extend from Robinson and
Bennett’s (1995) central work, each deviant act was plotted on the continuum within their Figure
1 (pg. 562-563). As a result, our measure ranged from -2 (low severity) to 2 (high severity). As
the focus of our study is to consider how team-level deviance severity influences team
performance, we created two measures of deviance severity for each team comprised of the
average severity score for all of the team-relevant and team-irrelevant deviant acts.
3.2.4 Deviance frequency. Deviance frequency was determined by counting the recorded
annual deviant acts for each team.
3.2.5 Negative affect. Negative affect was measured by each employee using the five-
item negative affect subscale of the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short
Form (I-PANAS-SF) by Thompson (2007) as condensed from the original PANAS scale by
Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988) and validated across cultures to better ensure
interpretability. Questions were assessed on a five-point Likert style scale (1 = very slightly or
never; 5 = extremely or always). Respondents received the following introduction, “This scale
consists of a number of words that describe different feelings and emotions. Read each item and
then mark the appropriate answer. Indicate to what extent you have felt this way during the past
year.” and were then asked about the following five terms – afraid, nervous, upset, hostile, and
ashamed. We randomized these items with opposing questions for positive affect (i.e., alert,
inspired, determined, attentive, and active) to avoid priming any specific mood.
The examination of the aggregation statistics suggested some teams lacked agreement
amongst the teammates. Because negative affect has been conceptualized as having both a state
and trait component, it is important to separate the effect that could occur from deviant acts from
affect that would serve as a dispositional baseline by retaining only the teams that have high
BOILING FROGS 23
levels of agreement. Based on the recommendation by George (1990), we eliminated eight teams
with a rwg(1) < .70. The remaining teams had high reliability across the items (α = .95) and the
aggregation statistics (rwg = .84, SD = .07; ICC(1) = .89, ICC(2) = .97) provided the appropriate
confidence to aggregate the individual responses to the team-level.
3.2.6 Control variables. We controlled for the average tenure of team members and team
size because they may impact how employees react to deviance from their teammates (Knight &
Eisenkraft, 2015). Descriptive statistics and correlations for all measures are provided in Table 2.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 2 about here
--------------------------------
3.3 Results
Because all data is at the team-level, hierarchical regression analysis was used for
Hypotheses 1 and 2 after the variables were mean-centered to reduce concerns of
multicollinearity and improve interpretability (Aiken & West, 1991). We then sought to examine
the variance in team performance explained by deviance severity beyond that explained by the
covariates. As shown in Model 1 of Table 3, deviance severity of team-irrelevant deviance is
unrelated to team performance (B = .12, p = .23) while deviance severity of team-relevant
deviance has a strong and positive relationship with team performance (B = .31, p < .01). This
finding suggests that for team-relevant deviance, as the severity of the deviance decreases (i.e.,
less severe), so too does the team’s performance and thus the less severe deviant acts cause the
most harm to team performance. As such, we find support for Hypothesis 1.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 3 about here
-------------------------------
In Hypothesis 2, we examined the interactive effect of deviance frequency and severity
on team performance. We stated that we expect frequency to be an important boundary condition
BOILING FROGS 24
such that frequently occurring acts will enhance the damage to the team’s performance for team-
relevant deviance when the acts are less severe. As shown in Model 2 of Table 3, we find the
interaction term is significantly related to team performance (B = .26, p < .01) after the
covariates and main effects were included in the model. We plotted the significant interaction at
±1σ in Figure 1. The results of the simple slopes test indicate that the high frequency slope is
significant (t = 4.42, p < .01) while the low frequency slope is not (t = .89, p = .38). Therefore,
we find that less severe acts are particularly detrimental to team performance when they are
frequent. Thus, we found support for Hypothesis 2.
--------------------------------
Insert Figure 1 about here
--------------------------------
To test Hypothesis 3, we used Model 8 of the PROCESS macro in SPSS 27, which
allows for the ability to simultaneously test the hypothesized moderated-mediated pathway
through team negative affect as well as the moderating influence on the main effect of team-
relevant deviance severity on team performance. The macro offers several benefits to overcome
the concerns frequently raised in traditional examinations of mediation including low power and
inferred indirect effects, and permits the examination of the full model at one time to analyze the
direct and indirect effects of the predictor on the outcome variable. Additionally, PROCESS uses
bootstrapped subsamples within the data and the creation of confidence intervals to offer
additional reassurance in the findings, which has been demonstrated to be a powerful test of the
effects of intervening variables (MacKinnon, Lockwood, & Williams, 2004). We developed 95%
confidence intervals using 5,000 bootstrapped subsets.
In Hypothesis 3, we suggested team negative affect partially mediates the relationship
between team-relevant deviance severity and team performance such that the less severe
deviance creates more team negative affect and in turn lower team performance. This effect is
BOILING FROGS 25
expected to be heightened when the less severe acts are frequent. As shown in Model 3 of Table
3, we first find that the interactive effect of deviance severity and frequency is negatively related
to team negative affect (B = -.20, p < .05). We plotted the interaction at ±1σ. As shown in Figure
2, the simple slopes test indicates that the high frequency slope is significant (t = -3.21, p < .01)
while the low frequency slope is not (t = -.76, p = .45), indicating that team negative affect is
increased the most when the team-relevant acts are less severe and frequent.
Next, in Model 4 of Table 3, we found team negative affect is negatively related to team
performance (B = -.23, p = .02). Moreover, while the main effect between deviance severity and
team performance remains significant (B = .29, p < .01), the coefficient is reduced after team
negative affect is included, thus suggesting partial mediation. The conditional direct effect of
deviance frequency on the deviance severity to team performance relationship reconfirmed the
simple slopes tests and indicates the interaction is significant at high (95% CI: .24, .83) and
average frequency (95% CI: .13, .50) but not at low frequency (95% CI: -.11, .30). Likewise, the
conditional indirect effect of the interaction between deviance severity and frequency on team
performance as mediated by team negative affect also reconfirmed the simple slopes test such
that the indirect effect was significant at high (95% CI: .03, .20) and average frequency (95% CI:
.01, .13) but not at low frequency (95% CI: -.05, .08). These results provide support for the
partially-mediated finding through team negative affect in the directions hypothesized. Thus, we
find support for Hypothesis 3.
While not hypothesized, the interactive effect of team-irrelevant deviance severity and
frequency is neither related to team negative affect (B = .17, p = .12) nor team performance (B
= .01, p = .95).
4. Discussion
BOILING FROGS 26
Researchers have considered the implications of deviance in teams for more than 60
years (cf. Sherif, 1958) but the severity of the acts has largely remained unexplored due in part to
measures that focus on overall deviance or just the target dimension. However, recent findings
(Stewart et al., 2009) suggest that deviance severity may provide new insight into its impact.
Thus, we sought to determine the impact of deviance severity on team performance, particularly
when the frequency is also considered. Further, we examined team negative affect as a likely
pathway to explain the harm to team performance. Additionally, we sought to reconceptualize
the target categorization of deviance. We suggest that within teams, the more appropriate
classification is likely whether the deviance is team-relevant (i.e., targeting the team or its
members) or team-irrelevant (i.e., targeting the organization, supervisors, customers, or other
coworkers not in the team). This insight may explain mixed findings in prior results as well as
guide the selection of deviance measures in future studies. For example, while the majority of
prior research has found negative affect to be positively related to deviance (e.g., Aquino et al.,
1999), others did not find this relationship (e.g., Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Glome & Liao,
2003). We suggest three possible reasons for these mixed results could be (1) the target of the
deviance as directly impacting the focal group, (2) the severity of the specific deviant acts
performed, and (3) how frequently the acts occur.
The premise for our hypotheses is based within the belief that subtle deviant acts by
teammates aimed at or directly impacting other teammates or the team as a whole is more likely
to be a negative work event when compared to deviance directed externally. According to
affective events theory, negative work events are expected to damage the performance of the
team through the creation of negative emotional reactions (i.e., increased team negative affect).
We argued and found that team-irrelevant deviant behaviors are not negative work events to
BOILING FROGS 27
members of the team and thus are not related to the team’s negative affect or team performance
and this remains true regardless of the severity and frequency of the acts.
However, we expected and found that team-relevant deviance does constitute a negative
work event but there are differences across the severity continuum. Less severe acts are more
subtle and create additional hardships for teammates to overcome. They are also more
subjectively deviant yet can create a long-term threat to the team, especially when they are
frequent. As a result, they can cause negative emotional responses and harm the team’s
performance. Alternatively, severe team-relevant acts, while they are targeted at members of the
team or the team itself, are more overt as well as more obviously wrong. Moreover, they often
require a swift and severe response from the organization. As a result, severe acts are not
expected to be as frequent and may create a unifying cause to rally against, thus counteracting
any damage from the acts. Taken together, the results suggest that repositioning the frequently
used target characteristic to team-relevant and team-irrelevant deviance for teams and the
inclusion of the often-overlooked deviance severity and frequency should be considered when
examining deviance effects on related variables of interest.
4.1 Theoretical Implications and Directions for Future Research
We find that deviance severity has important implications in teams. By embracing
Robinson and Bennett’s (1995) original typology, we suggest that measures of overall deviance
or the interpersonal/organizational target distinction provide an incomplete depiction. Our results
suggest that there are nuanced and counterintuitive distinctions across the severity continuum,
particularly when frequency of the acts is also considered. However, these findings are hidden if
we rely on categorizations that consider deviance as targeted at either an individual or the
organization instead of whether it directly impacts the focal group (e.g., team members).
BOILING FROGS 28
When deviance is relevant to the team, less severe forms are related to lower team
performance. While this relationship may not hold when considering overall firm performance, it
does suggest an important boundary condition for the impact of deviance in the workplace.
These less severe acts are expected to more directly impact team processes and harm
relationships among team members, and, thereby are more salient internal threats. In reviewing
the less severe team-relevant deviant acts in Table 1, we find that most can be reclassified as
absenteeism, shirking responsibilities, and uncivil or rude behaviors. These acts, while
determined to be less severe, likely have an important effect on the daily work experiences of the
teammates that must pick up the slack for the deviants and tolerate their harmful behaviors.
Through the inclusion of frequency, we recognize that severity and frequency are distinct
characteristics when considering their impact on team performance. Some deviance is inevitable
(Davis & Rothstein, 2006) and organizations develop policies to match the severity of the
punishment to the act (Wheeler, 1976). Such prescriptive policies seek to reduce severe forms
but may erroneously create an environment that tolerates less severe acts (Martin et al., 2013).
As employees consider the likelihood and severity of punishment before engaging in deviance
(Vardi & Wiener, 1996), they are more likely to engage in less severe acts that are less likely to
be punished and receive lighter punishments. This is problematic as frequent less severe deviant
acts are strongly related to team negative affect and decreased team performance. This concern is
consistent with Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly’s (1998) observation on, ‘...the apparent prevalence
of less serious, yet still harmful, actions, such as lying, spreading rumors, withholding effort, and
absenteeism…’ (p. 658) as well as Stewart et al.’s (2009) note that less severe forms of deviance
such as ‘verbal, passive, and subtle acts represent the majority of workplace deviance’ (p. 213).
BOILING FROGS 29
Negative affect is an important pathway to deliver the impact of deviance severity and
frequency on team performance. In support of affective events theory, we find that the perceived
threats that employees are exposed to that create the strongest negative emotional states also lead
to the worst behavioral outcomes. Less severe acts more strongly relate to decreased team
performance and specifically when they are frequent. Thus, our results offer insight into what
creates or intensifies perceived threats that cause emotional reactions and impact performance.
It is also important to consider the impact of specific work events. At its core, affective
events theory explains and predicts how events shape emotional responses that drive subsequent
behaviors. Our study demonstrates that not all work events are the same and therefore they do
not create the same responses. Rather than assume that negative events will lead to negative
emotions and thus negative outcomes, researchers should recognize that not all negative actions
are perceived as negative events and not all negative events will lead to the same outcomes.
Severe acts, even if they directly harm the team, may not be perceived as negatively because
team members recognize them as more obviously wrong and believe they will be punished
accordingly whereas less severe acts may be more damaging because they are more clandestine,
less obviously inappropriate, and more likely to remain unaddressed. Therefore, a continuum of
positivity and negativity likely exist that should be considered rather than assuming all negative
experiences will produce equally negative outcomes. Further, we continue the push for a multi-
stakeholder approach to teams-based research such that while certain acts may be detrimental to
individual employees or the organization as a whole, teammates may be shielded from some of
those negative effects and instead may have other subsets of deviance that directly impact them.
Future studies should consider how to buffer the impact of deviance on team
performance. One consideration is team composition. Emotionally stable teammates can cope
BOILING FROGS 30
with stressful demands and have high quality interactions with teammates (Bradley, Klotz,
Postlethwaite, & Brown, 2013). Moreover, negative affect is less likely to become contagious in
teams with emotionally stable teammates (Ilies, Wagner, & Morgeson, 2007).
Also, Berry and colleagues (2012) found deviance can reliably be measured by observers.
Similarly, Oh and colleagues (2011) found meta-analytic support for the value of acquaintance-
reported personality traits in predicting job performance. Kluemper et al. (2015) furthered this
research by demonstrating how acquaintance-reported conscientiousness and agreeableness can
add incremental validity in the explanation of deviance beyond self-reports. As researchers
continue to explore new ways to measure personalities, attitudes, and behaviors that have
traditionally relied on self-reported measures, it would be helpful to consider how affect and
other emotional reactions can be measured without self-reports.
Another consideration is the ability of leaders to both reduce the amount of deviance and
help overcome it. Teams led by participative leaders (Mulki, Jaramillo, & Locander, 2006) that
effectively communicate with their subordinates (Yoo, Flaherty, & Frankwick, 2014) perform
less deviance while those with abusive leaders (Tepper et al., 2008) or who hide information
from their subordinates (Singh, 2019) engage in more. Future research should also consider
mechanisms leaders can use to buffer deviance’s impact. For example, leaders may act as role
models or motivate team members to rally together in the face of adversity (Baur et al., 2016).
Further, while considering the role of leaders in seeking to reduce the amount of deviance
while also increasing prosocial behaviors, examination should be made into the motives behind
these acts. Haynie and colleagues (2019) found empathic leaders can motivate followers to
engage in prosocial behaviors, but only when leaders have similar relationships with all of their
subordinates (i.e., low LMX differentiation). Further, Baur and Buckley (2016) demonstrated
BOILING FROGS 31
that employees engage in deviance as a reaction to a perceived lack of support from their
supervisors. Moreover, employees may engage in deviant behaviors to help others (Morrison,
2006) or prosocial behaviors to benefit themselves (Baur, Bivens, Sharma, & Buckley, in press).
Complicating the situation is the recent recognition by Griffith et al. (2019) that organizations
often inaccurately train future leaders for the experiences they are likely to face and the
observation by Anderson and colleagues (2017) of the changing workforce that may be
motivated differently, making traditional styles of leadership less effective. Thus, researchers
should seek to not only measure deviance and prosocial behaviors but also to understand the
motives behind them.
4.2 Practical Implications
The popular press is filled with high-profile examples of deviance while less severe
forms are often overlooked. Organizational leaders may be motivated to focus on these acts
because they can expose the organization to liability, lawsuits, damaged reputation, and the
inability to keep and attract new customers. However, we find that less severe deviance that
directly impacts the team has a more profound negative impact on team performance than severe
forms. Because many less severe forms (e.g., employees taking excessive breaks or gossiping)
may be perceived as harmless, they can be overlooked. However, while these less severe acts
may not manifest in harm to customers or the organization, we find that they are the most
problematic subset of deviance within employee teams, particularly when frequent. This is
troubling given the high frequency of many of these acts. As a result, organizational leaders
should not overlook less severe acts as they may have a contagious effect if left unchecked.
Additionally, attention should be given to how deviance impacts team performance, as
driven through the collective negative affect of team members. The problematic frequent low-
BOILING FROGS 32
severity acts that are directed within the team create the strongest feelings of stress, anxiety, fear,
and nervousness. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce negative affect. Employee selection
should consider traits such as emotional stability, which can reduce the intensity of affective
swings. Alternatively, managers can influence the affective states within their teams with their
own positive moods. Also, leaders can seek to reduce the informal norms that often overlook and
even condone deviant acts up to a certain level (i.e., low-severity deviance). This is the preferred
scenario as it curtails the contagion and negative emotional responses before they occur.
4.3 Limitations
While we collected data from several sources (i.e., team member ratings of affect,
supervisor ratings of performance, archival reports of deviance) and relied on theory to guide our
model, we are unable to draw causal inferences. Additionally, our collection of actual deviant
acts within organizational teams provides a balance for many studies that examine and
manipulate deviance and affective responses in labs or with student teams. However, Knight and
Eisenkraft (2015) found that a group’s lifespan influences the impact of negative affect such that
established or ongoing groups have well-defined boundaries and past norms that inform how
teammates are likely to respond and thus negative affect is detrimental for the team.
Alternatively, groups formed for one task or new groups may benefit from negative affect as it
can bring teammates together. While we controlled for average team tenure, the generalizability
of our findings would benefit from replication using various methods (e.g., longitudinal field
data, quasi-experimental studies, laboratory experiments) as well as newly created teams.
Additionally, deviance is often measured using self-reports that are confounded by self-
serving biases (Bing et al. 2007). In their meta-analysis, Berry and colleagues (2012) found
deviance can reliably be measured by observer-reports (e.g., supervisor recordings). However, as
BOILING FROGS 33
employees may engage in deviance in clandestine ways (Mackey, Frieder, Perrewe, Gallagher, &
Brymer, 2015), and some forms are more concealable than others (Sackett, Berry, Wiemann, &
Laczo, 2006), our measure of all recorded deviance may not include all enacted deviance. This
underreporting may not be equally distributed across the severity continuum. It is likely that low-
severity deviance will be more underreported because it is both more concealable and deemed
less detrimental. Hence, the differential impact of severity may be a conservative reporting.
Finally, we drew from affective events theory to argue that various forms of deviance
have differing effects on performance and to identify negative affect as a key mediator.
However, we are consistent with the majority of research that relies on a static measure of affect
rather than at each occurrence of deviance, which could assess the dynamic interplay with group
outcomes over time. We follow Barsade and Knight (2015) in both recognizing this approach as
a limitation and also encouraging future researchers to explore the dynamic effects of affect.
4.4 Conclusion
We sought to reconsider the impact of deviance within teams. In doing so, we suggested
a new categorization for the targets of team deviance as either team-relevant or team-irrelevant.
We found that team-irrelevant deviance is less likely to be perceived as a negative work event,
and thus did not increase team negative affect or harm team performance regardless of the
severity and frequency of the events. However, team-relevant deviance that is less severe is most
likely to be recognized as a negative work event, thus increasing team negative affect and
damaging team performance. Moreover, this impact is increased when the acts are frequent.
Thus, we offer a cautionary tale for the often-overlooked low-severity deviance that may slowly
boil frogs and destroy workplace teams.
BOILING FROGS 34
References
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ambrose, M. L., Seabright, M. A., & Schminke, M. (2002). Sabotage in the workplace: The role
of organizational justice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 89,
947-965.
Anderson, H. J., Baur, J. E., Griffith, J. A., & Buckley, M. R. (2017). What works for you may
not work for (Gen) me: Limitations to present leadership theories for the new generation.
The Leadership Quarterly, 28, 245-260.
Andersson, L. M., & Pearson, C. M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the
workplace. Academy of Management Review, 24, 452-471.
Aquino, K., Lewis, M. U., & Bradfield, M. (1999). Justice constructs, negative affectivity, and
employee deviance: A proposed model and empirical test. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 20, 1073-1091.
Ashton-James, C. E., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2005). What lies beneath? A process analysis of
affective events theory. In N. M. Ashkanasy, W. J. Zerbe, & C. E. J. Hartel (Eds.),
Research on emotions in organizations (Vol. 1, pp. 23-46). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ball, G. A., Trevino, L. K., & Sims, H. P. (1994). Just and unjust punishment: Influences on
subordinate performance and citizenship. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 299-322.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Barsade, S. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group
behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644-675.
Barsade, S. G., & Knight, A. P. (2015). Group affect. Annual Review of Organizational
Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2, 21-46.
Barsade, S. G., & Gibson, D. E. (2012). Group affect: Its influence on individual and group
outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 119-123.
Basch, J., & Fisher, C. D. (2000). Affective events-emotions matrix: A classification of work
events and associated emotions. In N. Ashkanasy, C. Hartel, & W. Zerbe (Eds.), Emotions
in the workplace: Research, theory, and practice (pp. 36-48). Westport, CT: Quorum.
Baur, J. E., Bivens, C. D., Sharma, P. N. & Buckley, M. R. (in press). From good citizens to bad
politicians: Managing the power dynamics of organizational citizenship. Accepted for
publication within a special issue at Organizational Dynamics. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.orgdyn.2021.100836
BOILING FROGS 35
Baur, J. E. & Buckley, M. R. (2016). A ripe apple in a rotten barrel: An interactionist
examination of pro-social rule breaking. Paper presented at the Southern Management
Association Meeting, Charlotte, NC.
Baur, J. E., Ellen III, B. P., Buckley, M. R., Ferris, G. R., Allison, T. H., McKenny, A. F., &
Short, J. C. (2016). More than one way to articulate a vision: A configurations approach to
leader charismatic rhetoric and influence. The Leadership Quarterly, 27, 156-171.
Baur, J. E., Haynie, J. J., Buckley, M. R., Palar, J. M., Novicevic, M. M., & Humphreys, J. H.
(2018). When things go from bad to worse: The impact of relative contextual extremity on
Benjamin Montgomery’s positive leadership and psychological capital. Journal of
Leadership and Organizational Studies, 25, 323-338.
Bennett, R. J., & Robinson, S. L. (2000). Development of a measure of workplace
deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 349-360.
Berry, C. M., Carpenter, N. C., & Barratt, C. L. (2012). Do other-reports of counterproductive
work behavior provide an incremental contribution over self-reports? A meta-analytic
comparison. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 613-636.
Berry, C. M., Ones D. S., & Sackett, P. R. (2007). Interpersonal deviance, organizational
deviance, and their common correlates: A review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 92, 410-424.
Bing, M. N., Stewart, S. M., Davison, H. K., Green, P. D., McIntyre, M. D., & James, L. R.
(2007). An integrative typology of personality assessment for aggression: Implications for
predicting counterproductive workplace behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 722-
744.
Bordia, P., Restubog, S. L. D., & Tang, R. L. (2008). When employees strike back: Investigating
mediating mechanisms between psychological contract breach and workplace deviance.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1104-1117.
Bradley, B. H., Anderson, H., Baur, J. E., & Klotz, A. C. (2015). When conflict helps:
Integrating evidence for beneficial conflict in groups and teams under three perspectives.
Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 19, 243-272.
Bradley, B. H., Baur, J. E., Banford, C. G., & Postlethwaite, B. E. (2013). Team players and
collective performance: How agreeableness impacts team performance over time. Small
Group Research, 44, 680-711.
Bradley, B. H., Klotz, A. C., Postlethwaite, B. E., & Brown, K. G. (2013). Ready to rumble:
How team personality composition and task conflict interact to improve performance.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 385-392.
BOILING FROGS 36
Christian, M. S., & Ellis, A. P. (2011). Examining the effects of sleep deprivation on workplace
deviance: A self-regulatory perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 913- 934.
Cole, M. S., Walter, F., & Bruch, H. (2008). Affective mechanisms linking dysfunctional
behavior to performance in work teams: A moderated mediation study. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 93, 945-958.
Cortina, L. M., Magley, V. J., Williams, J. H., & Langhout, R. D. (2001). Incivility in the
workplace: Incidence and impact. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6, 64-80.
Cropanzano, R., Dasborough, M. T., & Weiss, H. M. (2017). Affective events and the
development of leader-member exchange. Academy of Management Review, 42, 233-258.
Davis, J. R., & Rothstein, H. (2006). The effects of the perceived behavioral integrity of
managers on employee attitudes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 67, 407-419.
De Dreu, C. K., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance,
and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 741-
749.
De Dreu, C., West, M., Fischer, A. H., & MacCurtain, S. (2001). Origins and consequences of
emotions in organizational teams. In R. Payne & C. Cooper (Eds.), Emotions at work (pp.
199-217). London, UK: Wiley.
Diener, E., Sandvik, E., & Pavot, W., (2009). Happiness is the frequency, not the intensity, of
positive versus negative affect. In Fritz Strack, Michael Argyle, & Norbert Schwartz (Ed.),
Subjective well-being: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 119-140). Pergamon Press.
Dineen, B., Noe, R., Shaw, J., Duffy, M. K., & Wiethoff, C. (2007). Level and dispersion of
satisfaction in teams: Using foci and social context to explain the satisfaction-absenteeism
relationship. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 623-643.
Douglas, S. C., & Martinko, M. J. (2001). Exploring the role of individual differences in the
prediction of workplace aggression. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 547-559.
Elfenbien, H. A. (2007). Emotion in organizations: A review in stages. Academy of Management
Annals, 1, 315-386.
Felps, W., Mitchell, T. R., & Byington, E. (2006). How, when, and why bad apples spoil the
barrel: Negative group members and dysfunctional groups. In B. M. Staw (Ed.), Research
in organizational behavior (Vol. 27, pp. 175-222). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ferguson, M., & Barry, B. (2011). I know what you did: The effects of interpersonal deviance on
bystanders. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 80-94.
BOILING FROGS 37
Ferris, D. L., Spence, J. R., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2012). Interpersonal injustice and
workplace deviance: The role of esteem threat. Journal of Management, 38, 1788-1811.
Fischer, A. H., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2008). Social functions of emotion. In M. Lewis, J.
Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 456-468). New
York, NY: Guilford Press.
Fitness, J. (2001). Betrayal, rejection, revenge and forgiveness: An interpersonal script approach.
In M. Leary (Ed.), Interpersonal rejection (pp. 73-103). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
George, J. M. (1990). Personality, affect, and behavior in groups. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 75, 107-116.
Gersick, C. J. (1991). Revolutionary change theories: A multilevel exploration of the punctuated
equilibrium paradigm. Academy of Management Review, 16, 10-36.
Ghosh, R., Dierkes, S., & Falletta, S. (2011). Incivility spiral in mentoring relationships:
Reconceptualizing negative mentoring as deviant workplace behavior. Advances in
Developing Human Resources, 13, 22-39.
Gino, F., & Bazerman, M. H. (2009). When misconduct goes unnoticed: The acceptability of
gradual erosion in others’ unethical behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
45, 708-719.
Glome, T. M., & Liao, H. (2003). Interpersonal aggression in work groups: Social influence,
reciprocal, and individual effects. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 486-496.
Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of
pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 561-568.
Griffith, J. A., Baur, J. E., & Buckley, M. R. (2019). Creating comprehensive leadership
pipelines: Applying the real options approach to organizational leadership development.
Human Resource Management Review, 29, 305-315.
Haynie, J. J., Baur, J. E., Harris, J. N., Harris, S. G., & Moates, K. N. (2019). When caring
leaders are constrained: The impact of LMX differentiation on empathetic leaders in
predicting discretionary work behaviors. Journal of Leadership and Organizational
Studies, 26, 5-17.
Henle, C. A., Giacalone, R. A., & Jurkiewicz, C. L. (2005). The role of ethical ideology in
workplace deviance. Journal of Business Ethics, 56, 219-230.
Hollinger, R. C., & Clark, J. P. (1982). Formal and informal social controls of employee
deviance. The Sociological Quarterly, 23, 333-343.
BOILING FROGS 38
Hsieh, H.-H., & Wang, Y.-D. (2016). Linking perceived ethical climate to organizational
deviance: The cognitive, affective, and attitudinal mechanisms. Journal of Business
Research, 69, 3600-3608.
Ilies, R., Wagner, D. T., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Explaining affective linkages in teams:
Individual differences in susceptibility to contagion and individualism-collectivism.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1140-1148.
Karelaia, N., & Keck, S. (2013). When deviant leaders are punished more than non-leaders: The
role of deviance severity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 783-796.
Kelly, J. R., & Barsade, S. G. (2001). Mood and emotions in small groups and work teams.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86, 99-130.
Kluemper, D. H., McLarty, B. D., & Bing, M. N. (2015). Acquaintance ratings of the Big Five
personality traits: Incremental validity beyond and interactive effects with self-reports in
the prediction of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 237-248.
Knight, A. P., & Eisenkraft, N. (2015). Positive is usually good, negative is not always bad: The
effects of group affect on social integration and task performance. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 100, 1214-1227.
Liao, H., Joshi, A., & Chuang, A. (2004). Sticking out like a sore thumb: Employee dissimilarity
and deviance at work. Personnel Psychology, 57, 969-1000.
Lim, S., Cortina, L. M., & Magley, V. J. (2008). Personal and workgroup incivility: Impact on
work and health outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 95-107.
Litzky, B. E., Eddleston, K. A., & Kidder, D. L. (2006). The good, the bad, and the misguided:
How managers inadvertently encourage deviant behaviors. Academy of Management
Perspectives, 20, 91-103.
Mackey, J. D., Frieder, R. E., Perrewe, P. L., Gallagher, V. C., & Brymer, R. A. (2015).
Empowered employees as social deviants: The role of abusive supervision. Journal of
Business and Psychology, 30, 149-162.
MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., & Williams, J. (2004). Confidence limits for the indirect
effect: Distribution of the product and resampling methods. Multivariate Behavioral
Research 39, 99-128.
Marcus, B., Taylor, O. A., Hastings, S. E., Sturm, A., & Weigelt, O. (2016). The structure of
counterproductive work behavior. Journal of Management, 42, 203-233.
Markova, G., & Folger, R. (2012). Every cloud has a silver lining: Positive effects of deviant
coworkers. Journal of Social Psychology, 152, 586-612.
BOILING FROGS 39
Martin, A. W., Lopez, S. H., Roscigno, V. J., & Hodson, R. (2013). Against the rules:
Synthesizing types and processes of bureaucratic rule-breaking. Academy of Management
Review, 38, 550-574.
Mayer, D. M., Thau, S., Workman, K. M., Van Dijke, M., & De Cremer, D. (2011). Leader
mistreatment, employee hostility, and deviant behaviors: Integrating self-uncertainty and
thwarted needs perspectives on deviance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 117, 24-40.
Michalak, R. T., Kiffin-Petersen, S. A., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2019). “I feel mad to I be bad”:
The role of affect, dissatisfaction and stress in determining responses to interpersonal
deviance. British Journal of Management, 30, 645-667.
Michel, J. S., Newness, K., & Duniewicz, K. (2016). How abusive supervision affects workplace
deviance: A moderated-mediation examination of aggressiveness and work-related
negative affect. Journal of Business and Psychology, 31, 1-22.
Morrison, E. W. (2006). Doing the job well: An investigation of pro-social rule breaking.
Journal of Management, 32, 5-28.
Motro, D., Spoelma, T. M., & Ellis, A. P. J. (2021). Incivility and creativity in teams: Examining
the role of perpetrator gender. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106, 560-581.
Mulki, J. P., Jaramillo, F., & Locander, W. B. (2006). Emotional exhaustion and organizational
deviance: Can the right job and a leader’s style make a difference? Journal of Business
Research, 59, 1222-1230.
Oh, I. Wang, G., & Mount, M. K. (2011). Validity of observer ratings of the Five-Factor model
of personality traits: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 762-773.
Phillips, T., & Smith, P. (2004). Emotional and behavioral responses to everyday incivility:
Challenging the fear/avoidance paradigm. Journal of Sociology, 40, 378-399.
Pinto, J. K. (2014). Project management, governance, and the normalization of deviance.
International Journal of Project Management, 32, 376-387.
Porath, C. L., & Erez, A. (2009). Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces
onlookers’ performance on routine and creative tasks. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 109, 29-44.
Reynolds, C. A., Shoss, M. K., & Jundt, D. K. (2015). In the eye of the beholder: A multi-
stakeholder perspective of organizational citizenship and counterproductive work
behaviors. Human Resource Management Review, 25, 80-93.
Riskin, A., Bamberger, P., & Erez, A. (in press). An insult to one is an injury to all: Discrete
incivility events’ impact on team processes and outcomes. In M. R. Buckley, A. Wheeler, J.
BOILING FROGS 40
E. Baur, and J Halbesleben (Eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resource
Management. Emerald Publishing Limited
Riskin, A., Erez, A., Foulk, T. A., Kugelman, A., Gover, A., Shoris, I., Riskin, K. S., &
Bamberger, P. A. (2015). The impact of rudeness on medical team performance: A
randomized trial. Pediatrics, 136, 487-495.
Robinson, S. L., & Bennett, R. J. (1995). A typology of deviant workplace behavior: A
multidimensional scaling study. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 555-572.
Robinson, S. L., & O’Leary-Kelly, A. M. (1998). Monkey see, monkey do: The influence of
work groups on the antisocial behavior of employees. Academy of Management Journal,
41, 658-672.
Robinson, S. L., Wang, W., & Kiewitz, C. (2014). The impact of coworker deviant behavior
upon individual employees. Annual Review or Organizational Psychology and
Organizational Behavior, 1, 123-143.
Sackett, P. R., Berry, C. M., Wiemann, S. A., & Laczo, R. M. (2006). Citizenship and
counterproductive work behavior: Clarifying relations between the two domains. Human
Performance, 19, 441-464.
Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1978). A social information processing approach to job attitudes
and task design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 224-253.
Schabram, K., Robinson, S. L., & Cruz, K. S. (2018). Honor among thieves: The interaction of
team and member deviance on trust in the team. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103, 1057-
1066.
Schilpzand, P., & Huang, L. (2018). When and how experienced incivility dissuades proactive
performance: An integration of sociometer and self-identity orientation perspectives.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 103, 828-841.
.
Sherif, M. (1958). Superordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict. The American
Journal of Sociology, 63, 349-356.
Sieh, E. W. (1987). Garment workers: Perceptions of inequity and employee theft. British
Journal of Criminology, 27, 174-190.
Singh, S. K. (2019). Territoriality, task performance, and workplace deviance: Empirical
evidence on role of knowledge hiding. Journal of Business Research, 97, 10-19.
Stewart, S. M., Bing, M. N., Davison, H. K., Woehr, D. J., & McIntyre, M. D. (2009). In the
eyes of the beholder: A non-self-report measure of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 94, 207-215.
BOILING FROGS 41
Tepper, B. J., Henle, C. A., Lambert, L. S., Giacalone, R. A., & Duffy, M. K. (2008). Abusive
supervision and subordinates’ organizational deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93,
721-732.
Thompson, E. R. (2007). Development and validation of an internationally reliable short-form of
the positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS). Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology,
38, 227-242.
Van de Ven, A. H., & Ferry, D. L. (1980). Measuring and assessing organizations. New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Vardi, Y., & Wiener, Y. (1996). Misbehavior in organizations: A motivational framework.
Organizational Science, 7, 151-165.
Vaughan, D. (1996). The Challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture, and deviance at
NASA. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Warren, D. E. (2003). Constructive and destructive deviance in organizations. Academy of
Management Review, 28, 622-632.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures
of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the
structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in
Organizational Behavior, 18, 1-74.
Wheeler, H. N. (1976). Punishment theory and industrial discipline. Industrial Relations: A
Journal of Economy and Society, 15, 235-243.
Yoo, J., Flaherty, K., & Frankwick, G. L. (2014). The effect of communication practice on
deviance among Korean salespeople: The mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Journal of
Business Research, 67, 1991-1999.
BOILING FROGS 42
Table 1
The target and severity of team deviance
Deviant Act Target Severity
Endangering self Team-relevant -1.80
Hiding in back room to read newspaper Team-relevant -1.75
Gossiping about coworker Team-relevant -1.45
Gossiping about manager Team-relevant -1.40
Talking with coworker instead of working Team-relevant -1.30
Working unnecessary overtime Team-irrelevant -1.25
Taking excessive breaks Team-relevant -1.20
Competing in non-beneficial way Team-relevant -1.10
Acting foolish in front of customer Team-irrelevant -1.10
Coming in late or leaving early Team-relevant -0.75
Calling in sick when not Team-relevant -0.70
Blaming coworker for mistakes Team-relevant -0.65
Intentionally working slow Team-relevant -0.40
Wasting company resources Team-irrelevant -0.35
Leaving job in progress Team-relevant -0.25
Starting negative rumors about company Team-irrelevant -0.20
Making personal calls or mailings Team-relevant -0.15
Going against boss's decision Team-irrelevant 0.00
Misusing discount privilege Team-irrelevant 0.20
Covering up mistakes Team-relevant 0.30
Lying about hours worked Team-irrelevant 0.50
Overcharging for services for own profit Team-irrelevant 0.60
Accepting kickbacks Team-irrelevant 0.75
Endangering coworkers by reckless behavior Team-relevant 0.92
Intentionally making errors Team-relevant 0.92
Misusing expense account Team-irrelevant 1.00
Sabotaging merchandise Team-irrelevant 1.10
BOILING FROGS 43
Sexually harassing coworker Team-relevant 1.20
Stealing company equipment and merchandise Team-irrelevant 1.25
Stealing customer's possessions Team-irrelevant 1.35
Stealing coworkers possessions Team-relevant 1.43
Stealing money from cash drawer Team-irrelevant 1.43
Verbally abusing customer Team-irrelevant 1.45
Physically abusing customer Team-irrelevant 1.45
Sabotaging equipment Team-irrelevant 1.70
BOILING FROGS 44
Table 2
Descriptive statistics and correlations for team-relevant and team-irrelevant deviance
Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Team-relevant Deviance Severity -.63 .45
2. Team-irrelevant Deviance
Severity .36 .58 -.04
3. Deviance Frequency 9.77 3.06 -.04 -.13
4. Team Size 3.82 0.79 -.07 .12 -.01
5. Team Average Tenure 2.11 1.18 .04 .00 -.10 -.09
6. Team Negative Affect 3.39 1.06 -.25** -.08 .27** .07 -.03
7. Team Performance 3.66 1.05 .30** .11 -.38** -.01 .04 -.39*
*
(N = 114)
* p < .05, ** p < .01
BOILING FROGS 45
Table 3
Results of regression analyses from data split for team-relevant and team-irrelevant
deviance
Model 1: Model 2: Model 3: Model 4:
Severity on
Team
Performance
Interaction on Team
Performance
Interaction on
Team Negative
Affect
Full Model on
Team Performance
Constant 3.65**/3.66** 3.67**/3.66** 3.39**/3.40** 3.67**/3.66**
Covariates
Team Size -.01/-.02 .02/-.03 .05/.05 .03/-.01
Average Team Tenure .02/.05 .02/.01 .00/.01 .02/.01
Main Effects
Deviance Severity .31**/.12 .36**/.07 -.29**/-.03 .29*/.06
Deviance Frequency -.33**/-.39** .23*/.28** -.28**/-.30**
Moderation effect on Team Performance .26**/.01 .22*/.06
-1 SD Deviance Severity CI [-.09, 33]/NS CI [-.11, .30]/NS
Mean Deviance Severity CI [.20, .56]/NS CI [.13, .50]/NS
+1 Deviance Severity CI [.35, .93]/NS CI [.24, .83]/NS
Moderation effect on Team Negative Affect -.20*/.17 -.19*/.16
-1 SD Deviance Severity CI [-.33, .11]/NS CI [-.05, .08]/NS
Mean Deviance Severity CI [-.48, -.11]/NS CI [.01, .13]/NS
+1 Deviance Severity CI [-.77, -.18]/NS CI [.03, .20]/NS
Mediator: Team Negative Affect -.23*/-.35**
R² .09**/.02 .27**/.15 .16*/.10 .31**/.25**
* p < .05, ** p < .01
b = unstandardized regression coefficient. CI = confidence interval. NS = nonsignificant moderation effect.
Team-relevant deviance is reported before the slash and team-irrelevant deviance after.
Bootstrap sample size = 5,000. 95% Confidence interval. Confidence intervals are provided for significant moderation effects.
We report full results including nonsignificant covariates. The direction and significance of the focal relationships do not change
when covariates are removed.
BOILING FROGS 46
Low Severity High Severity
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Low
Frequen
cy
Team Performance
Figure 1. The effect of frequency on the deviance severity and team performance relationship in
team-relevant deviance
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS 47
Low Severity High Severity
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Low
Frequ
ency
Team Negative Affect
Figure 2. The effect of frequency on the deviance severity and team negative affect relationship
in team-relevant deviance
