On-the-Job Behaviors scale

Abstract

The On-the-Job Behaviors (OJB) Scale is a psychometric instrument developed by organizational psychologists Wayne E. K. Lehman and D. Dwayne Simpson (1992) at the Institute of Behavioral Research, Texas Christian University. Designed to capture a broad taxonomy of workplace behavioral manifestations, the instrument assesses both productive contributions and counterproductive or disengaged employee actions. The scale comprises 22 self-report items structured into four distinct dimensions: Positive Work Behaviors (5 items), Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors (8 items), Physical Withdrawal Behaviors (4 items), and Antagonistic Work Behaviors (5 items). Respondents rate the frequency of each behavior over a 12-month recall period using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“Never”) to 7 (“Very often”). Psychometric evaluations demonstrate acceptable to high internal consistency across subscales, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .68 to .70 for Positive Work Behaviors, .62 to .84 for Psychological Withdrawal, .58 for Physical Withdrawal, and .60 to .62 for Antagonistic Behaviors (Cropanzano et al., 1997; Lehman & Simpson, 1992). Criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity have been substantiated across multiple organizational field studies. Notably, positive behaviors correlate robustly with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement, whereas psychological and physical withdrawal and antagonistic actions correlate with perceived organizational politics, emotional exhaustion, general fatigue, substance use, and turnover intentions. This comprehensive profile makes the OJB scale an essential empirical tool in occupational health psychology, human resource management, and organizational behavior research.

Keywords

On-the-Job Behaviors, OJB Scale, Counterproductive Work Behavior, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Psychological Withdrawal, Physical Withdrawal, Antagonistic Behavior, Employee Deviance, Psychometrics, Job Performance

Authors

The On-the-Job Behaviors Scale was originated by Wayne E. K. Lehman, Ph.D., and D. Dwayne Simpson, Ph.D.

• Wayne E. K. Lehman, Ph.D.: Senior Research Scientist at the Institute of Behavioral Research (IBR), Texas Christian University (TCU), Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Lehman’s scholarship focuses on workplace epidemiology, employee substance abuse, safety climate, health promotion programs, and counterproductive work behaviors.
• D. Dwayne Simpson, Ph.D.: Director and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the Institute of Behavioral Research, Texas Christian University. Dr. Simpson is an internationally recognized authority on behavioral assessment, addiction treatment evaluation, organizational climate, and intervention implementation science.

Subsequent psychometric refinement and construct validation studies were conducted by prominent organizational scholars, including Russell Cropanzano (University of Colorado Boulder / University of Arizona), Deborah E. Rupp, and colleagues, examining the scale within the context of organizational justice, workplace politics, and employee strain.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the On-the-Job Behaviors Scale is to provide researchers and organizational practitioners with a nuanced, multidimensional inventory of employee conduct that extends beyond narrow definitions of formal task performance. Traditional performance appraisal metrics often emphasize core job duties while neglecting discretionary behaviors that substantially influence organizational functioning, workplace climate, and occupational safety. Lehman and Simpson (1992) developed the instrument to examine how non-work individual factors—specifically substance use, health status, and external stressors—translate into behavioral disruptions or compensatory productivity within operational work environments.

From an applied perspective, the OJB scale serves critical diagnostic and evaluative functions in occupational settings:

• Evaluating Deviance and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: It provides granular insight into minor and moderate forms of organizational deviance, such as extended rest breaks, unauthorized departures, cyberloafing, and interpersonal friction, which often precede severe misconduct or voluntary turnover.
• Assessing Discretionary Proactivity: The scale measures extra-role behaviors, such as volunteering for overtime and initiating structural improvements, providing a balanced perspective that acknowledges prosocial organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).
• Monitoring Occupational Health and Well-Being: Withdrawal behaviors frequently act as coping mechanisms for job strain, burnout, and toxic leadership. The scale enables researchers to track psychological and physical disengagement as early warning indicators of psychological distress.
• Intervention Efficacy Assessment: Human resource departments and organizational development consultants utilize the OJB scale to evaluate the efficacy of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), supervisory training initiatives, and work-redesign interventions aimed at reducing workplace antagonism and withdrawal.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the OJB scale is rooted in the multidimensional nature of job performance, which encompasses task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Lehman and Simpson (1992) conceptualized on-the-job behaviors across four interrelated yet structurally distinct behavioral domains:

1. Positive Work Behaviors

Positive work behaviors reflect discretionary actions that exceed formal contractual obligations to enhance organizational effectiveness. These behaviors align closely with the concepts of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and personal initiative. Employees exhibiting these behaviors engage in proactive problem-solving, task dedication, and constructive voice behaviors. Examples include executing tasks beyond mandatory quotas, working voluntary overtime, and actively negotiating with organizational leadership to optimize workflows and physical working conditions.

2. Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors

Psychological withdrawal represents cognitive and mental detachment from the work role while maintaining physical presence at the worksite (often termed presenteeism or cognitive neglect). In this state, an employee disengages attentional resources from organizational objectives. Behavioral indicators include chronic daydreaming, engaging in excessive non-work conversations with colleagues, managing personal affairs during operating hours, and experiencing pervasive cognitions of turnover or absenteeism. Rather than leaving the physical workstation, the individual retreats into non-productive internal or social distractions, representing an energy-conservation or avoidance response to work-related stress.

3. Physical Withdrawal Behaviors

Physical withdrawal behaviors encompass overt acts whereby the employee reduces their actual working time and physical availability to the organization without authorization. Unlike psychological detachment, physical withdrawal manifests in tangible absenteeism and schedule manipulation. Dimensions captured by the OJB scale include leaving the facility early, prolonging designated meal or rest periods, unauthorized appropriation of organizational materials, and sleeping during shift hours. These behaviors incur direct financial costs for employers through lost productivity, safety compliance failures, and operational bottlenecks.

4. Antagonistic Work Behaviors

Antagonistic work behaviors refer to active, interpersonally or organizationally targeted conflict actions. These actions violate social norms of workplace civility and cooperation. Within the OJB framework, antagonism manifests as interpersonal conflict (e.g., arguing with coworkers, spreading malicious gossip or rumors) and active resistance to authority (e.g., disobeying supervisory directives, filing retaliatory formal grievances, or weaponizing reporting procedures against peers). Antagonistic behaviors degrade the psychosocial safety climate, generate interpersonal strain, and corrode workplace trust.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the OJB scale is situated within the convergence of several foundational paradigms in industrial and organizational psychology:

The Withdrawal Progression Hypothesis

The scale draws heavily from the withdrawal taxonomy pioneered by Charles Hulin and Kathy A. Hanisch (Hanisch & Hulin, 1990, 1991). Under the withdrawal family model, employees respond to unfavorable work conditions or declining job satisfaction through an adaptive family of behaviors. Withdrawal acts are categorized into psychological withdrawal (mild, low-cost disengagement) and job withdrawal / physical withdrawal (higher-cost, definitive exits). Hanisch and Hulin posited that unaddressed psychological detachment progressively leads to overt physical withdrawal (tardiness, absenteeism) and ultimately culminates in voluntary resignation.

Social Exchange Theory and Psychological Contracts

Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964) provides an explanatory mechanism for the coexistence of positive and antagonistic behaviors. Employment relationships are governed by reciprocal expectations. When organizations provide fair treatment, social support, and competitive rewards, employees reciprocate with high levels of positive work behaviors. Conversely, when employees perceive organizational injustice, contract breaches, or manipulative organizational politics, the norm of reciprocity induces negative behaviors: employees withdraw discretionary effort, withhold cognitive focus, or engage in active antagonism to balance perceived inequities.

Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory

According to Stevan Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory (1989), individuals strive to obtain, retain, and protect their physical, cognitive, and emotional resources. When faced with heavy work demands, job tension, or personal stressors (such as substance dependency or domestic distress), individuals experience resource depletion. In response, psychological and physical withdrawal acts serve as protective strategies to prevent further resource exhaustion. If resource depletion progresses without recovery, strain manifests as affective frustration and reactive antagonism.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the On-the-Job Behaviors Scale has been substantiated through extensive empirical investigations examining criterion, construct, convergent, and discriminant validity across diverse occupational cohorts, including municipal workers, transportation personnel, manufacturing employees, and healthcare professionals.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

In their seminal validation study, Lehman and Simpson (1992) surveyed 2,449 municipal employees to examine the behavioral sequelae of employee substance use. The OJB scale demonstrated robust criterion-related validity: illicit drug and alcohol use (both outside work and on-the-job) exhibited statistically significant positive relationships with psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and antagonistic work behaviors. Employees with documented substance abuse profiles reported markedly higher rates of sleeping on the job, taking unauthorized breaks, and arguing with supervisors compared to non-using controls.

Convergent and Nomological Validity

A rigorous examination of the scale’s nomological network conducted by Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey, and Toth (1997) evaluated the OJB scale against established organizational behavior constructs:

• Positive Work Behaviors: Demonstrated robust positive correlations with job satisfaction ($r = .35$), affective organizational commitment ($r = .38$), and job involvement ($r = .42$). Interestingly, positive work behaviors were also weakly to moderately linked with job tension ($r = .18$) and general fatigue ($r = .17$), confirming that proactive overtime and task expansion can incur physiological strain.
• Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors: Correlated positively with perceptions of organizational politics ($r = .38$), turnover intentions ($r = .44$), general fatigue ($r = .40$), and burnout ($r = .36$). Conversely, psychological withdrawal correlated negatively with perceived organizational support ($r = -.34$), job satisfaction ($r = -.36$), and affective commitment ($r = -.31$).
• Antagonistic Work Behaviors: Exhibited substantial positive associations with psychological withdrawal ($r = .52$), organizational politics ($r = .31$), job tension ($r = .29$), general fatigue ($r = .27$), and emotional exhaustion/burnout ($r = .33$).
• Physical Withdrawal Behaviors: Linked reliably to actual administrative records of absenteeism, late arrivals, and formal disciplinary proceedings, validating self-reported physical withdrawal against objective workplace criteria.

Discriminant Validity

Factor-analytic studies confirm that while the three negative dimensions (psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and antagonism) share common variance associated with general deviance, they do not collapse into a single unifactorial construct. Confirmatory factor models indicate that four-factor structures provide a superior fit relative to one-factor, two-factor (positive vs. negative), or three-factor models, demonstrating that cognitive disengagement (psychological withdrawal) is psychometrically distinguishable from physical absence and interpersonal hostility.

Reliability

The OJB scale demonstrates psychometric reliability across independent organizational samples. The subscales exhibit internal consistency estimates reflecting the inherent conceptual breadth of behavioral frequency checklists.

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

Reported reliability statistics across primary validation studies include:

• Positive Work Behaviors (5 items): Cronbach’s $\alpha$ ranges between .68 and .70 (Cropanzano et al., 1997; Lehman & Simpson, 1992). For a 5-item index measuring varied prosocial actions (ranging from working overtime to negotiating structural changes), this reflects satisfactory internal consistency.
• Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors (8 items): Demonstrates the highest reliability among the subscales, with Cronbach’s $\alpha$ spanning from .62 to .84 depending on sample demographics and occupational risk levels.
• Physical Withdrawal Behaviors (4 items): Cronbach’s $\alpha$ is reported at approximately .58 (Cropanzano et al., 1997). The lower coefficient is characteristic of physical withdrawal behaviors (e.g., sleeping at work vs. taking supplies without permission), which function as low-base-rate, index-like behaviors that do not necessarily co-occur simultaneously but collectively represent physical avoidance.
• Antagonistic Work Behaviors (5 items): Yields Cronbach’s $\alpha$ coefficients ranging from .60 to .62. Similar to physical withdrawal, these items capture distinct conflict and rule-breaking vectors (e.g., peer arguing vs. formal grievance filing).

Measurement Error and Temporal Stability

Because the instrument employs a 12-month behavioral recall timeframe, test-retest reliability reflects behavioral stability rather than transient affective states. In longitudinal organizational cohorts, subscale scores exhibit stable test-retest correlations over 6- to 12-month intervals ($r_{tt}$ ranging from .50 to .68), demonstrating that these behavioral tendencies function as moderately stable behavioral patterns influenced by ongoing job characteristics and personal dispositions.

Factor Analysis

The underlying dimensionality of the OJB scale was originally evaluated by Lehman and Simpson (1992) using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal components extraction and orthogonal (varimax) rotation. The resulting factor structure identified four primary dimensions explaining meaningful variance in on-the-job behaviors.

Exploratory Factor Structure

The EFA yielded the following distinct component loadings:

• Factor 1: Psychological Withdrawal: Items such as daydreaming, chatting about nonwork topics, spending work time on personal matters, and thinking of leaving loaded cleanly onto this dimension, with primary factor loadings exceeding .50 and minimal cross-loadings onto physical withdrawal.
• Factor 2: Positive Work Behaviors: Items reflecting extra effort, overtime volunteering, and proactive job improvement loaded on a distinct positive factor (loadings ranging from .55 to .78), establishing clear orthogonality from the counterproductive factors.
• Factor 3: Antagonistic Behaviors: Conflictual items, including arguing with peers, insubordination, and filing formal grievances, formed a separate hostile-interaction component.
• Factor 4: Physical Withdrawal: Items assessing unauthorized departure, extended break duration, and sleeping on-site clustered to form a distinct physical absence factor.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent psychometric testing by Cropanzano et al. (1997) subjected the 22 items to structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to compare alternative structural representations. The hypothesized four-factor model demonstrated acceptable fit to the data, outperforming rival single-factor (global deviance) and two-factor (prosocial vs. antisocial) specifications:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Reached values between .90 and .93 in structural replications.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Maintained values between .05 and .07, indicative of reasonable to close model fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Demonstrated values below .08 across non-clinical workplace samples.

Inter-factor correlations in structural models reveal that Psychological Withdrawal and Antagonistic Behaviors correlate positively ($r \approx .45 – .52$), while Positive Work Behaviors show low to near-zero correlations with Physical Withdrawal ($r \approx -.12$), confirming that the subscales capture distinct behavioral domains rather than polar opposites on a single continuum.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The On-the-Job Behaviors Scale is an occupational self-report inventory. The specifications of the measurement tool are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: On-the-Job Behaviors Scale (OJB)
• Authors: Wayne E. K. Lehman & D. Dwayne Simpson (1992)
• Assessment Type: Behavioral frequency checklist / multidimensional self-report inventory
• Target Population: Adult employees, organizational personnel, and workforce samples across blue-collar, white-collar, and service occupations
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, web-based survey, or computerized workforce assessment
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 8 minutes
• Item Count: 22 items
• Dimensional Structure:
  • Positive Work Behaviors: 5 items
  • Psychological Withdrawal Behaviors: 8 items
  • Physical Withdrawal Behaviors: 4 items
  • Antagonistic Work Behaviors: 5 items
• Prompt / Timeframe: “In the past twelve months, how often have you…”
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type frequency scale:
  • 1 = Never
  • 2 = Rarely (or Once or twice)
  • 3 = Seldom
  • 4 = Occasionally
  • 5 = Fairly often
  • 6 = Often
  • 7 = Very often
• Scoring Protocol: Subscale scores are calculated by computing the mean or sum of the items corresponding to each of the four dimensions. High scores on Positive Work Behaviors reflect high contextual performance and citizenship, whereas high scores on Psychological Withdrawal, Physical Withdrawal, and Antagonistic Behaviors indicate elevated workplace deviance and disengagement. It is standard psychometric practice to treat each subscale as a distinct index rather than computing an aggregate total score.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The On-the-Job Behaviors Scale was published in 1992 in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The copyright for the original publication and item wording is held by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Permissions and Usage Guidelines:

• Academic and Non-Commercial Research: Under standard fair-use academic conventions, researchers may reproduce and administer the scale items for scholarly, educational, and non-commercial research projects, provided proper citation is given to Lehman and Simpson (1992) and the American Psychological Association.
• Commercial and Organizational Application: Commercial use, inclusion in proprietary diagnostic software, corporate consulting products, or published organizational test batteries requires formal licensing and permission from the APA Rights and Permissions office.
• Fee: Free for academic empirical research; commercial application may be subject to APA copyright licensing fees.

References

• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Cropanzano, R., Howes, J. C., Grandey, A. A., & Toth, P. (1997). The relationship of organizational politics and support to work behaviors, attitudes, and stress. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18(2), 159–180. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199703)18:2<159::AID-JOB795>3.0.CO;2-D
• Hanisch, K. A., & Hulin, C. L. (1990). Job attitudes and organizational withdrawals: An examination of retirement and other voluntary withdrawal behaviors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 37(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(90)90007-O
• Hanisch, K. A., & Hulin, C. L. (1991). General attitudes and organizational withdrawal: An evaluation of a causal model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 39(1), 110–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(91)90006-8
• Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
• Lehman, W. E. K., & Simpson, D. D. (1992). Employee substance use and on-the-job behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(3), 309–321. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.77.3.309
• Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington Books.
• Spector, P. E., & Fox, S. (2005). The Stressor-Emotion Model of Counterproductive Work Behavior. In P. E. Spector & S. Fox (Eds.), Counterproductive work behavior: Investigations of actors and targets (pp. 151–174). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10893-007

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)