Supervisor Trust and Counterproductive Work Behaviour of Oil Firms in Port Harcourt - Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between supervisor trust and counterproductive work behaviour of oil firms in Port Harcourt. Trust has been known to play a vital role in organizations but lack of supervisor integrity has led subordinates into engaging themselves in counterproductive work behaviours. Counterproductive work behaviour has increased a great cost to both the organisation and the employees. A cross sectional survey consisting 278 employees drawn from three oil firms in Port Harcourt. Data used in this study were obtained from the primary and secondary sources. Spearman’s rank order coefficient correlation was used for analysis with the aid of SPSS version 21.0. The findings revealed that there is a positive link between the dimension of supervisor trust and the measures of counterproductive work behaviour. Another finding revealed that corporate culture has a strong moderating effect on the relationship between supervisor trust and counterproductive work behaviour. Hence, supervisor trust has a positive impact on counterproductive work behaviour and that corporate culture has a strong moderating factor to influence the relationship between supervisor trust and counterproductive work behaviour. Management of oil firms should practice and encourage their supervisors/ managers to have integrity in order to reduce their rate of personal aggression behaviour (verbal abuse, sexual abuse, etc). This has a way of boosting the image of the company. Recommendations were given one of which is that corporate culture should be highly encouraged in the oil firms in Port Harcourt. Keynote: Supervisor Trust, Counterproductive Work Behaviour, Supervisor Integrity, property deviance, Personal Aggression, corporate culture