RESEARCH REPORTS Predicting Workplace Aggression: A Meta-Analysis M. Sandy Hershcovis, Nick Turner, and Julian Barling Queen’s University Kara A. Arnold and Kathryne E. Dupre ´ Memorial University of Newfoundland Michelle Inness and Manon Mireille LeBlanc Queen’s University Niro Sivanathan Northwestern University The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 57 empirical studies (59 samples) concerning enacted workplace aggression to answer 3 research questions. First, what are the individual and situational predictors of interpersonal and organizational aggression? Second, within interpersonal aggression, are there different predictors of supervisor- and coworker-targeted aggression? Third, what are the relative contributions of individual (i.e., trait anger, negative affectivity, and biological sex) and situational (i.e., injustice, job dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflict, situational constraints, and poor leadership) factors in explaining interpersonal and organizational aggression? Results show that both individual and situational factors predict aggression and that the pattern of predictors is target specific. Implications for future research are discussed. Keywords: workplace aggression, meta-analysis, well-being, workplace deviance, counterproductive work behaviors Whether referred to as deviance, antisocial behavior, or retali- ation, workplace aggression is a significant issue facing organiza- tions. Empirical research has focused on its prediction and conse- quences, and theoretical reviews have attempted to integrate the diverse literatures on workplace aggression (e.g., Martinko, Gund- lach, & Douglas, 2002; Spector & Fox, 2005). For instance, Martinko et al. (2002) drew on a causal reasoning framework to develop a model of workplace aggression, which proposes that both individual and situational differences predict either self- destructive or retaliatory aggression, depending on the cognitive processing of the aggressor. More recently, Spector and Fox (2005) identified common items from different measures of ag- gression, demonstrating that despite different labels (e.g., aggres- sion, deviance, retaliation), the actual measurement of these con- structs may be the same. Taken together, such efforts at integrating the workplace aggression literature are an important first step in making sense of these phenomena; however, important empirical and methodological questions remain. Two issues concerning conceptual differences among forms of workplace aggression and their predictors have emerged in the literature. The first issue concerns the conceptualization of work- place aggression, and in particular whether aggression is target specific. We define target specificity as the propensity to aggress against either the organization itself (e.g., damaging equipment at work) or a person within the organization (e.g., yelling at someone at work), depending on the context of the situation. The second issue focuses on the relative contribution of individual and situa- tional variables in predicting these forms of workplace aggression. These two issues highlight the different terms used to describe workplace aggression, different conceptualizations and operation- alizations of workplace aggression, and diverse predictors, all of which result in empirical findings that are difficult to interpret. M. Sandy Hershcovis, Nick Turner, Julian Barling, Michelle Inness, and Manon Mireille LeBlanc, Queen’s School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Kara A. Arnold and Kathryne E. Dupre ´, Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfound- land, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada; Niro Sivanathan, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Nick Turner is now at the I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Michelle Inness is now at the School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Manon Mireille LeBlanc is now at the Williams School of Business and Economics, Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada. Authors are listed in alphabetical order after Julian Barling. A version of this article was presented in August 2004 at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, New Orleans, Louisiana. We acknowledge financial support from the Social Sciences and Human- ities Research Council of Canada. We express our appreciation to Carrie Lavis, Leilei Li, Joel Neuman, Paul Spector, Chris Street, Sean Tucker, Jane Webster, and Lyle Wetsch for their technical assistance with this project. We thank Ann Frances Cameron and Jana Raver for their detailed feedback on earlier versions of this article. Finally, we thank Paul Eder for his graciousness and for providing us with additional studies for our analysis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to M. Sandy Hershcovis, who is now at the Department of Business, I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V4, Canada. E-mail: hershcov@cc.umanitoba.ca Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association 2007, Vol. 92, No. 1, 228 –238 0021-9010/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.92.1.228 228