This study distinguishes competition-specific job insecurity from general job insecurity and discusses its impact on interpersonal counterproductive behaviors based on relative deprivation theory. Utilizing three-wave data collected from 217 employees in China, results showed that competition-specific job insecurity was positively related with relative deprivation. Distributive justice moderated this relationship. Findings also showed that relative deprivation was positively related with knowledge-hiding and credit-taking. Distributive justice moderated the indirect effects of competition-specific job insecurity on knowledge-hiding and credit-taking, mediated through relative deprivation. Implications of these findings are discussed.
