Individual and Organizational-Level Consequences of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors - Literature review Example

INDIVIDUAL- AND ORGANIZATIONAL-LEVEL CONSEQUENCES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS: A META-ANALYSIS by Organizational citizenship behaviors have become important in the current organizational set up for various reasons, such as the increase in employee performance effectiveness and organizational success. Podsakoff et.al (2009) acknowledges that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are firmly attached to issues of organizational behavior and industrial organizational behaviors (Podsakoff et.al 2009:122). This term was coined in the early 1980s and has attracted wide attention since then. In his discussion of OCBs, Podaskoff uses two definitions (original and revised) used by Organ (1988). The first definition of OCB is “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization” (Organ, 1988: 4). The second definition refers to OCB as “performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which task performance takes place” (Organ, 1997:95). From the two definitions, it is clear that OCB has two key issues that are individual behaviors and the effect that these behaviors have in organizational performance. Different researchers and authors have concentrated on the importance of OCBs to organizations, their dimensions and application. This essay provides a definition of OCBs and analyzes its application and effects on individuals and organizations through the positions of different authors, such as Podsakoff et.al (2009), Organ (1988, 1990), Williams and Andersons (1991) and Bergeron (2007). From the definitions developed by Organ and further used by Podsakoff (2009) in his discussions of OCBs, it can be noted that the concept of OCBs relies on the individual and the and the organization as two aspects that go together. Therefore, organizational citizenship behaviors can be defined as behaviors displayed by individuals within an organization that supports high performance and organizational effectiveness. OCBs have certain effects on the organization because individuals working in organizations must possess certain characteristics and qualifications that fit the organizational needs. however, the behaviors that individuals show when working in the organization determines whether the organization can achieve high performance and success or not because character and qualifications are not enough when applied in isolation without considering behavior in terms of things such as work attitude. Williams and Andersons (1991) conceptual scheme captures all seven dimensions of OCBs as outlined by Organ (1988, 1990). There are different ways in which OCBs have been conceptualized over the years. However, Organ (1988) came up with five ways of conceptualizing OCBs that included altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, sportsmanship and virtue. However, Organ (1990) later came up with two more ways of conceptualizing OCBs including peacekeeping and cheerleading. Organ defines sportsmanship as employee willingness to work in less than ideal circumstances at their work place without demanding more, but only when these circumstances cannot be easily solved. He defined virtue as actively participating in the life of the organization where they work. He also defined conscientiousness as acceptance and adherence to rules, laws and regulations formulated for use in the workplace. He defined altruism as lack of interest in the life of the organization and courtesy as applying some form of respect to organizational processes and personnel. Sportsmanship according to organ (1988) refers to the ability of employees to rally together in achieving high performance in the organization. With respect to peacekeeping, Organ (1990) defines it as maintenance of truce between employees and the organization. Lastly, he defined cheerleading as showing support for high performance within the organization and celebrating success (Williams and Anderson, 1991: Organ, 1988, 1990). Williams and Andersons (1991) conceptualize OCBs into categories that emphasizes on the target and direction of the behavior. As such, they came up with two categories of OCBs. First, they came up with organizational citizenship behaviors for Individuals (OCBIs) that refer to behaviors that are directed towards suiting other people. They also came up with the second category, organizational citizenship behaviors for organizations (OCBOs) that are meant for befitting the organization. the OCBI emphasizes on interpersonal issues of citizenship behaviors while OCBO emphasizes on the impersonal behaviors. Williams and Andersons (1991) conceptual scheme captures all seven dimensions of OCBs as outlined by Organ (1988, 1990) in the sense that OCBI addresses some of Organ’s conceptualizations, which are altruism, peacekeeping, cheerleading and courtesy because these are interpersonal issues of OCBs. These focus on helping dimension of the OCBs. It is important to point out that managers in organizations often face a difficulty in making distinctions between these dimensions identified by Organ, Williams and Anderson because they come from within a person. It is difficult for the management of an organization to understand these concepts because an individual might decide to display a certain behavior but with a hidden agenda. Therefore, Williams and Andersons (1991) OCBI category captures the interpersonal aspects of the Organ’s (1988, 1990) dimension of OCBs. Because these dimensions are applied in helping individuals, then they can be easily put in the OCBI category because it also focuses on individuals. Williams and Andersons (1991) OCBI category captures the remaining dimensions of Organ’s (1988, 1990) dimensions as those that emphasize on impersonal citizenship behaviors including conscientiousness, civic virtue and sportsmanship. These are dimensions that are outside individuals and can be clearly understood by managers in organizations. The management in organizations experience little difficulty in distinguishing these dimensions because they can be differentiated in terms of application in the workplace. Therefore, Williams and Andersons (1991) captures these dimensions by putting them in the same category that can be quickly understood in terms of their general differences to the dimensions put under OCBI. Organ’s dimensions put under OCBO because they are aspects that focus on promoting the image and performance of the organization. therefore, capturing them under the OCBO category clearly shows the direction that the dimensions of the OCB focus rather than just including all the seven of them in the same category while they serve different entities that can be grouped in to two as done by Williams and Andersons (1991). Podsakoff, et.al (2009) and other authors including Organ, Williams and Anderson predict OCBs will effect performance evaluations and reward allocation decisions because of several reasons. First OCBs emphasize on aspects that work towards improving people and their output to organizations, for instance as seen in Organ’s (1988, 1990) seven dimensions of OCBs and Williams and Andersons (1991) two categories (OCBI and OCBO) of OCBs. This means that OCBs improve the individual characteristics and behaviors shown by employees and the effects that these behaviors have at the workplace. OCBS improve individuals’ behaviors such that they can fit into the organization objectives in the places where they work. OCBs also emphasize on behaviors that help improve organizational performance or output and the general image seen in the dimensions and categories developed by the above authors. These dimensions and categories define certain qualities that must be seen in the behaviors of organizations that ultimately help them build strong positive images through high performance (Organ, 1988, 1990: Williams and Anderson, 1991: Podsakoff, et.al 2009:124). In terms of reward allocation mechanisms, OCBs will affect them because from the dimensions and categories developed and used by Organ, Williamson, Anderson and Podsakoff, the management in different organizations can analyze certain behaviors of individuals in the workplace. from the analysis, the management can know those who are performing highly and contributing to organizational success and also those who are underperforming or dragging other employees down. Therefore, organizations can plan reward allocation mechanisms that reward the individuals who perform highly and also encourage those who underperform. Using OCBs help managers by easing their managerial jobs because it enables them to deal with organizational and individual matters differently. In addition, managers provide high performance evaluations and organizational rewards that fit individual’s performance at the organization. Therefore, OCBs will affect reward allocation mechanisms positively because it ensures that only the deserving individuals by specifically looking at how they contribute to high performance and success of the organization (Organ, 1988, 1990: Williams and Anderson, 1991: Podsakoff, et.al 2009:124) In terms of employees output, OCBs will provide behavioral cues that point to employees’ commitment and hard work towards the success of the organization that the organizational management can put in their assessment of employee output and use the assessment to improve performance. This will ultimately contribute to high performances in organizations in terms of helping individuals perform better and also help the organization to build environments that support high performance and hard work from the employees. In addition, the use of OCBs among managers helps them improve their performance because they must act as examples for the employees to emulate. When managers perform highly, they understand the conditions under which the employees should work to also perform highly. In other words, OCBs helps managers to create environments and conditions that support and fulfill employees’ needs and help them to be the best that they can be in terms of their work output. OCBs also help managers improve their reward allocation decisions. To support employees, the reward allocation systems and those who reward employees for their hard work must ensure that the rewards go to the people who deserve them. therefore, OCBs help managers to give rewards only to employees who deserve them and avoid issues of corruption, favoritism or discrimination. It helps the managers to have objectivity when dealing with employees including their work output and issues of rewarding them. the key argument of Podsakoff et.al is that employees who have high levels of OCBs should have higher performance evaluations and more rewards because they perform highly compared to those who have low OCB levels. Therefore, it is highly likely that OCBs will effect performance evaluations and reward allocation decisions (Organ, 1988, 1990: Williams and Anderson, 1991: Podsakoff, et.al 2009:124). The findings of Podsakoff and other authors support findings support those reported by Bergeron (2007) in one sense but also in differ in other aspects. The authors assert that the relationship between OCBs, individual work output and task performance are always positive. Bergeron (2007 agrees with them because OCBs ultimately help in organizational performance outcomes. However, Bergeron (2007) differs by stating that organizations that are outcome-based will lose time on OCB and this means that the time spent on OCB is a waste to task performance output. In addition, Bergeron (2007) asserts that there must be a bargain to OCBs. This means that OCBs directed towards the organization or individuals may not always work especially when the exchanges does not attract interests especially those that go beyond the explicit interests. This differs with the views of Podsakoff et.al on the importance of OCBs on organizational performance and reward allocation decisions (Bergeron, 2007:1085-90). Bergeron (2007) also differs with Podsakoff and the rest by stating that in terms of the OCBs that are directed to individuals, individual persons may differ in terms of how their OCB is visible to the managers and organization and whether the OCBs influences their career outcomes (Bergeron, 2007:1079). Despite the fact that the authors agree that OCBs are generally visible to managers in organizations, how the managers view this OCBs and how they implement their decisions, for instance reward decisions based on the OCBs. Therefore, Bergeron (2007) acknowledges that when the assessments of OCBs by managers are skewed, they are likely to create failures in organizations because of misrepresentation. Therefore, the main point of contention between Bergeron and other authors is that while other authors put much emphasis on OCBs’ effect on organizational performance, Bergeron argues that OCBs are not necessarily aspects that clearly measure organizational performance and that the fact that an employee’s OCB is not notices or is wrongly read does not mean that they cannot perform (Bergeron, 2007:1087). In conclusion, organizational citizenship behaviors have become important in the current organizational set up for various reasons. Podsakoff (2009) acknowledges that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are firmly attached to issues of organizational behavior and industrial organizational behaviors. OCBs emphasize on social exchange as an important aspect for employees in forming workplace relationships that enable them perform their roles effectively and contribute to organizational success. The definition of OCBs used in this paper is the behaviors displayed by individuals within an organization that supports high performance and organizational effectiveness. Podsakoff et.al (2009), Organ (1988, 1990), Williams and Andersons (1991) and Bergeron (2007) have contributed to the understanding of the OCBs as currently applied in organization. The current studies on OCBs give an insight into future research. First, the OCB categories in terms of interpersonally-focused an organizational focus is not clearly understood especially in theoretical sense. Therefore, future research should focus on developing theory that can adequately explain these categories. In addition, future research should focus on improving the understanding of the consequences of unit-level OCBs in terms of the types that have the greatest effect in accounting for high level performance outcomes. Future research on OCBs should also focus on other group or unit level outcomes that could be worth for exploration and the mediating mechanisms that can make the use of OCBs better in organizations. Reference List Bergeron, D M 2007, The potential paradox of organizational citizenship behavior: Good citizens at what cost? Academy of Management Review, 32, 1078–1095. Organ, D W 1988, Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Organ, D W 1990, The motivational basis of organizational citizenship behavior. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 12, pp. 43–72). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Organ, D W 1997, Organizational citizenships behavior: It’s construct cleanup time. Human Performance, 10, 85–97. Podsakoff, N P, Whiting, S W, Podsakoff, P M, & Blume, B D 2009, Individual-and organizational-level consequences of organizational citizenship behaviors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(1), 122-141. Williams, L J & Anderson, S E 1991, Job satisfaction and organizational commitment as predictors of organizational citizenship and in-role behaviors. Journal of Management, 17, 601–617. Read More