How Organizational Citizenship Behavior Impacts the Efficiency of the UAE Ministry of Interior - Essay Example

Employment in the government commands the highest level of social responsibility and moral conduct in addressing the needs of the citizenry. This is because government service is essentially public service, which implies a subordination of personal interest and even comfort to the greater interest of the nation and its citizens. Nowhere is there a more fitting application of this construct than in the Ministry of Interior, where the imperative to apply force to ensure law and order is tempered by the need to observe organizational citizenship behavior in the implementation of its police and security function.

1.1 Definition of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
It had been observed in modern organizational settings that employees within a structured group are expected to abide by written rules and job descriptions, but beyond that, to also spontaneously act in ways that extend beyond the delineated role expectations in a way that benefits the organization (Hsiung, 2008, p. 1). Alternatively, it goes by the term “extra-role behaviors” which essentially stresses that the type of behavior referred to goes outside the terms of the employment contract. The employee undertakes to carry out non-obligatory tasks, without any promise or expectation of some explicit reward or recognition (Organ, 1988, cited in Yaghoubi, 2011).

Organizational citizenship behavior is defined by Yaghoubi, Mashinchi & Hadi (2011) as “voluntary and spontaneous behaviors that extend beyond employees’ normal job duties” (p. 119); in short, they are actions that manifest an employee’s willingness to perform above and beyond their obligatory role requirements. 

1.2 Development of OCB Theory
In early 1960, Katz distinguished between two types of desired behaviors he describe the first as “In Role Behavior”, where employees regularly execute required tasks and duties, by a set of standers, directives commands, and work regulations and within the required performance standards.