Organizational Citizenship Behavior - Case Study Example

Organizational Citizenship Behavior – Bring Boon to the Workplace For centuries in colleges oruniversities and employees through training and workshops have been taught various theories and ways to improve either the worker’s satisfaction or loyalty to the organization, but most of the courses were related to money or other financial factor. However, for few decades, business theories have changed their route and are now more concerned with intrinsic value and satisfaction of an employee and why not, reducing cost and increasing profit is what most entrepreneurs want. This leads to the research topic, which is Organizational Citizenship Behavior. OCB has been studied from late 1970s, but over the three decades interest in this study has notably increased. OCB is described as an individual behavior that is not prompted by financial rewards and in total promotes the effective functioning of the organization. There are basically three main aspect of OCB and those are 1) it is an hidden behavior that is not required by the job and is done out of individual’s personal choice 2) OCB is going above and beyond the requirements of job description 3) lastly, it contributes positively towards overall performance of the firm. Hence, Organizational Citizenship Behavior should be endorsed in a workplace, if a company desires harmonious, committed, loyal and effective workforce. Moving towards the benefits and perks of installing such behavior is that it helps to build social capital in a workplace. Social Capital refers to the collective value of social network (who people know) and the tendency that emerge from these networking to do things for each other. It helps to contribute to the development of relational, structural and cognitive forms of social capital (Bolino, Mark, Turnley, and Bloodgood, 2002). As the technologies and time is changing, firms are more moving towards creating a family and homely environment, therefore arise in work groups can be seen. These advantages of OCB are not only spoken or imagined, but practiced out in a paper mill located in Northeastern United State. 218 employees working in 40 machine crews were checked to examine the effects of OCB on the quantity and quality of the work groups and the result indicated that assisting behavior and sportsmanship had crucial effects on performance quantity and that helping behavior had a remarkable impact on the performance quality (Podsakoff, Philip M., Ahearne, and MacKenzie, 1997). Similarly, many others case studies are present which designates that the salient, proximal context in which OCB is implanted  the work group’s "citizenship climate," signalized by capacity and size of group trust, fairness, cooperative norms, freedom, and considered opportunities for activities outside core job requirements – influences individual OCB rated by workmate and managers. The fundamental assumption of this form of behavior is that an individual or a worker goes out of his/her way to help or assist another worker or even their supervisor and this is because they perceive the organization to be just, fair, rewarding and to go out of their way to accommodate the employees. When this cycle of perceiving and then helping others start, automatically the efficiency of the organization also starts climbing, which in result increase the productivity of the firm (Podsakoff, Philip, and MacKenzie, 1997). Endorsing Organizational Citizenship Behavior in an organization means that first the employers or owners accept this change and implement it in their workplace. For example, if a manager seems to stuck in some complication or is unable to solve a problem, then his boss should come forward to provide his/her help, regardless of their position or job description and by doing this they are showing their employees that they are active participant in OCB, therefore they should also intake this act and place them in their lives or working environment. For instance, if a new employee has joined the organization, then his coworker should not hesitate or hold back any aid they can to ease their difficulty. Hence, when this chain of events starts any little or even bigger problematic situations can be smoothen out. Jill W. Graham in his article advocates a more comprehensive study of job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. OCB is posed as the organizational parallel of citizen responsibilities, of which there are three categories: obedience, loyalty, and political participation. The other two key citizenship concepts, relational ties and citizen rights, are pictured, and a set of research propositions is offered linking the citizenship concepts to one another (Graham, 1991). He further explain his article by saying that OCB is not to be done out of commitment and loyalty towards organization, but as the word ‘citizen’ implies that workers are citizens of the organization. It’s them who make up the firm and hence, apart from the employer (who, if seen from other direction is himself an employee), it is their responsibility too to look after the workplace. To sum up his point of view he presume that employee should act like a law abiding and caring citizens and help each other in travelling towards achieving their goals, which in whole means urging the organization towards success, even though the firm may lack in some areas of providing employees necessities or want. Although research on organizational justice has prominently increased, little work has zoomed in on the relationship between the justice and extra role behavior in an organization. People tend to assume that when the firm is just and fair to the employee, they perceive it to be a supporting and fair company, but the truth is that this situation can be reversed too (Moorman, 1991). The implication of this statement is that one must not only see an organization in relation with the employers because it is employees who mostly make up the workplace, as mentioned before. So if employees practices OCB and skip hurdles together as a family, then organization also changes its tactics and try to be more rewarding for the employees who are trying to improve its productivity and efficiency by going out of their way and accommodating others. Numerous researches and studies have shown that trust among employer – employee relation play a very vital role in making and success of an organization (Dirks, Kurt, and Ferrin, 2001). One of the ways to build and carry trust can be organizational citizenship behavior. It is a very common nature of a human being, be it an ordinary person or an executive officer of a famous company, but when a person present him/herself forward to offer their help in a difficult situation which you are facing, a trust is formed from that moment onwards among those two people. Similarly, when in organization if a person goes out of their way to help another coworker, then the other person reciprocate the same act when you are in a complicated situation and is in dire need of a help. Hence, a relationship of trust is formed, which further help those people to surge forward successfully in their career or field. Likewise, trust is one of the main sources which makes an individual have positive attitude, perception, behavior and performance outcome within an organization. In the light of the above context and justification from different scholars and writers, it is crystal clear that having OCB in an organization is highly effective, helpful and a blessing factor. It helps create trust, improve performance, turn sour attitude into a caring one and reduce power distance within a workplace. By judging contemporary business world, it can be vocalized that such behavior should be endorsed within firms either through teaching or workshops if a company wants to emerge successfully in a market. Works Cited Podsakoff, Philip M., and Scott B. MacKenzie. "Impact of organizational citizenship behavior on organizational performance: A review and suggestion for future research." Human performance 10.2 (1997). Graham, Jill W. "An essay on organizational citizenship behavior." Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 4.4 (1991). Bolino, Mark C., William H. Turnley, and James M. Bloodgood. "Citizenship behavior and the creation of social capital in organizations." Academy of management review 27.4 (2002). Moorman, Robert H. "Relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors: do fairness perceptions influence employee citizenship?" Journal of applied psychology 76.6 (1991). Podsakoff, Philip M., Michael Ahearne, and Scott B. MacKenzie. "Organizational citizenship behavior and the quantity and quality of work group performance." Journal of applied psychology 82.2 (1997). Dirks, Kurt T., and Donald L. Ferrin. "The role of trust in organizational settings." Organization science 12.4 (2001). Read More