Citizenship in Context: Investigating the Effects of Work Group Climate on Organizational Citizenship Perceptions and Behavior.

Abstract

Employees engage in countless "acts of citizenship" that benefit their organizations but may not be included in formal job descriptions. Yet, with few exceptions, scholarship on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has largely overlooked the context in which this behavior occurs, assuming that OCB takes the same form across work contexts and is primarily influenced by individual-level factors, such as job attitudes. This dissertation offers a new lens through which to view OCB that brings the richness of the social context into focus. Drawing on role theory, I argue that perceptions of and engagement in OCB should be influenced by the context in which behavior occurs, and I test this theory through a multi-method study in a high-tech organization. Findings broadly confirm hypotheses. Specifically, in Study 1, qualitative data from 12 focus groups show that perceptions of OCB differ across micro work contexts, and that existing instruments used to operationalize and measure OCB may be outdated in many modern work environments. In Study 2, I explore the multilevel relationships between context and OCB quantitatively using 543 employees from 118 work groups. Results indicate that the salient, proximal context in which OCB is embedded – the work group’s "citizenship climate," characterized by dimensions of group trust, fairness, cooperative norms, autonomy, and perceived opportunities for activities outside core job requirements – influences individual OCB rated by peers and managers; however, this effect is complex. Higher group mean levels of some climate dimensions were positively associated with OCB, but greater dispersion of perceptions within the group about such dimensions was also associated with more OCB in some cases. Together, results suggest that multiple mechanisms, ranging from communal exchange schemas to role uncertainty to the perceived risk of engaging in OCB, may underlie relations between context and individual OCB. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the rich body of research on OCB by identifying ways in which the social context influences the nature of and engagement in OCB. As such, it has implications for future research on citizenship behavior and for practitioners seeking to cultivate the appropriate type and level of OCB in their work groups.